If you recruiting a Compliance officer, what criteria are you looking for in the person?

Professional conditions:

university degree, experiance

Personality traits:

Integrity,independence,communication skills

Yes, you have to be diplomatic and powerful but need to keep the power in check to avoid being labelled as despotic or worse resulted in non-compliance of a particular compliant requirement.

First, the criteria should come from the jobdescription itself. 

Secondly, since you are talking about compliance specifically, there would be additional merits needed in the person who is in charge of this function,  This person needs to be powerful and diplomatic at the same time. He/she needs to take firm stand against what he/she observes as wrong practice, and at the same time does not become like a "police" or a "dictator" or simply "pain in the neck" for the workers !

If the compliance officer you are recruiting holdsthis responsibility, then you should also check that