Krista Tongring

Executive Vice President, DEA Regulatory Compliance Practice
Krista Tongring in a blue jacket and black shirt smiles for the camera

As Executive Vice President, Ms. Tongring leads Guidepost’s DEA Regulatory Compliance Practice, in addition to playing a lead role in overseeing a variety of compliance engagements, monitorships, and investigatory matters. She brings a vast background of investigative, governmental, regulatory, and compliance experience to Guidepost. Her experience allows her to provide clients with customized solutions that consider the client’s organization and culture, among other factors, to ensure these solutions are sustainable.

Before joining Guidepost, Ms. Tongring spent more than 20 years in government service. Her most recent position was with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) where she served as the Acting Section Chief in the Office of Compliance. Ms. Tongring’s focus in this role was the establishment of clear and consistent policy which can be implemented throughout the agency. This effort required engagement with stakeholders at all levels of the agency to gather critical “on-the-ground” insight, and gain consensus among those most affected by many of the policies. Ms. Tongring successfully managed the effort to update DEA’s Standards of Conduct, which included policies prohibiting sexual and gender misconduct. She developed strategies to implement the new and revised policies and led the effort to establish a more efficient policy review process through the use of an electric workflow and centralized policy website.

Prior to her role as Acting Section Chief, Ms. Tongring served as a senior attorney for the DEA Diversion and Regulatory Litigation Section. In addition to litigating administrative actions, she supervised investigations to ensure compliance with the Controlled Substances Act, and coordinated with DEA investigators, gathered evidence, conducted witness interviews, and prepared litigation recommendations.

Ms. Tongring started her career as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). As a prosecutor she investigated and prosecuted complex white-collar criminal and violent crime matters, including racketeering, money laundering, abusive trust and other tax matters, international organized crime, criminal asset forfeiture, and violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. While at DOJ, Ms. Tongring also served as Associate Counsel to DOJ’s International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center (IOC-2) where she represented the agency in high-level meetings with members of law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and global law enforcement agencies. Ms. Tongring has considerable experience communicating with and supporting survivors, witnesses, and their family members, and guiding them through the criminal justice process in a thoughtful, trauma-informed manner.

During her lengthy career, Ms. Tongring has received numerous awards for her work, including the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Outstanding Trial Advocacy, the Tax Division Outstanding Attorney Award, a Special Achievement Award, and numerous Performance Awards.

Did you know?

Krista spent a semester abroad in Australia during college. Though classroom learning did occur, exciting outdoor activities – rappelling down cliffs, snorkeling around the Great Barrier Reef, bungee jumping in Cairns – reigned supreme.

At Guidepost, some of Ms. Tongring’s key engagements include:

  • The assessment, evaluation, and enhancement of the Controlled Substances Monitoring Program for the nation’s largest privately held full-line wholesale drug distributor.
  • The pre-acquisition assessment and post-acquisition remediation of all controlled substances protocols for a publicly traded DEA-registered controlled substances reverse distributor.
  • Providing on-going DEA regulatory compliance advice, evaluation, enhancement, and training for clients holding DEA registrations as manufacturers, distributors, reverse distributors, and hospitals.
  • The assessment, evaluation, and DEA regulatory gap analyses for DEA-registered distributors and manufacturers.
  • Providing expert witness services to a large DEA-registered distributor.
  • Assisting clients seeking DEA registrations (in various registration categories) with the application process, including but not limited to the development of DEA-compliant policies and procedures, physical security assessment and evaluation, and facilitation of the DEA inspection process.
  • Supporting physical security assessments for large institutional clients.
  • Conducting investigations into physical, cyber, and other types of harassment of individual and institutional clients.
  • The management of several federal antitrust monitorships.
  • Management of an institutional integrity investigation for a large faith-based entity.

Education

  • Juris Doctor, Seton Hall University School of Law, Magna Cum Laude
  • Bachelor of Arts, Sociology, Providence College, Magna Cum Laude

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