European Anti-Financial Crime Summit 2026

BRUNA Szego was appointed Chair of the EU's new Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) by the European Council in January 2025.

She has been tasked with leading out Europe's mission to combat dirty money in the Union and beyond. Ms Szego was previously AML chief at Banca d'Italia.

AMLA based in Frankfurt will lead direct supervision of the Union's riskiest banks and oversee the operations of regulators and FIUs.

Originally from Savona on the outskirts of Genoa in northern Italy, Chair Szego studied law at the University of Rome.

She has served in a variety of prominent supervisory positions in the Bank of Italy, including in 2022 being appointed Head of the Anti-Money Laundering Supervision and Regulation Unit, reporting directly to the Governing Board.

In addition, Ms Szego has published articles and papers on her areas of interests, spoken at numerous conferences and appeared on behalf of the Bank at parliamentary hearings.

Ms Szego has been a member and President of Banca d'Italia's recruitment boards for new graduates.

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.

Philippe Vollot has been a member of Rabobank's Managing Board since 1 October 2022. As from January 2026 he is Chief Operating Officer and responsible for several group-wide support functions
and the optimization of all operational processes in Rabobank Retail NL and Wholesale & Rural. In his previous role as Managing Board member, Philippe was responsible for Rabobank's global Financial Economic Crime activities as CFECO.

Before joining Rabobank, Philippe was Executive Board member at Danske Bank for 4 years, first as Chief Compliance Officer and then as Chief Administrative Officer. In that capacity he was responsible for Compliance and Financial Crime Prevention. Prior to that, he spent 15 years at Deutsche Bank as Country and then Regional COO and held various senior positions in Legal, Compliance and Anti Financial Crime. During that time he lived and worked in France, London, Dubai, Frankfurt and New York.

In addition to his daily job, Philippe is a French Foreign Trade Advisor (CCE) since January 2020 and in this role advises French public authorities on international trade matters and ensures the promotion of France’s attractiveness.

In March 2024 Philippe joined the Board of Directors of the Wildlife
Justice Commission in a non-executive role from which he contributes to their mission to disrupt and help dismantle the criminal networks that profit from the trafficking of wildlife.

Philippe studied law at the University of Paris Descartes. He is married and lives in Amsterdam.

Deputy Commissioner Shawna Coxon is known for her commitment to continuous innovation and modernisation in a rapidly changing, increasingly globalised world. She is currently the Deputy Commissioner of Policing Operations at An Garda Síochána, Ireland's National Security and Police Service. An Garda Síochána is the primary law enforcement agency in the Republic of Ireland, providing policing and state security services throughout the State. It is comprised of over 17,000 personnel, including approximately 14,400 sworn Garda members, 3,300 Garda staff and 200 Garda Reserves accommodated in over 600 offices nationwide. The Garda annual budget extends to approximately €2.5b.

Prior to that, Shawna Coxon was a Deputy Chief of Police with the Toronto Police Service where she led three commands at different times: Human Resources, Primary Response, and Communities and Neighbourhoods. Throughout her time as Deputy in these areas, she was responsible for driving the progressive hiring, training, discipline and development of Service members. She oversaw all front-line policing, community and neighbourhood policing, as well as the investigation functions in Toronto’s police divisions. Her remit also included the Service’s Operations Centre, 911 Communications, Traffic Services, the Parking Enforcement Unit and Court Services. The largest of these Commands is the Priority Response Command where she led approximately 3400 people and a budget of $380 million dollars. Deputy Coxon has championed many innovations and is known for her work on the Transformational Task Force and for implementing the inaugural Computer Cyber Crime (C3) Unit.

Shawna Coxon has a B.A.(Hons) in Psychology, a M.A. in Criminology, and her Ph.D. in Law. She completed the UK Executive Leaders Programme (ELP) in 2025. She has published and lectured extensively around the world. She has been an adjunct professor at the University of Guelph-Humber for 19 years.

Deputy Coxon has won numerous awards, including becoming an Officer in the Canadian Order of Merit, receiving the 2021 International Association of Chiefs of Police's Harlin McEwen Law Enforcement Innovation Award and the 2022 Presidential Award from the Ontario Women in Law Enforcement. Despite these recognitions, she remains most proud of appreciation received from the victims and community members she has diligently worked for.

Since joining Nasdaq Verafin in 2017, Niki has held senior leadership roles in teams spanning the entire customer journey — bringing new products to market and expanding the business’ market reach. In her current role as Head of International Fraud and AML Product Strategy, Niki is responsible for delivering Nasdaq Verafin’s industry-leading solutions to a global audience. Niki enjoys combining a curiosity about customer and market challenges with a commitment to continuous product improvement. Niki applies her expertise to our Financial Crime Management solutions, helping financial institutions see the full picture of financial crime with Nasdaq Verafin's global crime fighting network. 

