New Year, New Programs - The TWELVE Programs begin 1st January 2021
Out of over 350 applications, 30 Associates have been selected from the range of TWELVE program to begin 12 months of mentoring and development.
…and this begins today. 1st January 2021.
As I look back at 2020 - and what a challenging year it was - I am proud of creating the TWELVE programs (a long term work in progress), humbled by the level of support from both industry associations and thought leaders, and encouraged by the number of applications.
And there is a lot more to come. Later in January 2021, a number of students from Seneca College will be joining TWELVE Education as interns and we look forward to creating a number of new materials. Including a Virtual Conference.
Stay tuned.
Dr Ian Messenger
Florence is a keen and enthusiastic learner with diverse experience in banking internationally. She was an investigator in the financial intelligence unit for Scotiabank, where she gained a rich experience in complex investigations involving terrorist financing, different fraud typologies, sanctions related cases as well as cases involving organized crime which improved her analytical skills.
Florence recently accepted an offer to join AML Rightsource as a senior analyst.
Previously she worked in various capacities in 2 banks in Nigeria (United Bank for African and First Bank of Nigeria Ltd) where she gained experiences in Client Onboarding, KYC Operations, AML investigations and Electronic Products Operations.
Bincy working as Customer Experience Lead with Scotiabank. As a front line leader, her primary focus is to guide and oversee the overall success of the retail service team; ensuring business strategies, initiatives and specific individual goals are executed and delivered in support of the branch business strategies and objectives. She is responsible for leading and driving a customer focused culture to deepen client relationship. Bincy is passionate in coaching and developing my team members and implementing strategies for competitive function.
Bincy is the designated Primary Anti Money Laundering Compliance of her branch. As an AMLCO, she is responsible for providing coaching and guidance to all branch employees, as required for any anti-money laundering process or scenarios ensuring that the branch is in compliance with the KYC, CDD requirements, detecting and reporting unusual transactions and LCTR filing.
Bilguun Tsolmontuya is the Sanctions Officer at Khan Bank of Mongolia. He is currently in charge of developing the strategy for the sanctions program, implementing the relevant policies and procedures, and ensuring the sanctions screening processes.
Bilguun has 6 years of experience in the banking sector, almost 4 of them in the Financial Crime Compliance area. In 2014, he graduated with a master's degree in finance from the University of Management in Moscow and he is now doing his bachelor of law degree.
Urantuul graduated from Plekhanov's Russian University of Economics in 2015 majoring in economics. She started her career path in the banking sector in 2016 as a Card Fraud Specialist and in 2019 she joined the Compliance team of the biggest bank in the country as a Transaction Monitoring Analyst. Besides that, Urantuul also has experience in human resource consulting and education consulting.
Urantuul is currently working towards the Certified Trade Finance Professional (CTFP) certification.
n 2016 after having completed a Bachelor of Arts in Political Studies- Peter had a couple years working-experience at several Telecommunications companies and with TD Securities. It was in 2017 when Peter developed a keen interest in Financial Crimes (specifically Fraud) and in Law (specifically Case Law). After delving himself fully into the topics he wanted to combine the two in a short program and completed a Paralegal Accelerated Diploma from Seneca College. During his time there in addition to learning different types of law he was offered an opportunity to represent Seneca at a National Mooting Competition-with his team placing 3rd.
Upon graduation Peter joined RBC and progressed from Intern to Regional Advisor to AML Investigator within the FIU. Peter found Anti-Money Laundering and cases more to his liking in early 2020 joining several groups that speak about best practices and interesting cases.
Spandana holds a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) designation and
an MBA in Finance from India. She possesses over 4 years of experience in Trade Finance, Accounts, Credit and Compliance. She is currently working as an AML Solutions Specialist with Royal Bank of Canada.
Being predominantly an investigative individual, with an inquisitive and curious mind, She decided to take up this daunting yet very fulfilling task of transitioning into the Financial Crime field. She likes taking up challenges and is enjoying this process while keeping herself abreast with the current legal and regulatory environment.
Gilbert has four years’ experience in the Financial Crime Compliance space and overall 10 years of work experience. Having started as a junior business analyst with Deloitte East Africa, he rose to the position of a Senior Consultant in the Risk Advisory division specializing in Governance, Systems Audit and, Internal Audit, before joining Refinitiv to manage the Financial Crime Solutions for clients in East and West Africa. He is currently an independent consultant on Financial Crime Compliance.
