Sam is a financial crime prevention professional with over 15 years of practical experience in compliance.  Sam holds a number of qualifications and is recognised as a subject matter expert in the field of financial crime. Sam’s previous work experience includes working as MLRO, Data Protection Officer and CCO and Group Head of AML for various financial institutions, both offshore and in Europe. Sam also worked offshore for several years as the first legal counsel to the financial regulator in Guernsey and subsequently set up the financial crime division, overseeing the examination of a variety of financial institutions. She continues to maintain ongoing engagement with other regulators on financial crime matters.

Sam has extensive training experience in the field of financial crime prevention and corporate governance matters. She has most recently been involved in projects related to FinTech businesses, the use of RegTech to mitigate financial crime and list management relating to the screening of customers and third parties. Sam most recently worked with ACAMS Europe as its AML Director.  Sam is recognised by ACAMS as a subject matter expert in sanctions and has co-authored a number of online certificate courses, facilitated working groups on 4/5AMLD in Europe and assistance in the development of white papers. Originally from Montreal, Quebec Canada, Sam holds a Bachelors of Public Administration, Law Degree, qualified as a barrister and solicitor and holds her Masters in Business, specialising in risk management.

Sam is Chair for this forum and will lead all sessions as well as participate in the interactive panel discussions.

With over 10 years of experience in the financial crime field including fraud investigations and AML, Ionela is currently a Senior Investigator and Financial Crime Advisor at Commerzbank, managing complex investigations across different business platforms. She previously worked in a similar role at Citibank NA. Ionela is a Certified Fraud Examiner and has also trained with the Analysis Training Unit at Greater Manchester Police. Ionela’s particular specialty is investigations into the utilisation of complex corporate networks for financial crime purposes.

Ionela will be speaking in the “Reducing False Positives and Optimising Transaction Monitoring” session starting at 1:30pm.

Eric joined in 2015 as an Operations Analyst and part of a two-person compliance team. Today, he works with over two dozen engineers, data scientists, and product owners to build ID verification, payment screening, transaction monitoring, and reporting systems which are critical for financial crime prevention as well as international expansion.

Eric will be speaking in our fourth session – AI, Innovation and Human Resources – Finding Right the Balance for KYC.

Caroline Kennedy joined Santander UK Corporate Banking in July 2018 and is the Head of Financial Crime Control Operations, based in London, managing a Transaction Monitoring and Sanctions Screening team. The team manages real time Payment Screening, batch Customer Screening and post Transaction Monitoring alerts.

Prior to her current role, Caroline was the Global Head of AML Operations at HSBC, since 2015. Caroline oversaw the Transaction Monitoring process globally and the implementation of standardised monitoring scenarios in >60 countries. Caroline first joined HSBC in 2014 as the Head of Global Banking & Markets Compliance Operations, managing Financial Crime and Regulatory Risk processes. Caroline worked at AIB (GB) in London, as the Head of Treasury Operations, before joining HSBC.

In addition to her current role, Caroline works with ACAMs as a Transaction Monitoring SME. Caroline has experience working with a number of vendor and in house Transaction Monitoring solutions.

Caroline will be speaking in the “Reducing False Positives and Optimising Transaction Monitoring” session starting at 1:30pm and participating in the AML in 2019 panel discussion at 10:20am.

Colin joined Credit Suisse in April 2014 prior to becoming the head of Sanctions for UK and EMEA, a position he has held since September 2014. Colin’s move to the Sanctions desk coincided with the expansion of sectoral sanctions under the EU and US Russian/Ukrainian sanctions regimes. Consequently, the majority of his advisory assistance, to both the Investment and Private bank, has had a Russian emphasis.

Prior to joining Credit Suisse Colin spent 16 years as a civil and commercial litigator (and Cedr accredited commercial mediator) in private practice. During this time he acted for a wide variety of clients from banks, hedge funds (and their beneficial owners) to large commercial concerns in the UK, Central and Eastern Europe, and well-known individuals. For 12 of those years Colin was a partner within a medium sized commercial practice, the last 6 of which were spent as managing partner of the London office.

Colin will be speaking in the “Is Current Banking AML Strategy Working?” session starting at 9am and participating in the interactive panel discussion thereafter.

