(Photo: Gerd Fahrenhorst via Wikimedia Commons)

Oilfield services company Baker Hughes has found its new chief compliance officer in longtime Dow Chemical in-house counsel Kara Gordon.

Gordon joined the Houston-based GE subsidiary Friday as CCO and associate general counsel. She reports to Baker Hughes's chief legal officer Will Marsh and is accountable to the board of director's audit committee.

“BH has the Cadillac of compliance programs in place, developed and finely honed under the guidance of [former CCO] Jay Martin, whose retirement prompted my hiring,” Gordon said in a written message. “My role will be continuing to enhance that program and to find new ways to communicate important goals around company values to the organization.”

Kara Gordon of Baker Hughes. (Courtesy photo)

Gordon said she was drawn to Baker Hughes as an “iconic” company in an oil and gas industry she finds “fascinating.” In her new role, Gordon will use skills she developed at Dow, where she spent 19 years. For 14 of those years she led the company's labor and employment legal group, which gave her “the ability to efficiently analyze matters as they arise, the instincts to quickly get to the solution and the confidence to facilitate an action plan.”

Most recently, Gordon held the chief ethics and compliance officer and assistant general counsel role at Dow.

According to her LinkedIn profile, her first in-house counsel position was at special materials company Rohm and Haas, where she spent nine years and served as assistant general counsel and director of global employment and benefits law. She began her legal career as an attorney-adviser with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia after graduating from Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law.

“We are pleased to have Kara Gordon join BHGE as chief compliance officer, leading all global compliance strategy and activity,” a Baker Hughes spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “She joins as long-time compliance officer Jay Martin retires later this month.”

Martin served as Baker Hughes' CCO spent 15 years with the company, according to his LinkedIn profile.