Melanie Sponholz

Melanie Sponholz, MSPT, CCEP, CHC, CHPC, is the Chief Compliance Officer and Director of Responsible Investing for Waud Capital Partners, Portfolio Operations. Waud is a leading middle market private equity firm with $4 billion AUM and an investment focus on healthcare and business and technology services. For more than 15 years, Ms. Sponholz has been a healthcare executive, with roles spanning operations, quality assurance, compliance, and responsible investing. She has focused primarily on compliance and ethics, building many compliance programs from scratch in diverse business and healthcare settings, and guiding compliance efforts for organizations involved in mergers and acquisitions. Most recently, during her seven years at Waud Capital, Ms. Sponholz has served as a strategic resource to the firm?s investment team and healthcare portfolio companies to support the mission of creating and maintaining a strong culture of ethics and compliance at Waud-affiliated entities. Ms Sponholz?s experience includes: 

• Building best-in-class compliance and ethics programs that mitigate risk and foster value creation for the organization ? Conducting compliance risk assessments 
• Conducting compliance and ethics program effectiveness reviews 
• Steering compliance M & A due diligence and planning ? Navigating post-acquisition integrations across compliance, coding, billing, privacy, and security. 
• Developing reporting systems, investigations procedures, and investigations oversight, and reporting to the board compliance and ethics committee 
• Creating compliance education and leading the development and execution of training and communications plans 
• Mentoring and providing professional development opportunities to developing compliance professionals 
• Drafting and revising codes of conduct, conflict of interest procedures, committee charters, and other policies and procedures
• Implementing Responsible Investing programs to add/preserve value across an organization's lifecycle. Previously, Ms. Sponholz served as Chief Compliance Officer for several private and publicly held healthcare organizations. She is a frequent speaker on healthcare compliance and ESG and an active member of the Health Care Compliance Association, Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics, and Health Care Finance Management Association. Ms. Sponholz strives to support the compliance profession by mentoring and creating networking and development opportunities for her team and others in the field. Ms. Sponholz is an adjunct faculty member at Fordham University School of Law. Ms. Sponholz holds a B.A.(magna cum laude) from Drew University and an M.S.(with Honors) from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, as well as numerous credentials from the Compliance Certification Board.