Joel is currently working as an AML investigator within the financial intelligence unit for Scotiabank, within this role he has gained an interest in complex investigations, terrorist financing, sanctions related cases as well as cases involving organized crime. Joel also recently competed the Manchester CF Financial Intelligence Specialist certificate.
Prior to his role with Scotiabank Joel spent approximately 12 years in law enforcement where he conducted a variety of criminal investigations and focused much of his efforts gathering intelligence on the drug trade and street gangs in his community. Joel was promoted to an acting sergeant where he was team lead for a critical project in a high risk community.
Miloš Tomin qualified as a Criminal Intelligence Analyst while working at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands while working on complex war crimes investigations involving terrorist financing and sanctions-busting by charities, governments, and non-state actors.
After leaving UN ICTY, Miloš worked as a consultant with law enforcement and private litigation law firms from the United Kingdom and the United States as a Criminal Intelligence Analyst.
Jay is a motivated AML/CTF Compliance Manager with a keen interest in financial crime framework, AML/CTF complex investigations and global cooperation in financial crime prevention.
Jay’s work experience includes working as AML/CTF compliance manager, delegate to MLRO, AML/CTF compliance specialist, Financial Crime Risk SME/product owner, AML/CTF consulting, and other managerial roles in the financial industry.
Adebayo shares his time as a compliance analyst with 2 Cryptocurrency exchanges with markets within the APAC and EMEA regions. His knowledge domain includes IT Audit, blockchain, cryptocurrency compliance and cybersecurity.
Adebayo has a Bachelor’s degree in Cyber Security and about to complete his Masters in Technology Governance and Digital Transformation from Tallinn University of Technology. He is a Certified Financial Crime Specialist (CFCS), Lead Cyber Security Manager and Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect.
Favour started her career within the Financial Services just after her undergraduate degree in Covenant University. Growing up in her home Country Nigeria, and having experienced firsthand the devastating effects Financial Crime has on the community and the Society at large, fighting financial crime is a very important cause to her.
Since relocating to the United Kingdom, Favour has worked with Barclays, Santander, TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland in the first line of defence. Her interests within FINCrime are in AML/CTF as well as Cryptocurrency investigations. She is looking forward to completing CAMS in order to increase her professional agility.
Aoife recently graduated from University College Cork with a bachelor’s degree in Criminology. Her main objective is to work in an area which allows her to focus on financial crime prevention, specifically terrorist financing.
Aoife have achieved an ICA Specialist Certificate in Combating the Financing of Terrorism and aims to complete a professional certificate in Financial Crime Prevention in the following months. She is eager to begin constructing my career in combating terrorist financing through gaining the necessary qualifications and through this mentorship and development program.
Ashika Verma is an MBA graduate from the prestigious Schulich School of Business along with an undergrad degree in law from India. She is passionate about all things Risk Management and Compliance specifically Regulatory Compliance and Financial crimes.
Before moving to Canada to pursue her MBA, Ashika worked as an in-house lawyer for tech companies wherein she provided legal advisory on corporate, IP, contract, and privacy laws. She also performed legal due diligence, advised on regulatory implications of launching new products and services and provided legal support for growth strategies. During her MBA she interned with Scotiabank with their AML Audit team and has been a part of various AML, Compliance and Risk networking circles across Toronto. She is passionate about various fincrime, risk and compliance practice areas in financial institutions, consulting firms and building a network of likeminded professionals.
Shana Schneider is the Global Marketing Director for Silent Eight, a technology company that uses artificial intelligence-powered solutions to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. Working closely with senior leaders, she oversees the company's go-to-market strategy, identifying new opportunities, and leading with a content-forward approach that leverages thought leaders and global experts to deliver true value to the marketplace.
Shana is interested in learning more about money laundering and terrorist financing, from developing a better knowledge of pivotal or groundbreaking cases that led to new laws and regulations to a deeper understanding of what the human cost of these crimes is and who is most at risk/vulnerable as we head into 2021. She would also like to understand more about a bank or FI's role in working with law enforcement and how the 2 can (better?) work together to protect bad actors from entering the financial market.
