International Anti-Financial Crime Summit 2026

Aisling has worked in Financial Crime for over a decade. In that time, she has completed KYC for customers in corporate, investment, business and retail banks across multiple products from capital markets and prepaid cards. For the past five years, she has designed controls including customer risk assessments, transaction monitoring rules and CDD processes for some of Britain’s biggest banks and building societies. She has a lot of experience delivering change programmes stemming from regulatory engagement.

Aisling holds two law degrees and before changing career to work in financial crime, she worked in aviation security and for a series of human rights charities. She has delivered human rights education for the Council of Europe in Ireland, Azerbaijan and Hungary. She is currently working on her PhD, which will examine money laundering regulation in the art market.

Rachael is the new Director of the National Economic Crime Centre in the UK’s National Crime Agency.  She is also responsible for the UKFIU.  Her remit is to translate the threat understanding for illicit finance and fraud, into strategic and operational priorities for the UK’s response to economic crime.  She does this in partnership with law enforcement, the private sectors, regulators, legislators and policy makers.  She is passionate about harnessing the intelligence from all parts of the system, and finding shared objectives to amplify collective impact on economic crime.  She has worked in economic crime in the NCA for ten years, having previously worked across UK Government in multiple roles.

Beth joined the FCA (then FSA) in 2004 and has since held senior roles in Retail and Enforcement Legal before becoming a manager, and then Head of Department in 2019 in Enforcement's Unauthorised Business Department (UBD). Under Beth's leadership, UBD moved from running only two criminal cases to a position where 75% of the portfolio was criminal. The department has charged in excess of 50 people and firms. Beth has led a number of media campaigns (featured on BBC News, Sky News, BBC radio) successfully promoting our work to fight financial crime. Beth has recently moved to be Head of Financial Crime Market Intervention where the department provides the organisation with specialist financial crime resource. Beth is a solicitor and trained and worked at Irwin Mitchell prior to joining the FCA.

Kathryn is the Director of Financial Crime at UK Finance, the trade industry body representing the banking and finance sector.

Prior to joining UK Finance, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Finance and Security at the Royal United Services Institute. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in financial crime having started her career at PwC.

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.

Adrianna is a purpose-driven Financial Crime Compliance and Technology Risk leader with a proven track record in navigating complex international regulations and driving transformation across traditional and emerging financial ecosystems. She brings deep expertise in geopolitical risk strategy and geoeconomic analysis, enabling organisations to anticipate, interpret, and respond to macroeconomic shifts, sanctions regimes, and cross-border regulatory fragmentation.

She specialises in embedding innovation and integrity into financial systems spanning conventional finance, digital assets, and blockchain, while aligning risk frameworks with evolving global power dynamics and economic security priorities. With nearly two decades of experience, Adrianna combines strategic foresight, regulatory fluency, and cross-functional execution across Investment, Corporate, Private, and Wholesale Banking.

Her global leadership experience spans the UK, EU, MENA, APAC, and the Americas, underpinned by advanced capabilities in AI, blockchain, and quantum-aware risk frameworks, as well as the integration of geopolitical intelligence into enterprise risk management. Adrianna’s ambition is to bridge integrity, innovation, data, trust, risk, and opportunity, translating geopolitical and technological disruption into resilient, forward-looking strategies that deliver sustainable and meaningful impact.

Sebastiano is Head of the Anti-Money Laundering Supervision and Regulation at the Bank of Italy since April 2025. He represents Italy in the EU AMLA Supervisory Board.

He joined Banca d'Italia in 1986. Between 1988 and 2012, he worked in the Supervisory Regulations and Policies Directorate. He became Head of the International Cooperation Division in 2005. Between 1991 and 2012, he chaired several supervisory working groups, including those of CEBS/EBA, the ECB's Banking Supervision Committee, the Advisory Technical Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB), and the main subgroups of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Between 2012 and 2019 he negotiated the EU financial services legislation on behalf of Italy, particularly the Banking Union framework. In July-December 2014, he chaired EU Council working groups and represented the Council in trilogues, including on AMLD IV.

