International Anti-Financial Crime Summit 2024

Adrian Searle is Director of the UK’s National Economic Crime Centre at the National Crime Agency (NCA).

He joined the NCA in March 2022 from NatWest, where he worked as the Group Head of Data and Security Risk.

Adrian is a senior security and intelligence professional, with both government and private sector experience. He has worked in a range of national security related operational and policy roles, and led the cross-government response to significant cyber incidents, as a Deputy Director in the National Cyber Security Centre.

Andrea is the Director of Specialist Directorate, including amongst others. Financial Crime Market Intervention, Fraud & Financial Crime Policy and Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS).

Andrea joined the FCA in 2006, having spent several years in private practice as a commercial litigation lawyer, and became a Director in 2018. She spent 14 years in Enforcement, specialising in complex, high profile, cutting-edge enforcement investigations, cases and projects.

Since 2020, Andrea has worked in cross-cutting roles, including jointly leading the FCA's ambitious transformation programme and as Chief of Staff to the FCA’s CEO, Nikhil Rathi. During this time, she was also interim Director of Communications.

Andrea is currently the Chair of the International Organization of Securities Commissions Monitoring Group and the Monitoring Group Steering Committee

Elisa de Anda Madrazo of Mexico began her two-year term as President of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on 1 July 2024. She succeeded Mr. T. Raja Kumar of Singapore.

Ms. De Anda has over a decade of experience in leadership positions in the anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) sector.

Within the FATF, Ms. De Anda has been extensively involved in substantive work and has held most leadership positions, which grants her a deep knowledge of the FATF. Until June 2023, she held the position of Vice-President for three years. Previously she served as head of the Mexican delegation and co-led Mexico’s efforts for its Mutual Evaluation in 2016-2017. She was also Co-Chair of the Global Network and Co-ordination Group, which oversees the collaboration with and within the nine FATF-Style Regional Bodies, as well as with the observers of the FATF. Additionally, she has been a member of the Steering Group and chaired the Contact Group on Malaysia’s Membership Process.

Ms. De Anda currently serves as Director General in Mexico’s Ministry of Finance and Public Credit. Elisa joined the Ministry in 2015. During her time there, she worked as a Senior Advisor for two Ministers of Finance, providing her with continuous involvement in high-level engagements and topics. She also served in the Financial Intelligence Unit, including a role as Head Attaché to the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C. In her current capacity, Elisa supports the advancement and development of AML/CFT policies and fosters collaboration among AML authorities in Mexico.

Before joining the Mexican government, Elisa worked for the private sector as an associate at a law firm for over six years. She received her law degree from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and has a Master degree in Law (LLM, 2011) from Harvard Law School and a Master in Public Administration (MPA, 2015) from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Aamir is the Regional Vice President, AML Compliance for EU / CIS / Africa for Western Union. He has held multiple positions in the anti-financial crime space in the public and private sectors including as the Head of Financial Crimes for EMEA / UK MLRO for Stripe, the Regional Head for the US Law Compliance Program for ASEAN and South Asia for Standard Chartered Bank, and the Head of Financial Crimes for the Middle East and North Africa (excluding the UAE) for Standard Chartered Bank. Aamir has also led financial management teams for Expedia and Boeing; and spent nine years working in the U.S. government focusing on geopolitical, intelligence and global financial crime issues.

Aamir has an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the Johns Hopkins University and a Masters in International Policy and Practice from George Washington University.

Linda started her career as a commercial litigator in an international law firm in Edinburgh.  Since joining the civil service, she has had a range of interesting and challenging roles, including Private Secretary to the First Minister of Scotland; Head of Civil Asset Forfeiture for Scotland; Deputy Director of Defence, Security and Cyber Resilience; and Senior Responsible Officer for EU Exit in the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland.

Linda joined the Fraud Investigation Service in HMRC in April 2021 and originally led Offshore, Corporate and Wealthy, managing white collar civil and criminal investigations into wealthy individuals and large corporates.