Naila is an Anti-Money laundering professional with a range of experience gained over 7 years working within the investment banking area. Naila’s work experience includes working as AML/KYC Analyst, AML/KYC officer, AML/KYC Manager in Europe and North Africa. Naila is an AML specialist on performing AML EDD/CDD Analysis, compliance assessment, AML training and process.
Naila Is ACAMS Certified Anti Money Laundering Specialist, holds a Statistics & Applied Economy Degree and a Master’s degree in Finance & Actuarial.
Tahmina is a motivated compliance officer with a keen interest in financial crime investigation, approaches in identifying white-collar criminals.
Immediately after graduating the university, Tahmina worked in retail banking at MCO OXUS Microfinance. During her work experience, she assisted in developing a new center for customer services but passion
to analytical investigation led to changing her career path. Thereafter, her desire to gain knowledge of Financial Compliance persuaded her to take up the ICA (international Compliance Association) Certification programs in KYC and CDD, as well as Trade Based Money Laundering.
Arshia is an enthusiastic and a keen learner with diverse experience in banking locally and internationally.
Currently Arshia is working in Scotiabank. Being in the first line of defence, She has to be an attentive audience and be the guardian of the firm. She is keen to learn about investigations pertaining to money laundering, fraud and human trafficking in order to take care of the most obvious risks of the business.
Arshia holds an undergraduate degree in Genetic and Master’s degree in Business Administration from Osmania University in India. Recently, she completed an AML administration course from Seneca college. In the near future, She is looking forward to complete CAMS/CFCS, in order to be well aware of the processes to benefit as part of the due diligence efforts in compliance.
Prabha Iyer is a financial services industry professional with over 6 years of international work experience. Her career started as an Accounts Executive, in an Accounting firm, after she graduated from Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics, University of Mumbai and completed Accounting Technician Certification from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Subsequently, she worked for 4 years at IndusInd bank’s Fixed Income and Money Market department (Treasury Operations). Having taken up the role of deputy manager, she developed expertise in handling operational part of Fixed Income and Money Market products, regulatory reporting, and compliance with regulatory policies having an impact on operations.
After moving to Canada, she joined Dynacare Insurance Solutions in 2019 and kick-started her career. Thereafter, her desire to gain knowledge of Financial Compliance in the Canadian banking industry persuaded her to take up the Financial Services Compliance Administration (FCA) program at Seneca College. While working at Dynacare she enrolled for FCA program and graduated in 2020 with high honors. Presently she is working as a Financial Operations Analyst at BMO and pursuing the CFCS certification.
Mohit Dysell is currently working as a Financial Services Associate with CIBC. He is passionate about ATF, sanctions, and cryptocurrency, and envisions a career as a financial crime specialist.
In his current role, Mohit is responsible for client onboarding and actively pursuing effective and efficient lending and investment operations while ensuring the adequacy, adherence to, and effectiveness of day-to-day business controls to meet obligations with respect to operational risk, regulatory compliance risk, and AML/ATF risk.
As a new graduate from the University of Calgary with a Bachelors degree in Finance, Mac has already accumulated a wealth of knowledge in the area of financial crime. During his time at the University of Calgary, Mac worked with the Calgary Police Service for two years as an Auxiliary member, where he first discovered his passion for solving complex investigative puzzles. He then moved on to the Alberta Securities Commission where he secured multiple internships in the Enforcement Division focusing on investigations relating to breaches of securities laws in Alberta and the New Economy Division where he researched the use of digital financial instruments and their role in financial markets.
Serge Tokar immigrated to Canada as a foreign legal professional. He has a Master of Laws in International Business Law and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Central Lancashire (United Kingdom). He is a co-author of a series of academic papers on consumer behaviour.
In Canada, Serge finished Financial Crime Analysis (CIFCA) programme at Seneca College, received an OSINT certificate from Toddington International and acquired a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) designation.
Prat Agrawal is an AML enthusiast working as AML investigator in Financial Intelligence Unit at Scotiabank. His area of interest includes complex investigations comprising of public private initiatives like human trafficking, organ trafficking, drug trafficking, unregistered money service businesses and cryptocurrency.
He graduated with Master of Applied Sciences degree from University of Toronto before started working as Fraud Analyst, Credit Cards at CIBC. During his time at CIBC, Prat worked on mitigating loss to bank by providing real time support in the reporting of fraudulent transactions and assisting clients with initiating dispute claims through visa and mastercard.
