Shaping Global Collaboration

Paul is the Chief Information Security Officer at Barclays Europe, Barclays Europe Country Lead Ireland, Managing Director of Security Operations and Intelligence and a Director of the Cyber Defence Alliance in the City of London. Paul has been working in the area of Cyber and Fraud since 1996 and has been leading on a Cyber, Fin Crime and Cyber Fusion programme at Barclays.

Joining Barclays in 2015, Paul is founder and the leader of Barclays’ global suite of Joint Security Operations Centres in the UK, USA and India.  As part of his global role, Paul leads the Security Operations team which includes; Joint Security Operations Centres, Group Cyber and Strategic Intelligence teams, Cyber Crime and the Security Education, Outreach and Awareness function.

Paul joined Barclays from the European Cybercrime Centre in The Hague where he was Head of Cybercrime Operations and Intelligence at Europol, European Law Enforcement Agency. While in this post Paul coordinated joint USA and EU Law Enforcement operations against the botnet infrastructure of organised cybercriminal gangs, darkweb paedophile networks and internet fraudsters.

Paul was founding chairperson of the Europol’s European Cybercrime Training and Education Group (ECTEG) and he was also founding Vice-Chair of the European Union Cybercrime Task Force (EUCTF), a group made up of all the Heads of Police Federal Cybercrime Units across the EU.

Paul is a graduate of UCD, where he was also co-founder of the UCD Centre of Cyber Security and Cybercrime Investigation.

Stefan Simon was appointed as a member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bank AG on August 1, 2020. He is Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) and is responsible for Regulatory Affairs as well as for Legal and Governance.

In May 2021 he took on additional responsibility for Compliance, Anti-Financial Crime and the Business Selection and Conflicts Office.

Mr Simon joined Deutsche Bank on August 1, 2019. He was a member of Deutsche Bank’s Supervisory Board from August 2016 until July 31, 2019 and was Chairman of its Integrity Committee.

He is a lawyer and tax consultant and between 1997 and 2016 worked at law firm Flick Gocke Schaumburg, where he became a partner in 2002. Since 2008 he has also been an Honorary Professor at the University of Cologne.

Mr Simon studied law at the University of Cologne and received his doctorate there in 1998.

The APG Executive Secretary is Dr Gordon Hook. Gordon Hook was a partner in a law firm in Winnipeg, Canada in the 1980s and 1990s focusing on criminal trial work. He also served in the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal New Zealand Navy as a senior legal officer which included a 5-month tour in the Persian Gulf from 2002-2003 as the task force legal adviser to a multi-national task force. He then worked Manager of Criminal and International Law with the New Zealand Ministry of Justice, which included responsibility AML/CFT policy. He was appointed to his current position in the APG in 2006.

Gordon Hook is a Barrister and Solicitor of the Manitoba Queen's Bench (Canada) and the High Court of New Zealand. He has a BA and MA from the University of Manitoba (Canada); a LLB from Dalhousie University (Canada) and a PhD (Law) from Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand). He has published and edited a number of articles on AML/CFT and other legal topics in books, law journals and magazines including the book co-authored and edited with David Chaikin, Corporate and Trust Structures: Legal and Illegal Dimensions (Australian Scholarly Publications, 2018) and most recently Terrorist Financing: Global Policy Challenges and Initiatives in 2020, in Australian Counter-Terrorism Yearbook 2020 (Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2021).

Detective Chief Superintendent Michael Gubbins is the current Chief Bureau Officer of the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB). He has been a member of an Garda Síochána for over 30 years, during which time he has worked as a Detective Garda, Detective Sergeant and Detective Inspector at the CCIU. In 2016, Michael was appointed as the Detective Superintendent in charge of the newly formed Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau (GNCCB). During his career, he has represented an Garda Síochána on various Europol & European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) fora including the European Computer Training and Education Group (ECTEG), European Multidisciplinary Platform against Criminal Threats (EMPACT) and the European Union Cybercrime Task Force (EUCTF) of which he is a previous Chair and board member.

In May 2020 Detective Chief Superintendent Michael Gubbins was appointed as the Chief Bureau Officer of the Criminal Assets Bureau. The Bureau’s remit is to target a person’s assets, wherever situated, which derive, or are suspected to derive, directly or indirectly, from criminal conduct. Since its inception, the Bureau has fought organised crime in this jurisdiction and disrupted the activities of criminal gangs by depriving them of ill-gotten assets.

Michael holds a Masters in Forensic Computing & Cybercrime Investigation (MSc FCCI) from University College Dublin, a Postgraduate Diploma in Serious Crime Investigation from the University of Limerick and a Professional Certificate in Governance from the Institute of Public Administration.

Karen joined UK Finance in October 2020 as Managing Director for Intelligence Strategy.  Prior to this she was a police officer for nearly 29 years, starting her career in the Royal Ulster Constabulary and retiring from the City of London Police.  Her final policing role was Commander and National Coordinator for Economic Crime across UK Policing.  Karen’s responsibilities included Complex Fraud, Money Laundering, Overseas Anti-Corruption, Intellectual Property and the Economic Crime Academy.  She deputised for the National Police Cyber lead and led on the ‘Protect strategy’ for cyber policing across UK.

As an investigator Karen has led and been operationally involved in virtually all aspects of serious crime investigations from organised criminality to safeguarding, murder and kidnap.

Karen has been key in areas of leadership including diversity and inclusion and the development of women and other minority groups across policing.  She has a degree in Social Policy and holds a (Mst) with the University of Cambridge.