Since September 2022, Linda has been Head of Organised Crime, leading complex international investigations to disrupt and dismantle Organised Crime Groups. Linda leads a team of 1500 civil and criminal investigators across 15 sites and 3 legal jurisdictions in the UK. She specialises in all elements of economic crime, including money laundering, bribery and corruption and fraud and has concluded a number of Deferred Prosecution Agreements. Linda is committed to  collaborating with domestic and international partners to maximise impact against financial crime.

Jaap is current the Head of the Detecting Financial Crime (DFC)  unit, which is ABN AMRO Bank’s 1LOD centre of excellence for financial crime risk management.

The DFC unit maintains and executes the standards, systems and operations for all financial crime risk management processes. Jaap joined ABN AMRO Bank as their Global Head, AML & Sanctions in April 2021.

Prior to that he was with Standard Chartered Bank for a over seven years where he worked in the Financial Crime Surveillance (screening & monitoring) unit based out of London, and prior to that as Head of Retail Financial Crime Compliance based in Singapore.

Prior to Standard Chartered, Jaap worked at ING Bank in various financial crime compliance capacities. All in all, Jaap has over 25 years of experience in the financial services industry, of which over 15 years in the AML / CTF domain.

With over 20 years of experience, Liliya has worked across the financial crime space in different roles and capacity and across different business segments. She has managed teams, due diligence projects in challenging environments, and led major investigations and litigation support cases. In the late 1990s she joined Bulgaria’s Financial Intelligence Unit where she headed the International Contacts and Legal Coordination department.

Her experience also includes Transparency International in Berlin, several London-based investigative consultancy firms and the Royal Bank of Canada in London. In 2016 she joined Commerzbank London where she managed the AML Advisory and EDD Team until her appointment as head of Transactions Monitoring and Investigations/UK FIU and deputy MLRO.

In 2020 she joined CACIB as Head of UK Financial Security; she is also the MLRO. She holds a doctorate in AML policies from Tilburg University in the Netherlands and gives lectures at the University of Manchester. A speaker at industry events, Liliya has delivered presentations on behalf of Stop the Traffik, a London-based non-profit organisation that fights human trafficking and slavery.

Ilze Znotiņa is the former Director of FIU Latvia. Prior to joining FIU Latvia she has had a career as a sworn attorney-at-law specializing in dispute resolution. Her main areas of expertise included regulatory issues, insolvency, anti-bribery and anti-money laundering, fraud and white-collar crime.

A former Partner of law firm Deloitte Legal, Ms. Znotina has represented a wide range of local and international clients in courts as well as performed an anti-fraud reviews at many international and local companies where she led investigation of corruption, false accounting, fraud, theft, asset recovery, tax evasion, money laundering and obstruction of justice cases.

Her recent activities before the appointment related to leading the preparation of Latvian National AML/CFT Risk assessment and several sectoral assessments.

Ms. Znotina has submitted her doctoral thesis in the Faculty of Law, University of Latvia. She holds a Master degree in International and European Law from Riga Graduate School of Law and a Bachelor degree in Law from the University of Latvia. She is an author of a number of publications related to law, fraud and corruption as well as a frequent speaker on these topics.

Dr. Marcus Pleyer of Germany assumed the position of President of the FATF on 1 July 2020. He succeeded Xiangmin Liu of the People's Republic of China.

Dr. Marcus Pleyer serves as Deputy Director General in Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance with responsibilities for policy development and international engagement pertaining International Financial Markets (including FSB, G7, G20 matters), Anti- Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CFT), Financial Sanctions Policy, Digital Finance including Payment Services and Cyber Security and national and international development banks. As representative of the Federal Republic, he is currently a member of the board of governors of the Development Bank for Agribusiness and of the Foundation for Financing the Disposal of Nuclear Waste. He is regularly invited as an expert on AML/CFT and took part in a number of international AML/CFT-missions. Before he assumed the position of President on 1 July 2020, he served as Vice-President of the FATF (July 2019–June 2020), and as the Head of the German delegation (2016–July 2019). Dr. Pleyer has also been serving in the Steering Committee of that same organisation since 2016.