Jinisha is a Sr. Fraud Deterrence Analyst at Scotiabank and a lifelong learner of human behaviour. As a former retail banker, she found her passion for advocating for the victims of financial crime, which birthed an outright obsession with all-things AML. While immersed in internal investigations as the bank’s first line of defense, she learned about the colossal & ubiquitous impact of financial crime. Her life and career took a dramatic turn when she discovered a human trafficking survivor – Timea Nagy and her social enterprise. Jinisha vowed to combat human trafficking and modern slavery not just as an imminent issue but also her raison d'être. Jinisha believes that financial institutions are in a unique position to ultimately stop human trafficking and abolish modern slavery.
Ash Aiyar is a fincrime specialist with a keen interest in cryptocurrency and Cannabis regulations.
She currently works with a leading money services business and specialises in high risk clients and enhanced due diligence along with FINTRAC related filings.
Having previously worked in Trust and Safety at Linkedin, she hopes to create a framework that regulates both financial crime and cyber fraud.
Ash completed her Bachelors of Science (Honours) from Miranda House, Delhi University. Her certifications in financial crime include Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Certified Financial Crime Specialist (CFCS), Financial Intelligence Specialist (FIS) and Certified Cryptocurrency Investigator (CCI).
Julia Schaumer is a financial crime analyst with a keen interest in sanctions compliance, AML/CTF policies and political risk analysis.
Having previously worked for INTERPOL’s Financial Crime Unit, she has experience analyzing large-scale international fraud and money laundering cases, researching financial crime typologies, and devising project proposals aimed at creating public-private partnerships at a global scale.
She was also previously the Program Editor for Women in Security at the NATO Association of Canada and published articles on topics related to international security matters and geopolitics.
Elizabeth Malleck is a self-motivated professional, working as a Lead Investigator in Transaction Monitoring, Financial Intelligence Unit at BMO Financial Group. Her areas of interest involve major investigations, including organized crime groups, human trafficking and drug trafficking.
While in university, Elizabeth worked in retail banking at BMO Bank of Montreal and completed two summer internships with BMO’s Anti-Money Laundering program. During her internships, she gained knowledge of the medical cannabis industry and presented process improvement ideas to senior managers in the Financial Intelligence Unit.
After joining BMO’s Transaction Monitoring team in 2018, she established herself as a top-performing investigator and received various Spotlight Achievement Awards. She was promoted to Lead Investigator in July 2020. Elizabeth is considered a subject-matter expert in banking patterns of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, and uses her knowledge to educate her team on how traditional AML red flags may not align with every customer base.
Alex Côté is a passionate AML/ATF professional, with his interests including AML investigations, cryptocurrency, and other emerging financial technologies.
Alex is currently a compliance consultant for a leading cryptocurrency exchange, where he is able to leverage his AML experience alongside his enthusiasm for innovative technology.
Prior to his foray into cryptocurrency compliance, Alex was a Senior Investigator - HRT with BMO Financial Group, and was responsible for several streams, including enhanced due diligence, suspicious transaction reporting, and training.
Alex is a graduate of the University of Toronto and Seneca College's CIFCA (Canadian Institute of Financial Crime Analysis) Program, as well as being a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Certified Bitcoin Professional (CBP), and Certified Cryptocurrency Investigator (CCI).
The TWELVE program is unique as it combines structured multi-method learning with active mentoring from industry leaders. It goes without saying - but I will - that the program is grateful (but not surprised) to the Fellows who have given their time to the 2021 TWELVE program.
Andres Betancourt has more than 10 years of experience in compliance and anti-money laundering (AML) within the financial services industry including the Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, Royal Bank of Canada and Grant Thornton LLP. As a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist and Certified Financial Crime Specialist, Andres works in the Global AML Audit Centre of Excellence for Scotiabank, which assess the design and operational effectiveness of internal controls. This also includes adherence to bank policies and regulatory requirements, particularly those related to AML, anti-terrorist financing (ATF) and sanctions risk management.