Fintan joined CurrencyFair in September of 2015 having spent the previous four years in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in various senior compliance roles with Arab National Bank (ANB) and its subsidiary company ANB Invest. Fintan is currently serving his second spell as a Director of the Association of Compliance Officers in Ireland (ACOI). He has worked both in banking and insurance and worn the Zurich, AIG & MetLife badges coupled with a spell in Nigeria with Afribank. Before his days in cross-border financial services he worked in Lombard & Ulster ( part of RBS Group)and started his career with Irish Permanent. While working in branches he was in eighteen armed raids. Fintan is a frequent speaker at conferences in Ireland, the UK, Europe and Africa on topics ranging from Anti-Money Laundering to Risk & Corporate Governance.

Fintan will be on our panel during our first session as well as in the interactive panel discussion discussion in the final session of the day.

Andrew Fleming is a financial crime risk specialist with an extensive background in the investigation of complex cross-border financial crime perpetrated by organised criminal networks, including terrorist organisations. He has worked with international law enforcement agencies including Eurojust, FBI, AFP and the IRS and has provided training and presentations on terrorist financing, fraud and money laundering to law enforcement professionals, international forums and conferences. Andrew has a background in cyber crime and its use by organised criminal networks to commit financial crime and also in how it can be utilised by businesses to manage their financial crime risk more effectively, while at the same time protecting our customers and the bottom line. He is a passionate believer that the integration of new technologies are key to enabling companies to effectively manage the increasing demands of regulatory authorities within a manageable cost framework.

Andrew will be joining the interactive panel discussion in our fourth session.

Saurav is driving the global innovation agenda in the Financial Crime Prevention team at UBS. Focus areas include transaction monitoring, KYC, AML, Sanctions & Fraud. He works alongside tech firms, RegTech start-ups, peer banks and regulators, to drive innovation on the AI, Machine Learning, encryption and data sharing concepts that are his current priorities.

Saurav will be speaking in the “Investigating Fraud, Reducing False Positives and Optimising Transaction Monitoring” session starting at 13:30 and participating in the interactive panel discussion thereafter.

Priya is a specialist in financial-crime investigations and compliance with over 20 years’ experience. Her background as an investigator gives her unique insight to identify money laundering, sanctions evasion, and bribery and corruption risks — and the controls required to manage them. Priya is passionate about helping clients identify cost-effective solutions that not only achieve regulatory compliance, but also improve their cultures and lead to better customer experiences.

Priya has led a variety of engagements, from risk assessments and independent assurance reviews to large-scale regulatory investigations and remediation projects. She has written expert reports for legal proceedings and has also given evidence in court. As the first in-house forensic accountant for the Assets Recovery Agency, Priya advised on many civil-recovery and criminal-confiscation cases under the Proceeds of Crime Act. She has advised UK Law Enforcement Agencies on serious and organised crime through her investigations of money flows from drug and human trafficking, counterfeiting, fraud, bribery and corruption and money flows to and from terrorist financing organisations.

Prior to joining Promontory, Priya was a Partner at KPMG in the UK. She was the global lead for financial-crime services to a leading international bank whilst they were under a US Deferred Prosecution Agreement.

Jon is a subject matter expert and advisor specialising in the topics of Analytics, Data Governance and Information Management within the Financial Services sector. He is particularly focused on how data impacts risk management, financial crime compliance and controls automation, privacy regulation as well as regulatory reporting and submissions. Jon has a strong background in customer/client data management in areas such as single customer view, counterparty mastering, segmentation, predictive modelling and next best action.

During the course of his work, Jon has advised senior business officers at many global financial services firms on engagements related to KYC/AML, GDPR, FATCA, BCBS239, Dodd-Frank, CCAR, Basel II, Solvency II, customer deposit guarantee (FSCS) and credit risk data assurance. Prior to joining IBM, Jon was the Vice President of Product Management for Financial Solutions at Trillium Software and was previously a Senior Manager at Deloitte LLP, where he was the data quality lead within the Enterprise Risk Services practice.

Michael is Director of Financial Crime Compliance and AML subject matter expert. He leads a team of sales specialists in the Financial Services Industry who provide expert guidance on entity identity verification, client data management, KYC/AML screening solutions and enhanced due diligence. By drawing on the global suite of products offered by LexisNexis Risk Solutions in Data, Analytics and Technology the team create innovative solutions that support the entire client journey in onboarding and ongoing monitoring of AML Risk.

Reformed engineer now driving market & product strategy for Financial Crime and Compliance for LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Leo has over 10 years’ experience in this space and works alongside other FCC professionals throughout the organisation to ensure delivery of solutions into the FCC space to help other organisations mitigate financial crime.

Leo will be speaking in the third session “Investigating Fraud, Reducing False Positives and Optimising Transaction Monitoring” starting at 1:30pm.