Speaker

Julie Myers Wood has more than 25 years of experience in the public and private sector working on regulatory and enforcement issues from many perspectives, including as defense counsel, consultant, government investigator, federal prosecutor, and compliance consultant.  Ms. Wood is currently the Chief Executive Officer at Guidepost Solutions, a leading investigations, compliance and security firm with offices throughout the United States, as well as England, Colombia and Singapore. 

At Guidepost, Ms. Wood focuses on regulatory compliance and investigative work. Ms. Wood regularly serves as an Independent Monitor/Consultant appointed by the U.S. government. Most recently, she served as the Third-Party auditor for a global security firm and was responsible for evaluating the firm’s compliance with EAR and OFAC for the Department of Commerce. Ms. Wood also served as the Department of Justice-appointed Independent Consultant for a global energy services firm relating to OFAC issues and the company’s compliance culture.  Additional monitoring assignments included serving as Independent Consultant relating to a global bank’s AML, OFAC, and KYC remediation, and as Monitoring Trustee responsible for evaluating divestiture of various business units for a global security firm.

Ms. Wood also regularly assists companies in a proactive matter, assisting with culture and process changes across a wide range of organizations and industries. She has conducted trade compliance reviews for several consulting/technology companies with a worldwide footprint, assisting with classification, recordkeeping, technology, denied party screening and monitoring of activities. 

Before joining Guidepost, Ms. Wood started a consulting and software firm, ICS Consulting.  ICS Consulting built software products to assist the private sector in meeting regulatory requirements for immigration and trade compliance.  ICS Consulting also provided specialized immigration and customs consulting services.  Guidepost Solutions acquired ICS Consulting in 2010.

Prior to joining the private sector, Ms. Wood held several high-level positions with the U.S. government including at the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Treasury, and Commerce, as well as at the White House. She has significant experience with compliance culture, internal controls and anti-fraud measures across a wide range of industries. In one of her most significant government roles, Ms. Wood served as Head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the Department of Homeland Security, the largest investigative component and the second largest investigative agency in the federal government. ICE prosecutes violations of trade compliance and customs laws, among other laws and regulations. While at ICE, Ms. Wood led the creation of Trade Transparency Units focused on combatting trade-based money laundering, including under and over-invoicing.

Ms. Wood also served as the Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement at the Department of Commerce, where she oversaw all Export Enforcement Special Agents enforcing criminal and civil violations of export enforcement laws, including violations involving telecommunications companies and encryption issues. In this role, she also assisted in policy development relating to enhancements to the EAR and export control reform and supervised the Office of Enforcement Analysis. Ms. Wood also served as the Chief of Staff for the Criminal Division and a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Treasury where she had policy supervision relating to customs enforcement matters.  Ms. Wood also prosecuted cases as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, including customs fraud and money laundering. 

Ms. Wood began her legal career at the law firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt in Chicago, Illinois.  She is a graduate of Baylor University and Cornell Law School.