Throughout his career, Andres worked with different financial institutions and advisory firms on regulatory compliance effectiveness reviews of reporting entities with operation hubs in multiple jurisdictions including Canada, the United Kingdom, U.S. and Australia. He also worked on AML and fraud investigations, FINTRAC reporting, regulatory AML remediations, quality assurance program design and testing, compliance training and strategy, Centre of Excellence processes and AML internal control audits. Recently, Andres led and participated in centralized audits for governance, regulatory reporting (LCTR/EFTR), sanctions screening for 2nd Line functions, Trade Finance Canada & Mexico, KYC Review in LATAM, Global AML Transformation initiative and international banking regulatory audit reports (Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Caribbean and Central America).
Josie is the Nominated Officer and Group MLRO for Caesars Entertainment EMEA, part of the world’s largest casino entertainment company, Caesars Entertainment Inc., best known for Las Vegas properties such as Caesars Palace, Planet Hollywood, and the iconic Playboy Club in London.
Prior to this, she was the Head of Anti Money Laundering and MLRO at the Ritz Club, an exclusive and prestigious Casino in London’s Mayfair district; specialising in direction and oversight of Enhanced Due Diligence teams, with particular expertise in UHNWI, HNWI, and Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) in the Middle East and Europe.
Josie has spent the past 5 years in AML leadership roles involving the establishment, training, and development of teams to combat Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime risk within the Casino gaming sphere, through internal strategic policymaking, risk assessment, threat analysis, and procedural development. She is a member of the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) and the Gambling Anti-Money Laundering Group (GAMLG) industry bodies and active working groups.
Katharina Stoll is a Senior Lead Auditor for Anti-Financial Crime Compliance at Commerzbank AG where she leads national and international audits of the bank’s global AML and Sanctions compliance program. Before joining Commerzbank, Katharina worked at Protiviti as a Senior Consultant in Internal Audit performing and leading various risk-oriented audit activities. In this capacity, Katharina also implemented a group-wide audit program for sanctions & embargoes for one of the top 3 German banks, including the recording of the control framework and designing the audit program. Katharina started her career as an art historian at Bonhams in London, Poly Auction in Beijing, and Yves Siebers Auktionen in Stuttgart.
Katharina holds a Master’s degree in Art History from the University of Frankfurt as well as PGCertificates from SOAS, University of London, and the University of Glasgow. Leveraging her education as an art historian and her work experience in the AML sector, Katharina’s PhD research with the University of Glasgow’s School of Law is focused on money laundering in the art market. She has contributed to conferences, events, and webinars as a speaker with ACAMS (2019), Deloitte (2020), the Transatlantic Cultural Property Crime Symposium (2018), and the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) (2017).
Sue Scott is a business coach, mentor and risk management professional with over twenty years of experience working in financial services. Her much loved career at HSBC spans regulatory and financial crime transformation, risk advisory, policy development and financial crime training. Sue was Global Head of Anti-bribery & Corruption at HSBC as well as being responsible for co-ordinating across specialist areas for the development of global financial crime policies and employee training programmes.
Thomas Feray is a highly experienced investigator with extensive expertise in the public and private sectors.
His career with the French Gendarmerie brought him to serve in specialized serious crime units including the Versailles Serious Crime Unit (Division Financial crimes) and the Cayenne Serious Crime Unit as part of the special operation “Harpie Orpaillage” (operation aimed at fighting against the illegal gold mining in French Guyana). As part of his missions, Thomas Feray lead several complex investigations, related to Labour law crimes, counterfeiting of luxury goods and to the money laundering of the proceeds of these crimes.
Gregory Dellas is the Chief Compliance and Innovation Officer at ECOMMBX, an Electronic Money Institution with a flexible FinTech platform for cross-border inter-bank transactions.
Whilst at the Bank of Cyprus, Gregory led the anti-money laundering (AML) risk management team within the International Banking Services Division and acted as the local compliance officer. His team was responsible for the onboarding of high-risk clients, the evaluation of large and complex transactions, as well as the review of existing and approval of new high-risk client relationships. In addition, Dellas was responsible for providing advice, guidance and specialized training to management and staff on AML and regulatory compliance matters.
Greg began his personal development journey over 40 years ago in his grandfathers recycling business before attending university and eventually becoming a commercial banker. He has since worked both in Canada and the United Kingdom with teams from across the globe and held executive roles in operations, transformation, remediation and compliance.