Michele has been appointed by the Board of Assicurazioni Generali SpA and directly reports to it, hierarchically. He is also a stable participant to the Group Risk and Control Committee and member of the Generali Global Leadership Group. He has been also appointed Group AML Officer & Group Money Laundering Reporting Officer; Group International Sanctions Officer and Group Head of Anti Bribery and Corruption.

Before joining Generali in April 2021 he was the Global Head of Anti Financial Crime and Group Bank Secrecy Act Officer at UniCredit Group, where he was an Executive Vice President, also appointed responsible for the UniCredit Monitorship Liaison Office, in charge of the Global Remediation Program which UniCredit implemented as a fallout of the investigation of the US Authorities in relation to Sanctions Compliance matters. Before, he covered different senior managerial roles in Compliance at UniCredit, being the Global Head of Risk Assessment, Controls, Training & Culture for Financial and non Financial Crime Risks (Anti Financial Crime, Market Integrity, Customer Protection, Conduct Risk) and previously Global Head of Compliance Governance, Oversight and Special Projects.

Michele started his career in 2004 in the Investment Banking Division of Deutsche Bank AG, within the European M&A, ECM and DCM desks. In late 2006 he joined the restructuring and turnaround practice of Bain & Company, being in charge of debt restructuring, equity capital markets, corporate finance and financial modelling for companies in distressed situations.

He graduated in Economics from Bocconi University with major in Finance and studied also International Marketing at the New York Leonard Stern Business School and International Business at the Copenhagen Business School.

He holds an MBA in Finance and Management with honor from the IE Business School in Madrid and completed an Executive Program on Leadership and Governance at Insead, Paris, one on Digital technologies at IMD, Lausanne and one on Sustainability and Disruptive Technologies at MIT, Boston.

In May 2021, the Council of the EU appointed Mr Jean-Philippe LECOUFFE to his current post at Europol. Born in January 1964 in France, Mr Lecouffe joined the French National Gendarmerie in 1988.

Ever since, he has held positions of increasing responsibility within the institution. He reached the rank of Lieutenant General in 2021.

During his career, Mr Lecouffe led several operational units in France and its overseas territories.

In 1989, he took on duties in Marmande, followed by his appointment as the Gendarmerie District Commander of the Northern Province of New Caledonia in 1995. Mr Lecouffe led the Regional Criminal Investigation Division in Versailles between 2004 and 2007. In 2007, he took on duties for the Gendarmerie’s division in Grenoble, being responsible for 1500 gendarmes.

In 2014 he moved to Montpellier as
a regional commander of the Gendarmerie in
Languedoc-Roussillon, 3800 gendarmes strong.
Mr Lecouffe also held a number of advisory
positions for the French government and the
French Gendarmerie in Paris.

In 2001, he was a Senior Advisor on corporate matters in the Cabinet of the Director General of the
Gendarmerie and was twice senior advisor to the
French Minister of Defence in 2002 and later in
2012.

Between 2010 and 2012, Mr Lecouffe was
deployed to Afghanistan, where he served as
security/police attaché at the French Embassy in
Kabul under challenging circumstances.
Mr Lecouffe was appointed as Head of the
National Criminal Investigation Directorate of
the Gendarmerie in 2017. He oversaw a large
number of criminal investigators at national
level, and among others led the French
investigation on the encrypted communication
network ‘EncroChat’, which resulted in the
criminal prosecution of thousands of suspects
worldwide.

Mr Lecouffe had worked with Europol on
numerous occasions before joining the agency,
especially on the ‘EncroChat’ case.
As Europol’s Deputy Executive Director,
Operations Directorate, he supervises the
European centres established to support
investigations fighting organised crime,
cybercrime, economic and financial crime and
terrorism.

Mr Lecouffe graduated from the French Military
Academy of Saint-Cyr, from French Army War
College (École de guerre) and the National
Institute for Advanced Security and Justice
Studies (INHESJ). He speaks French and English
fluentl

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.

Danny McCoy is CEO at Ibec, the group that represents Irish business domestically and internationally.

Since becoming CEO in 2009, he has led a substantial transformation of Ibec increasing turnover to €31 million, leading a professional services staff of 240 in 7 locations and 38 sub-brands. Prior to joining Ibec, he served as a senior economist at both the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and the Central Bank of Ireland.