Prior to his current position, Dr. Pleyer headed the Division for International Financial Markets from 2014 to 2015. From 2011 to 2014, he served as Head of Cabinet of Federal Finance Minister Schaeuble. From 2006 to 2011, he worked in the Federal Chancellery as senior adviser for Economic Law, International Financial Markets, Eurozone and G8/G20-Affairs and was part of a special team of Chancellor Merkel for the stabilization of the financial sector in 2009. Prior to that, he held positions as adviser in the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) after he had worked as a researcher in the field of public and capital markets law at the University of Dresden and as lecturer in criminal law at the University of Heidelberg.

With support of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, Marcus studied law at the National University of Singapore and the University of Heidelberg from which he graduated in law in 1995 before he qualified for the position of a judge in 1997. He holds a Master of Laws degree from the University of Edinburgh, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Wales and a Ph.D. from the University of Dresden. He has also passed the admission exam as a stockbroker.

Stephen is the Publisher at AML Intelligence based between our Brussels and Dublin offices. Stephen is former Group Editor-in-Chief at INM, Ireland’s largest media group, where he ran the newspaper and online operations.

A member of the Supervisory Board of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), he has also served on the board of the World Editors Forum. Stephen is Principal at KOBN, a specialist European leadership advisory, with an emphasis on cybersecurity and climate change.

James is the Managing Director at AMLi. James is also CEO at StubbsGazette, one of the oldest continuous credit bureaus in the world. He is one of the founders of the International Fraud Prevention Conference (IFPC), the fincrime and cybersecurity convention. James acquired the Stubbs brand from Dun & Bradstreet in 2008 and built the company’s reach. He was also the founder and chairman of the Irish Fraud Bureau.

Ms. Kohr's background includes more than nineteen years of experience in the anti-financial crime sector with significant experience in Bank's Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML), fraud and sanctions compliance, managing complex regulatory issues and remediation projects, and facilitating public and private partnerships (PPPs) to develop effective strategies to combat illicit financial activities.

In 2023, Ms. Kohr transitioned her career in banking to the public sector.She joined IRS-Criminal Investigations to assist, among other things, in building an agency-wide approach to PPPs and feedback to the private sector. As the Strategic Engagement Advisor, she oversees the development and implementation of CI-FIRST and the J5-GFIP. Prior to this, Ms. Kohr served as President of Kohr Global Advisory Services, LLC., where she advised and trained the public and private sectors on various matters related to banking compliance, anti-money laundering, and other complex financial crimes. Previously, Ms. Kohr was the Senior Director of AML for a global anti-financial crime organization. As the Senior Director, Ms. Kohr was focused on building the global Anti-Financial Crime public-private partnership engagement initiative, assisting in executing the global Law Enforcement strategy from a thought-leadership perspective, and serving as both a subject matter and technical expert on AML/CTF, regulatory policy and AML regime priorities.

Ms. Kohr also served as the Senior Vice President, Chief Risk Officer (CRO), and BSA Officer at Old Dominion National Bank (ODNB) in Tysons Corner, VA. As the SVP and CRO, Ms. Kohr was responsible for Old Dominion's enterprise risk management program, including leading the bank's AML/BSA and OFAC programs. Ms. Kohr was the 2016 ACAMS AML Professional of the Year, authored the 2016 and 2020 ACAMS Article of the Year, and 2019 awarded the U.S. Capital Excellence in Public/Private Partnerships and 2023 private sector recipient the AML Partnership Forum Excellence in Public/Private Partnership award. Ms. Kohr is a frequent speaker at numerous domestic and international conferences for the public and private sectors on AML/BSA/OFAC and CTF-related topics.

Matt began his career at Deloitte and gained further expertise in complex programme delivery at Moorhouse and Gate One, before co-founding BeyondFS, a consultancy specialising in Financial Crime and Operational transformation within the Financial Services sector.