Gene is The AML Shop’s Chief Identify Officer and delivers a “digital first” philosophy by creating a balanced hub where digital ID and AML initiatives connect as an expert shopper for clients and industry insider for technology firms.
As one of Canada’s leading voices in the anti-money laundering (AML) industry and digital identification space, Gene has spanned much of his career designing, implementing and sustaining AML/ATF programs including global CAMLO reporting, FATF risk-based approach guidelines and digital identity programs nationally and internationally.
Gene started his career running the systems, operations and compliance controls for financial planning firms offering securities, banking and insurance products. His compliance focus progressed with Manulife, where he most recently served as the Head of Global Compliance AMLATF program, responsible for the program design, relationships with AML vendors and working with Industry peers providing responses to government consultations.
Eric Hansen (CAMS, FIS) has been advising clients on issues pertaining to regulatory compliance and operational risk for 15 years. At present, he is the Head of Sales and Marketing at ManchesterCF, a Toronto-based firm that provides online financial intelligence training programs to financial institutions, financial intelligence units and law enforcement.
Amanda began her 18 year career in Financial Services at CIBC as a teller while in University, progressing to branch operations and management of a client portfolio before receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Alberta. Amanda furthered her career in Financial Services when she completed her Canadian Securities Course and became a Financial Advisor to high-net worth individuals in Vancouver in 2006.
Prior to joining BMO’s Anti-money laundering team Cam spent over 30 years with the Toronto Police Service where he served in uniform patrol, criminal investigations, drug enforcement, child abuse and sex crimes unit, behavioural assessment and the investigative training lead. For five years he was also the Officer in Charge of the Corporate Crimes Team.
He joined BMO in 2017 and now works in the Anti-money Laundering team and is the intelligence lead for the Canadian Financial Intelligence Unit. He has published articles on public private partnerships, cyber based financial crime, illegal wildlife trafficking and human trafficking and is authoring two chapters for upcoming academic journals on financial crime.
Jennifer Arnold is the CEO and co-founder of MinervaAI, a platform to help financial crimes investigators make better decisions, faster. Jen is the former VP of Governance and Programs at Wells Fargo Canada, and the former Sr. Director of AML Transformation at CIBC.
Jen is a self professed AML nerd working on projects from systems design and implementation to training and policy and process work. Her most recent venture, MinervaAI, focuses on making the investigation process efficient, effective and fully compliant.
Victor started his risk and compliance career in 2007 at RBC, as an AML Systems Analyst, and has held progressively senior positions. He was the Senior Director of AML Strategy and Solutions at CIBC, and his latest financial organization, he was the VP of Risk Services and the Chief Anti-Money Laundering Officer (CAMLO) for Wells Fargo Canada.
With his experience and passion for technology, Victor decided to start his own firm and has co-founded Minerva AI. A technology company focused on empowering financial crime investigators through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Upon completion of a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calgary, Kevin entered into a law enforcement career when he joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1986. His policing career took him throughout the province of British Columbia; ultimately specializing in commercial crime and corruption investigations. The highlight of Kevin’s career was the three years he spent as a member of the executive team for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Integrated Security Unit, contributing to the success of the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In May of 2015, Kevin left the RCMP as the Criminal Operations Officer responsible for the federal policing program in British Columbia overseeing a number of programs including national security, border integrity, commercial crime and transnational organized crime investigations. He then joined HSBC Bank Canada as the Head of Anti-money laundering investigations for Canada with offices in Vancouver and Toronto. After nearly 4 years with HSBC, Kevin joined the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) as the Director of AML and Investigations in April 2019.
Caroline Tutakiewicz is an experienced risk management professional specializing in AML/ATF and human trafficking initiatives. Caroline has previously held roles of Senior Manager, Terrorist Financing Investigations and Director, Head of Money Laundering Investigations at the Royal Bank of Canada. In this capacity, she executed RBC’s risk management strategy, balanced regulatory requirements and supported the national growth of RBC’s AML unit. Throughout her AML career she has led and executed projects in organized crime, terrorist financing, and human trafficking that continue to have significant impact on Canada’s regulatory framework.
In her current role as Director, Strategy and Innovation at RBC Ventures, Caroline develops new and aligns existing ventures with RBC Royal Bank with an aim at converting a portion of the 3.2M users to RBC clients. Caroline’s unique experience in risk management has established her as a thought leader in start-ups bridging risk mitigation with the need to go to market and scale quickly.