He has held lecturing posts at Dublin City University, University College London, University of Oxford and Trinity College Dublin and has been visiting lecturer at the IMD Business School in Switzerland and Harvard University in the US. He has been a consultant for the European Commission and the OECD.

He currently serves as President of the Statistical & Social Inquiry Society of Ireland and Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Engineers.

He is a member of the Export Trade Council, the BusinessEurope Executive Committee, and the OECD-BIAC working group on Corporate Taxation. Danny correctly identified the turnaround in the Irish economy prior to the EU Troika programme and initiated significant media campaigns around the driving the recovery domestically and internationally.

Over recent years, he has made significant speeches to the United Nations ILO plenary in Geneva; to the European Business Summit in Brussels; spoken at conferences in the New York and London Stock Exchanges, at the IMF in Washington DC, the World Trade Organisation in Geneva; Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce; and the OECD Economic Forum in Paris. He regularly presents to the Global Boards of an international multinational organisation.

He is a regular contributor in the print and broadcast media and has written columns for the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and the Irish Times among other international newspapers.

The Irish Times recently described Danny as one of the ‘50 people who run Ireland’.

Ibec represents Irish business; home grown, multinational, big and small, spanning every sector of the economy.

The organisation and its sector associations, work with government and policymakers nationally and internationally, to shape business conditions and drive economic growth.

It also provides a wide range of professional services direct to members.

Kari Johnstone serves as OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings (SR/CTHB) since 30 October 2023.

She represents the OSCE at the political level on trafficking issues, supports OSCE participating States to strengthen their anti-trafficking policy and operational frameworks, and coordinates the wider OSCE’s efforts to combat trafficking.

Dr. Johnstone served as Principal Deputy Director and Acting Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons from 2014-2023.

In these roles, she advised senior officials on policy and programming strategies to fight human trafficking around the world and oversaw the production of the State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report. Previously, Dr. Johnstone served as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia and International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) in 2013-2014 and as Director for Russia and Central Asia at the National Security Staff of the White House in 2012.

Patricia Dunne is the Director of Horizontal Supervision in the Central Bank of Ireland. Patricia is responsible for the leadership and oversight of the supervision of cross-sectoral and system-wide risks including financial crime, conduct, behaviour and culture, financial resilience, operational resilience and technology risks. Patricia represents the Central Bank as a member of the General Board of the Anti Money Laundering Authority (AMLA).

Previously she was Director of Securities and Markets Supervision, responsible for the supervision of primary and secondary securities markets; market integrity; wholesale market conduct supervision and the supervision of investments funds, fund service providers and trading venues. In this role she represented the Central Bank on the Investment Management Standing Committee of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and chaired several ESMA working groups.

Patricia has more than three decades of regulatory, supervisory and policy expertise in the asset management, investment funds and banking sectors which she has used to positively influence the leadership and strategic direction of financial regulation and the Central Bank’s effectiveness in the area of European and international policy development

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.

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.

Karen Bissett is a senior Financial Crime Compliance and risk leader with over 20 years of legal and banking experience. After 12 years in private practice, Karen spent 7 years with the Bank of Ireland Group. Starting as a senior legal adviser in consumer banking she began to specialise in financial services regulatory projects and acted for a time as chairperson of the Bank’s Mortgage Appeals Board. Karen then took on the role of the Head of Sanctions and Counter-Terrorist Financing and Deputy Group Money Laundering Reporting Officer.

To gain a deeper knowledge of Financial Crime Compliance and risk from an international banking perspective, Karen spent 3 years as a Global Financial Crimes Director and Deputy Money Laundering Reporting Officer for Bank of America’s EU headquartered entity, Bank of America Europe. Karen returned to the Bank of Ireland as Head of Financial Crime and Group Money Laundering Reporting Officer in late 2022. Karen is a member of the Law Society of Ireland and maintains a current practising certificate.

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.

Tony Cahalan is Head of Financial Integrity Division in the Central Bank of Ireland. The Division is tasked with assessing financial crime risks and supervising measures to prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud and targeted financial sanctions evasion in the financial sector in Ireland. He is also Ireland’s alternate member of AMLA’s General Board (Supervisory Composition). He worked previously as Lead Counsel on the European Central Bank’s AML Taskforce in the aftermath of the European AML banking scandals and as an AML expert with the International Monetary Fund

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.

Ms. Kohr's background includes more than nineteen years of experience in the anti-financial crime sector with significant experience in Bank 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 loops to the private sector.

