About Daniel Garen, JD, LLM — Pivot Point Compliance Management

Biography

A different kind of
compliance advisor.

Daniel Garen founded Pivot Point Compliance Management on a conviction that has guided his entire career: that compliance, done well, is a business accelerator — not a cost center, not a checkbox exercise, and not a function that exists to slow the organization down. The organizations that get this right move faster, reduce remediation costs, and enter M&A processes with programs that hold up to scrutiny.

His practice is built at the intersection of three disciplines that are rarely integrated effectively in most organizations: law, data governance, and enterprise risk management. The result is a body of work — and a set of practical frameworks — that help compliance leaders build programs that hold up under scrutiny, communicate clearly to boards and audit committees, and position the organization to move with confidence.

Before founding Pivot Point, Daniel served as Executive Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer for Vivint Smart Home (Blackstone), Vice President and Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer for Danaher Corporation, and Chief Compliance Officer for Wright Medical (Warburg Pincus) and Siemens Healthcare. Earlier in his career he held roles at the American Red Cross, Mintz Levin, and Benesch, and conducted research at the University of Michigan. He also served as Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Siemens, with responsibility across oncology, neurology, and molecular diagnostics — a background that informs a distinctly evidence-based approach to compliance program design.

Across 25+ years of practice, Daniel has resolved ten government enforcement matters — spanning FDA, DOJ, OIG-HHS, FTC, and SEC — with a 100% resolution rate. That record includes successfully guiding organizations through Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) and Corporate Integrity Agreements (CIAs), and navigating the full arc from investigation to resolution. He was named Runner-Up, Innovative Lawyer of the Year by the Financial Times in 2020, and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

He holds a JD and an LLM, and writes regularly on the practical challenges facing compliance leaders today — with a focus on frameworks that are actionable, defensible, and built to last. Connect on LinkedIn.

JD LLM U.S. Supreme Court Bar FT Innovative Lawyer 2020 DPA / CIA Navigation Enterprise Risk Management Data Governance CCO Advisory Board & Audit Committee Advisory Regulatory Response Life Sciences & MedTech Financial Services

Philosophy

The Pivot Point conviction.

Compliance is a strategic function.

The organizations that manage compliance most effectively are not the ones with the longest risk registers or the most elaborate governance structures. They are the ones that have built a systematic, data-driven process for distinguishing between the risks that require immediate executive action and the risks that can be managed at the operational level.

Frameworks must be defensible.

Every framework we build is designed to be defensible under scrutiny — in a board meeting, in a regulatory examination, or in litigation. That means documented rationale, consistent methodology, and a clear audit trail of who knew what, when they knew it, and what they were asked to do about it.

Data is the foundation.

Most compliance failures are, at their core, data failures — fragmented systems, inconsistent records, and the inability to produce a coherent picture of the organization's risk posture when it matters most. Data governance is not a technology problem. It is a compliance problem, and it requires a compliance solution.

Simplicity is a discipline.

The best compliance programs are not the most complex ones. They are the ones that have been disciplined enough to focus on what matters — to resist the organizational pressure to treat every risk as equally urgent, and to build the clarity that allows a compliance function to operate at its highest level. Simplicity is not a shortcut. It is the result of rigorous thinking about what actually matters.

Daniel Garen,JD, LLM

A different kind ofcompliance advisor.