A system and method for speed regulation of a VFD circuit via an anti-windup control scheme that provides consistent speed response with no overshoot is disclosed. A control system for operating the VFD circuit includes a feedback controller programmed to receive a speed of a motor operating responsive to an initial torque command and process the speed of the motor to generate a feedback controller output. A feedforward controller of the control system is programmed to process a speed reference to generate a feedforward controller output. A command module of the control system is programmed to determine a torque command based on the processed outputs of the feedback and feedforward controllers and operate the VFD circuit to control the motor according to the torque command.