Between May 2019 and April 2024, he was a member of the Single Resolution Board (SRB), and in this capacity he chaired the SRB and EBA Resolution Committees, the FSB working group on banks’ cross border crisis management, represented the SRB in the EU Financial Services Committee, the EBA Board of Supervisors and the ESRB General Board. He has published numerous articles and policy discussion papers on prudential banking and resolution regulation.

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.

Rory is currently the Directorate Coordinator for INTERPOL’s Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre (IFCACC), where he performs a supporting role to the current Director.

Previously he was seconded from the Irish Police (An Garda Sìochàna) to INTERPOL from 2018 to 2023, where he held a number of senior management positions including, Director of INTERPOL’s Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre and Assistant Director of INTERPOL’s Organized and Emerging Crime Directorate, where he led INTERPOL’s Environmental Security and Global Health Crime Programme’s. He has also held the lead role for INTERPOL’s Global Financial Crime Task Force (IGFCTF).

With over 35 years’ experience in Law Enforcement, he served the majority of his career in the Garda Counter Terrorism Unit and most recently as a Detective Inspector in charge of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau.

He holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution and a Post Graduate Degree in Legal Studies. He also holds academic qualifications in Cyber Crime, Financial Crime Investigations, Environmental Law and Corporate Risk and Governance, from University College Dublin, Ireland.

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.

Raül works at CAIXABANK, one of Europe's leading financial institutions, leading strategic initiatives across Financial Crime Prevention, Compliance, Security, Fraud Prevention, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation.

During the first five years of my career at CAIXABANK, he was responsible for major Compliance and Financial Crime projects, focusing on Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Sanctions Compliance, international trade compliance, financial crime controls, and regulatory transformation. His work included the implementation and enhancement of sanctions screening platforms, compliance monitoring capabilities, and prevention frameworks designed to strengthen the bank's ability to identify, assess, and mitigate increasingly sophisticated financial crime risks.

Over the last five years, he has led Security projects and programs focused on the prevention, detection and investigation of fraud, scams, cyber-enabled crime, identity-related crime, and other emerging threats affecting both customers and financial institutions.

Throughout his career, he has actively participated in international initiatives involving major stakeholders across the anti-financial crime ecosystem, collaborating on projects and working groups connected with the European Payments Council (EPC), the Bank of Europe, Europol, Interpol, the Spanish National Police, and other international organizations and public-private partnerships. These initiatives have focused on financial crime prevention, fraud detection, sanctions compliance, identity verification, intelligence sharing, cross-border investigations, and the use of emerging technologies to support law enforcement and financial institutions.

Prior to joining CAIXABANK, he spent three years with the Catalan Police (Mossos d'Esquadra), where he served as Technical Lead for criminal intelligence databases and advanced crime analytics.

Dr. Shlomit Wagman is a leading expert in AI in the fight against financial crime and fraud. Shlomit Director-General of the Israel Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Prohibition Authority (IMPA), a financial regulator and law enforcement agency, from 2016 to 2022, and Acting Director-General of the Israel Privacy Protection Authority from 2019 to 2021.

She is an expert in the fields of financial regulation, digital assets and crypto-currencies, money laundering and terrorism financing, privacy and data protection, financial intelligence and data analytics.

She holds both JSD and LLM degrees from Yale Law School (2007, 2005) and a joint LLB and BA degree (magna cum laude) in law and business management from the Hebrew University (2001). She clerked for the Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, Prof. Aharon Barak.

Dr. Wagman worked in the private sector with leading law firms, including Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz in NYC and Gross-Hodak in Israel. She is the co-editor of the book "Cybercrime" (NYU Press, 2007), with Prof. Jack Balkin et al. She served as an adjunct lecturer at Tel Aviv University and Raichman University (2007–2012) and was a fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School (2003–2007).

Dr. Wagman was the Head of the Israeli delegation to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing watchdog from 2016 to 2022, and also served as a Co-Chair of the FATF operational working group, a member of the Steering Group, and was a nominee for Presidency.