For over 15 years, Matt has specialised in driving change in areas such as KYC/AML, Client Onboarding, Financial Crime Compliance, and Regulatory Transformation, helping organisations to manage compliance and risk more effectively, to drive operational efficiency, and to improve service to their customers.

He has worked with leading financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, Nordea, Schroders Capital, RBS, S&P Global, Founders Bank, SWIFT, BC Partners, MS Amlin, Fidelis and Elwood Technologies.

Ralph is the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer, Global Commercial Banking for HSBC. He is a leader in risk management based on international experience in a range of commercial and regulatory roles and has a proven track record of delivering lasting change and commercial benefit.

Operating at Board level, Ralph has the gravitas, knowledge and credibility to design, sell and deliver organisational redesign, technological investment and process enhancement. He has proven leadership and influencing skills and specialises in project, turnaround and development situations.

Liesel Glass, relocated to Denmark February 2022 to join Danske Bank and is currently the Head of 1st Line FC LC&I and Central Risk Advisory.

Prior to her career at Danske Bank, she was the Chief Compliance Officer for the HSBC South African Branch. Having been involved in compliance since 2000, her exposure to compliance has been across financial crime and regulatory compliance not only in the Financial Services industry, but a much wider corporate and government exposure. Before joining HSBC, she was in a risk management consulting company with her business partners spanning 12 years.

This was preceded by nearly 16 years at Liberty Group in South Africa where she 1st fell in love with compliance and led to her career in this very exciting and challenging field.

Sarah Beth Felix has over 20 years of experience in anti-financial crimes with operational, audit and consulting roles, working with banks, payment firms, and global Fintechs. Operationalizing AML/sanctions threats is one of her most well-known attributes, providing actionable solutions. Beyond traditional banking, she has specialized years of work in Fintechs, Lendtechs, cannabis banking, crypto, correspondent banking, and trade finance.

While managing a thriving AML/sanctions advisory firm for over 12 years, Palmera Consulting, she is also co-founder and CAMLO for a de novo digital correspondent bank – Acceleron Bank, in formation – based in Vermont, U.S. She has a 360-degree view of banking and how money flows throughout the world. Sarah Beth and her team are building a highly compliant digital bank focused on providing cost-effective solutions to US banks.

With global speaking engagements and her years spent on the operational AFC front, she focuses on impactful takeaways that move listeners to ‘take action’ in improving their AML/sanctions programs. Sarah Beth is also a guest lecturer at the National War College in Washington, D.C. and is frequently asked to train various US federal law enforcement agencies on private sector data availability that impacts subpoenas and unregulated payment ecosystems.

Aaron leads Wise’s first line risk and compliance teams responsible for supporting the launch and growth of Wise products in a safe, risk-managed and customer-centric way. Prior to Wise Aaron was Head of Financial Crime and Fraud at Revolut, leading product, data science and operations teams to better detect and prevent illicit activity. Aaron has also previously specialised in financial crime and compliance technology matters for financial services and fintech clients at Ernst & Young and led KYC and AML product development at UK regtech vendor Quantexa.

Soups Ranjan is the CEO and Co-founder of Sardine, a leading platform for fraud prevention and AML compliance. Before founding Sardine, Soups led Financial Crime at Revolut and Risk at Coinbase.

With over 15 years of experience applying machine learning to combat financial crime, he founded Sardine to build the smartest platform for fraud and compliance. Today, Sardine's solutions are trusted by over 300 global enterprises in financial services, eCommerce, and marketplaces, and is backed by top investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Visa, Experian, FIS, and Google Ventures.

Soups holds a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rice University, where he specialized in scaling web services to protect against cyber threats and Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks.

Jackie leads Brussels-based Ibec Global, Europe's leading English-speaking, globally networked business organisation, and the international business division of Ibec - Ireland’s largest and most influential business advocacy and representative organisation.

