As part of our occasional series of conversations with those influential in the corporate governance world, we caught up with Sean McKessy, who served as the first-ever chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower. McKessy departed the agency in July to join the law firm Phillips & Cohen as partner in its Washington, D.C., office.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...