As the head of Israel’s AML authority, she led major national reforms, including regulating cryptocurrencies, and the historic accession of Israel to the FATF as a member country after an evaluation process in which Israel was placed among the top three most effective countries in the world. Under her leadership, IMPA exposed hundreds of money laundering and terrorism financing cases, leading to the crackdown on major criminal organizations and the seizure of billions of illicit funds. IMPA further received various international awards, including the Best Financial Investigation Worldwide by the Egmont (2016, 2021) and recognition by the FATF as one of the three most effective FIUs worldwide.

As the head of Israel’s Privacy Protection Authority, she produced an unprecedented number of regulatory opinions, led innovative enforcement actions, and handled mega national data-leaks and cybersecurity attacks. The Supreme Court adopted her positions in two fundamental national cases: in limiting the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Beit) from monitoring citizens during COVID 19, and in striking down the transfer of citizens’ health data to local municipalities.

In addition to her current affiliation with the BKC, she serves as a Research Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government (M-RCBG) at Kennedy School of Government and as an Affiliated Fellow at the ISP at Yale Law School.

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.

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.

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).

James acquired the Stubbs brand from Dun & Bradstreet in 2008 and built the company’s reach. He was founder and chairman of the Irish Fraud Bureau.

Vivienne Artz OBE FCSI (Hon) CMgr CCMI AIGP

Vivienne is the CEO of the FTSE Women Leaders Review, the UK’s business-led voluntary framework, supported by Government to improve the representation of women on the Boards and Leadership teams of the FTSE 350 and 50 of the UK’s largest private companies.

Vivienne is also a NED and holds a number of expert advisory roles supporting businesses in their data, privacy and digital strategies, with a focus on AI and new technologies, anti-financial crime and equality & diversity. Vivienne has over twenty five years experience in global financial and professional services sectors, including at the London Stock Exchange Group, Refinitiv, Thomson Reuters and Citibank. Vivienne is the AI and Data Lead at the International Business & Diplomatic Exchange, was co-chair of the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime Data Privacy expert working group, chapter co-lead of the City of London “Vision for Economic Growth” report, and has advised UK government on international data transfer strategies.

Vivienne is an exceptional advocate for gender balance in business, is a Patron of Women in Finance Rwanda, and is the former CEO of Women in Banking and Finance. She was awarded an OBE for services to Financial Services and Gender Diversity in 2021.

Adv Xolisile Khanyile Chair of the Global Coalition Against Financial Crime and a career prosecutor across several leadership roles over 23 year career. Xolisile served in the Asset Forfeiture Unit for a period of more than 5 years and was appointed by the President of South Africa as a Director of Public Prosecutions for a period of 8 years.

From January 2018 to August 2023, she held the position of Director of the Financial Intelligence Centre. During her tenure she also served as the Vice Chair of the Egmont Group and then was promoted to the position of Chair. Xolisile led the South African delegation at the FATF meetings and at the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group meetings during her tenure in the FIC.

Xolisile has conducted numerous training sessions, both nationally and internationally, to prosecutors, law enforcement, civil society, regulators, and the financial sector, amongst many others. Amongst the numerous training opportunities she has led, Xolisile has also provided training on financial crimes, sexual offences, asset forfeiture, corruption, human trafficking, transnational organized crime, combatting money laundering and terrorist financing, FATF standards, and environmental matters to several African countries as well as globally. Xolisile has been a guest speaker and a speaker at several international conferences such as the Interpol 90 General Assembly, Wolfsberg Annual Conference, United for Wildlife Global Summit hosted by Lord Hague.

Xolisile led the establishment of the Fusion Centre in South Africa and the first Public Private Partnership in Africa, the SAMLIT. Xolisile was awarded the Financial Crime Fighter of the year for 2022 by the Global Coalition To Fight Financial Crime. On the 30th of August 2023 she was appointed as the Chair of the African Chapter of the Coalition. On the 5th of December 2023 the Compliance Institute of Southern Africa awarded her the INKANYEZI award in recognition of her commitment to the fight against financial crimes. Early February 2024 Xolisile was appointed as the Chair of the United for Wildlife Financial Taskforce of the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Xolisile holds a B Juris, LLB, LLM and MDP from the Business School of the University of Free State. She attended the Duke University African Women Charted Accountants course in 2015 and graduated in 2016.

