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Episode 6: Showing the Business Value of Trade Compliance to Finance

Leaders Speak

Dan Strick
Speaker

Dan Strick

Director, Global Trade Compliance - Extreme Networks

Dan Strick is a global trade compliance leader and Licensed Customs Broker with extensive experience across both public and private sectors. He currently serves as Director of Global Trade Compliance at Extreme Networks, leading international import, export, and denied-party screening activities. His background includes leadership roles in customs compliance, corporate compliance, and trade operations across technology, aerospace, and automotive industries. A Lean Six Sigma Green Belt with a Master of Science in Management and a Juris Doctor, Dan focuses on building effective compliance programs that deliver measurable business value.

TL;DR

Dan Strick, Director of Global Trade Compliance at Extreme Networks, started as a CBP import specialist in 2012 after applying for 150 jobs. He explains how he works with finance to put a dollar figure on compliance, keeps a remote team connected to engineering and sales, decides when to assign a final classification, and avoids what he calls the seven-year compliance cycle. He also covers vendor reviews, team development and a recent government audit his team passed.

5 Key Findings

  1. Monetize the work with finance

    Dan's team tracks savings each month and quarter with the finance department and shares the credit. He drops examples into conversations with senior leaders, such as a shipment that cleared three days sooner because a certificate was ready.

  2. Stay visible when everyone works remotely

    Extreme Networks is almost fully remote. Dan asks his team to hold at least a monthly call with any group they email more than five times a week, and he joins product planning meetings mainly to listen.

  3. Classify late, license early

    Export licensing and restricted party questions need answers at the start of product development. The official classification waits until the design is almost final, so engineers are not asked to update it five times.

  4. Beware the seven-year compliance cycle

    Dan's observation: an audit finds problems, the company invests, a good team keeps things quiet, management cuts resources, and the next audit lands after the capability is gone. Quiet years are a result, not a reason to cut.

  5. Auditors look for procedures being followed

    In a recent government audit, what stood out was that the team checks its own procedures on a regular basis. Showing that the reason each shipment is compliant is also sound carries more weight than the shipments alone.

Advice to the Professional

Dan Strick From Dan Strick

Automate routine shipment handling so people stop touching every transaction, and move work out of spreadsheets into the ERP. Each manual step adds risk. The time saved can go to large audits and process improvement. Outsource low-value tasks, such as invoice editing, rather than specialist judgment.

Ask vendors for useful numbers in quarterly reviews: clearance times, exceptions and how they will prevent repeats. Meet your team weekly, even briefly, and give developing staff real projects with close oversight. Worry most when they stop asking questions.

Conclusion

Dan treats compliance as a team sport that should make shipments faster and cheaper. Clear data, steady relationships and procedures that are actually checked keep the function funded long after the last audit.