Ibec Global’s engagement spans across Irish and global stakeholders to shape the conditions for international businesses to thrive, and to advance practical and scalable solutions that economies and societies need to prosper. Her previous roles include Chief Operating Officer at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Ottawa, Canada office of a leading international public affairs and strategic communications consulting firm.

Jackie has over two decades of experience as an international business leader, building high-performing teams and transforming organisations for the future. She is recognised as an expert in managing risk for organizations with international exposure, and has worked with executives, their boards, and public-sector officials in every sector of the global economy to protect and enhance reputation and deliver results for business and communities.

Oonagh is an award winning Compliance Officer and recognised as one of the leading voices and trainers globally in compliance risk management, with over 20+ years’ experience. She has built and led various compliance risk framework developments and teams across the industry for a diverse range of financial entities, including traditional banks, Fintech, and Crypto firms, and is known for her proven expertise in management of complex compliance remediation challenges. She is an advocate for ethical compliance leadership and framework development, with increased automation, including AI and Machine Learning integration.

Paul Coady has over 25 years of financial services experience focused on compliance and financial crime practice and related people risk.

He has held senior roles that included Business Ethics, Policies & Training Manager for AIB Bank, Group Head of Compliance Policy & Learning for Barclays, Global Head of Financial Crime Risk Education & Culture for Deutsche Bank, and has recently founded ComplianceLnD, a new boutique consulting and professional education practice. Paul has worked in Dublin, London, and New York and led teams and complex transformation and regulatory requirements throughout the UK, US, EMEA, APAC and Africa.

He is a regular international speaker and thought leader promoting the people-side of compliance and financial crime. Paul holds an MSc. in Education & Training Management from Dublin City University (DCU), and is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Licentiate of the Compliance Institute of Ireland and a Fellow of the Learning & Performance Institute (LPI).

Anu has extensive 22 plus years of experience in UK, USA and Asia including global multi-year complex Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) transformation initiatives.

She is also Fellow of International Compliance Association and specialises in drafting of Global AML Policy, Standards, and global implementation, advisory at Group / Business / Regional Level.

Anu is currently EMEA Head of FCC Regulatory Change and Global Programmes at BNY.

She has previously worked with HSBC, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, RBS, Cisco Financial Services and a FinTech company.

Anu has a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science and Engineering and started her career in Technology before moving onto FCC.

Michael Shearer is Chief Solution Officer at Hawk, the leading provider of AI-powered AML monitoring and fraud prevention technology. Shearer leads the global design and implementation of financial crime solutions for Tier 1 financial institutions. Previously, Shearer spent nearly a decade at HSBC as Managing Director and Group Head of Compliance Product Management, where he developed award-winning analytics applications and led the launch of a cloud-based machine learning platform for financial crime detection. Prior to that, he also dedicated 20 years to government intelligence and counterterrorism. Shearer is a published author: Hands-On Entity Resolution details how to scale up data matching processes and improve the accuracy of reconciliations.

Steve is the Co-founder and Director of AML Analytics and is recognised as one of the UK’s leading industry experts on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing issues, legislation and regulation.

He has worked in the financial services industry since 1988 and in financial crime compliance since the inception of the UK Money Laundering Regulations in 1994.

He has previously held roles as the Director of Regulatory and Financial Crime Programmes at Wolters Kluwer Financial Services in London and as Global Head of Money Laundering Prevention for Prudential plc., where for fifteen years he had responsibility across the Group for the development and delivery of the corporate money laundering, counter terrorism and sanctions policy, together with providing advice and guidance on AML/CTF prevention. During this time he worked in the UK, USA, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Whilst with Prudential he spent time on secondment to NCIS (now the National Crime Agency) and at the UK National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit at Scotland Yard.

In 2001 Steve created the UK Institute of Money Laundering Prevention Officers where he was Chairman for seven years and then President until 2012.

Steve holds an ICA Diploma in Anti-Money Laundering with distinction and is a Fellow of the International Compliance Association.

He is an experienced speaker on financial crime issues and has lectured at conferences throughout the UK, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, Australia and the USA.