Sam is a financial crime prevention professional with over 15 years of practical experience in compliance. 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 heading up its enforcement activities. She subsequently set up the regulator’s first financial crime division, overseeing the examination of a variety of financial institutions and formulating the regulator’s ongoing supervisory activities across a diverse group of financial sector participants.
Sam continues to maintain ongoing engagement with other regulators on financial crime matters and was approved last year as an independent assessor for MONEYVAL, the European based body of the FATF.
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 FenTech businesses, the use of RegTech to mitigate financial crime and list management relating to the screening of customers and third parties. Sam worked with ACAMS Europe as its first subject matter expert as its AML Director and subsequently ran her one advisory business, assisting Crypto, FinTech and AML/CFTvendor technology and outsourcing vendors on various financial crime prevention matters. Sam is recognised by ACAMS and the EIMF as a subject matter expert 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.
Bob Kapur is an independent AML/ATF consultant, with over 20 years of experience in the industry.
For most of this time, he was the Deputy Chief AML Officer at a Big 5 Canadian bank, and was responsible for all aspects of the global AML, ATF, and Sanctions program, including policy development, risk assessments, investigations, effectiveness testing, training, enhanced due diligence and high risk client management, and board and regulatory reporting.
He was also the bank's representative on numerous industry and government committees and was the private-sector leader of Project Guardian, the public-private initiative with FINTRAC that targets illegal fentanyl trafficking.
After serving in the British military and then the police in Northern Ireland, (the latter as a senior detective officer) Peter joined the Royal Bank of Canada, (RBC) in 2002 as head of criminal intelligence and then as Head of AML Investigations in the AML Financial Intelligence Unit, (FIU). In 2010 Peter joined the Bank of Montreal, (BMO and as he had done at RBC built the FIU into a best in class example of an FIU based on a risk-based approach. At BMO Peter then held several other positions including Director of Risk Intelligence and Director Fintec, (AML) where his early knowledge about blockchain technology formed the basis of his current position, having left BMO in 2018 to establish his own company and operate as the CCO of Bitfinex.
Ms. Houlihan is a passionate AML/ATF, financial crime and regulatory compliance executive professional with over 20 years in the financial industry. Ms. Houlihan has over 15 years of AML/ATF, financial crime and regulatory compliance experience. Laura began her career as a teller at BMO Bank of Montreal and worked her way up throughout her nine year tenure with exposure to in-branch, project management and compliance monitoring roles. In 2005, Laura found her calling when working at AGF Trust as Senior Compliance Specialist where she was able to develop her forte in AML/ATF and financial crime. From 2010 – 2014, Ms. Houlihan held the role of VP, Global Financial Crimes Compliance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (Canada) where she reported and supported the CAMLO. In 2014, Laura was recruited by and appointed CAMLO at CXI Canada where she was instrumental in developing and implementing a risk-based, OSFI and FINTRAC-compliant AML/ATF compliance program which assisted the former MSB in successfully obtaining approval from OSFI to continue business as a Schedule 1 financial institution, Exchange Bank of Canada. Since then, Laura has held key executive leadership roles in the capacity of Chief Compliance Officer and CAMLO at DCBank and OTT Pay where she acted as subject matter expert on a wide array of complex AML, financial crime and regulatory compliance matters.
Jennifer is a partner with Grant Thornton LLP's Advisory Services, practicing in the area of Forensic Accounting, Investigations and Litigation Support Services. She leads the firm’s National Forensic and Dispute Resolution practice. Jennifer is a specialist in investigation and forensic accounting (IFA) and is an anti-money laundering (AML) specialist. She has worked with Grant Thornton since joining the firm as a co-operative student while attending the University of Waterloo.
Kim R. Manchester Managing Director, ManchesterCF Consulting Co. Ltd.
After a decade of working in international banking in Asia, Kim Manchester founded ManchesterCF in 2004. Based in Toronto, ManchesterCF provides online financial intelligence training programs to financial institutions, financial intelligence units and law enforcement. The Financial Intelligence Specialist designation is offered to compliance professionals around the world exclusively through ManchesterCF. Kim has spoken at financial crime compliance conferences in North America, UK/Europe, Asia and the Caribbean.