To date, she has been building and leading the agency’s wide initiative to operationalize PPPs and information sharing called CI-FIRST (Feedback in Response to Strategic Threats) program. These efforts are modernizing how IRS-CI partners with the private sector by creating structured feedback loops, improving investigative efficiency, and reducing burdens on financial institutions. She also serves as the lead for domestic and international partnerships and agency priorities such as the PROTECT Exchange series. Prior to CI, 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 was the 2019 recipient of the U.S. Capital Excellence in Public/Private Partnerships award. In 2023, she was recognized as the private sector recipient of 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.

Tarana Baghirova leads the OSCE’s portfolio on financial investigations into human trafficking as well as policy work on trafficking nexus with drugs and terrorism. Until 2023, she also led OSCE Special Representatives political mandate of country visits and evaluated over 20 States’ anti-trafficking efforts. Tarana possesses over 15 years of international experience in coordinated policy planning and program management in a range of areas including security affairs, transnational threats and criminal justice reform.

Prior to joining the Office the Special Representative in 2015, she led Anti-Trafficking programme in the OSCE Office in Baku and also consulted other international organizations, such International Organization for Migration and the International Centre for Migration Policy Development in assessing the state’s anti-trafficking responses.

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.

Pat who is originally from Drimoleague, West Cork, joined An Garda Síochána in 1986 and has served mainly in the Dublin Region but also worked in the South Eastern and Eastern Garda Regions. Pat has worked in Community Policing, Drugs, Prostitution Investigations, Serious Crime Investigations, Fraud and Financial Investigations, Financial Intelligence and Cybercrime. He has held the position of Detective in all ranks and has been at the forefront of the investigation of serious crime for many years. Pat is a Senior Investigating Officer (S.I.O.) and holds a B.Sc in Management Law from Trinity College Dublin.

In 2015, Pat took up his current position as Head of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau. The Garda National Economic Crime Bureau is involved in many high profile investigations and is supported by Gardaí throughout the country trained in Fraud Investigation. Pat and his team have developed a Post Graduate Certificate in Fraud and E-Crime Investigation in association with University College Dublin. Pat was also the lead representative from An Garda Síochána in the 2017 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Review of Ireland. Pat sees education and crime prevention as being the most beneficial ways of reducing fraud into the future.

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.

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.

Damian Brennan is a senior manager in the Financial Integrity Division in the Central Bank of Ireland. In this role, Damian leads the Strategy and Coordination team with responsibility for developing the Central Bank’s AML/CFT and financial crime supervisory strategies along with responsibility for coordinating with key stakeholders domestically and at the EU and wider international level. Damian has extensive international experience having worked as an assessor on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) Mutual Evaluations of the UK in 2017-2018 and Germany in 2021-2022 where he was responsible for assessing the effectiveness of AML/CFT supervision and preventive measures. Damian is a member of Ireland’s delegation to FATF and was a member of the FATF project team which drafted the FATF’s Risk Based Supervision Guidance that was published in 2021, and from 2020 to 2022 was a member of project teams which revised the FATF’s Methodology and Mutual Evaluation process for the next round of FATF assessments. In January 2024, Damian was invited to appear at an expert hearing in the Bundestag where along with other experts provided views on Germany’s draft law to establish a federal AML/CFT agency. Damian has worked in the Central Bank of Ireland since 2001 having held roles in the legal and enforcement areas prior to moving into the AML/CFT area in 2010. Damian holds a Bachelor of Civil Law and Masters in Commercial Law degrees from University College Dublin.

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.

Itxaso Madina is a fintech expert in financial crimes and compliance, currently serving as a Financial Crimes Advisor in Stripe. In this role, she develops and implements tailored Financial Crimes policies, controls and frameworks to address the unique risks and regulatory requirements in the EU market, ensuring that Stripe's operations comply with both existing and emerging regulations.

With over 15 years of experience in the fintech arena, Itxaso has cultivated a robust understanding of compliance and risk management. Prior to joining Stripe, she held multiple roles at PayPal where she led the Global Financial Crimes Governance function overseeing the execution of critical projects related to licensing, regulatory changes, mergers & acquisitions and product expansions. Her ability to foster relationships across various domains and her commitment to driving initiatives were integral to the success of the team.

Earlier in her career at PayPal, Itxaso served as the AML Operational Excellence Manager, where she led the Suspicious Transaction Reporting (STR), Customer Identification Programs (CIP), and Brand Risk Management (BRM) programs. She designed operational frameworks to ensure adherence to local and global regulations while optimizing processes for efficiency and improving operational effectiveness.

Itxaso holds an MBA and a Bachelor's degree in Business from Universidad de Deusto (Spain). She is passionate about sharing her expertise and insights on financial crime prevention and compliance, and she looks forward to contributing to discussions at the AML Intelligence conference.