Currently Xolisile is the Director of Langelihle Consultants that does training on AML\CFT, and any other financial crime matters as well as ethics. In this capacity Xolisile has spoken at several regional and international forums such as the Women in Financial Crime Conference hosted by AML Intelligence, the London Stock Exchange FICA Conference, the Qatar Compliance Conference, the Namibian Standard Bank Anti-Financial Conference amongst others.

Xolisile is currently also registered as a Senior Expert with the European Union AML\CFT Global Facility where she facilitates and gives training on Immediate Outcome 6 to Financial Intelligence Units and Law Enforcement Agencies. On 31 October 2024 the South African Minister of Finance appointed Xolisile to be a member of the Financial Services Tribunal and the Financial Intelligence Centre Appeal Board.

Anu currently serves as Head of FCC Regulatory Change and Global Programmes for BNY’s EMEA region and co-chairs the external AFME Financial Crime and Compliance Working Group.

She brings over 23 years of cross-jurisdictional experience in the UK, US and Asia, specialising in global and regional AML regulatory developments, policies and standards.

Prior to joining BNY, Anu worked with HSBC, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, RBS, Cisco Financial Services and a leading FinTech firm.

She is a Fellow of the International Compliance Association and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering.

Stephen is Co Founder and Chair 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, driving digital audiences to 15 million per month.

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 (WEF) and on the European Commission's High Level Expert Group (HLEG) on Disinformation.

Stephen is Principal at Kobn, a specialist European leadership advisory, with an emphasis on strategic risk and cybersecurity.

Tommas Kaplan started his professional career as a detective inspector with the criminal investigation department, where he gained extensive practical experience in combating terrorism and terrorist financing in the field of national security.

After his time with the police, he moved to von Poll Real Estate, one of Europe's largest real estate agencies, where he built up a modern and effective compliance structure from scratch, focusing on money laundering prevention, internal investigations, corruption and fraud prevention as well as data protection. In his position as money laundering reporting officer, he established a robust AML compliance structure in the real estate sector through numerous presentations and contributions.

He has also been involved as an expert in the development of innovative digital solutions for AML and CFT.

During his employment, he has been actively involved in the PPP Anti-Financial Crime Alliance (AFCA), where he founded and led the ‘Money Laundering in the Real Estate Sector’ working group from 2020 to May 2025. Under his leadership, three internationally recognised typology papers were published, which received with considerable resonance among experts (including FATF, foreign FIUs, EFIPPP, law enforcement and supervisory authorities, UNODC, etc.).

He also heads the ‘Real Estate’ focus group in the ‘Professional Enabler’ workstream of the Europol Financial Intelligence Public-Private Partnership (EFIPPP). Furthermore, he is a recognised expert for the Council of Europe and regularly contributes to regulatory initiatives for the international prevention and combating of money laundering and terrorist financing (for example in Austria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and many other countries).

Alongside this, he provides training to law enforcement and supervisory authorities in the financial and non-financial sectors, teaching them how to implement an effective risk-based approach to supervision. He also covers special money laundering typologies, including professional money laundering as a service, hawala, chinese and criminal underground banking, clan crime and evironmental crime.

In 2019, Eduardo took on the role of coordinator for the I-Checkit program. He led the expansion of the I-Checkit program into the financial sector, a move that was approved by INTERPOL Member Countries during the annual General Assembly. Under his leadership, he forged collaborative partnerships with CaixaBank and PONANT Cruises.

Eduardo has been working in the INTERPOL General Secretariat since 2003, holding various positions focused on database management and facilitating the exchange of police information among INTERPOL Member Countries. Notably, he successfully spearheaded the implementation of an automated system that enables all Member Countries to seamlessly insert and manage information on individuals subject to request for international police cooperation, including INTERPOL Notices. This innovative system substantially reduced the timeframe required for law enforcement authorities worldwide to access and act on critical information.