#WomeninFincrime

AnnaLou Tirol is the Deputy Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. FinCEN’s mission is to safeguard the financial system from illicit use, combat money laundering, and promote national security through the strategic use of financial authorities and the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence. FinCEN serves as the administrator and primary regulator of the Bank Secrecy Act for bank and non-bank financial institutions, including emerging payments involving virtual currency. FinCEN also is the Financial Intelligence Unit of the United States.

Ms. Tirol was previously the Associate Director for FinCEN’s Strategic Operations Division, which is responsible for designing and implementing FinCEN’s strategic partnerships, coordinating stakeholder priorities, and safeguarding access to FinCEN’s information, tools, and resources.

Prior to joining FinCEN in 2019, Ms. Tirol was the Acting Chief of the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Ms. Tirol began her public service career with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of California.

She served with DOJ’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training as the Anti-Corruption Resident Legal Advisor in Serbia and as the Resident Legal Advisor in Panama focused on anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing. Ms. Tirol is an adjunct professor of law at
Georgetown University Law Center teaching advanced evidence.

Mrs. Hennie Verbeek-Kusters was appointed Chair of the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units in July 2020 and will serve as Chair until July 2022. Mrs. Verbeek-Kusters has long been involved in the Egmont Group and served previously as Chair of the Egmont Group from July 2017-2019 and interim Chair in 2020. Through her engagement in the Egmont Group, Mrs. Verbeek-Kusters aims to enhance the cooperation amongst FIUs as well as with the private sector.

Mrs. Verbeek-Kusters has been the Head of the FIU – the Netherlands since 2008, and in October 2010, Mrs. Verbeek-Kusters became the Head of FIU for the Caribbean part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba). During Mrs. Verbeek-Kuster's time as HoFIU, the FIU – the Netherlands has grown in its capacity to receive and analyze transactions and increase its focus on cooperation with (external) partners in the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism.

Raluca Prună works for the European Commission, as Head of Financial Crime Unit in DG Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union (FISMA). From 2015 to 2017, she served as Minister of Justice in the Romanian Government.

Since 2007, she worked in several Directorate Generals of the European Commission, in various fields as fight against organized crime, financial crime, and free movement of goods. Previously she worked in the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union (2005-2007) and the Delegation of the European Commission in Bucharest (2000 -2005). Ms Prună started her career as lawyer in 1996. She is a founding member and former President of Transparency International Romania.

Daniëlle Goudriaan is a Dutch prosecutor with more than 20 years of experience. Prior to joining the EPPO, she was the national coordinating prosecutor on corruption in the Netherlands at the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Serious Fraud, Environmental Crime and Asset Confiscation. She was responsible for establishing the specialised corruption team within the Dutch Prosecutor’s Office (DPO), and supervised and provided guidance to members of this team on individual cases. This team handles complex bribery cases (foreign and commercial) and supports other prosecutors dealing with these corruption cases. The team exercises the authority on behalf of the prosecutor’s office on the criminal investigations conducted by the Anti-Corruption Center from the Fiscal Intelligence and Investigations Service (FIOD).

As the national prosecutor on corruption, Goudriaan was also responsible for further professionalisation and development of the specialism within the DPO, and was involved in developing policies in this field. Prior to this position, she had been a senior prosecutor for several years and had handled numerous complex fraud and corruption cases. She was also part of the Dutch delegation in the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions (WGB), a member of the Management Group of the WGB and Chair of the Meeting of the Law Enforcement Officials (WGB).

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.

Rekha joined HSBC Global Operations in February 2021, as the Global Head of Risk Operations. Prior to this, she was the Chief Control Officer for HSBC Wealth and Personal Banking (WPB) leading the organisation, with the objective to continuously strengthen the Risk and Control environment whilst ensuring alignment with the business strategy. ​​

Rekha has been in the financial services industry for 30 years and prior to joining HSBC has held a number of Senior Management roles within Citi Group. She has worked across various geographies including India, Sweden, UK and now Hong Kong.​​

She leads the Operations Diversity and Inclusion agenda, championing to build a diverse and even more inclusive organisation, leading on a number of initiatives across LGBT+, Disability, Gender, Ethnicity & Wellness. Rekha is passionate when it comes to supporting people, both within and outside the financial services sector, and takes an active role in mentoring colleagues within the organisation as well as externally. ​​

Being an avid traveller and physical fitness enthusiast, she often combines her family holidays with cycling and trekking adventures. Rekha and her husband have two grown up children and they love to spend time walking their golden retriever. She recently relocated from London to Hong Kong and is enjoying life in this vibrant world city.​

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Charmian Simmons is a Financial Crime and Compliance Expert covering Financial Services at SymphonyAI. She has over 20 years of experience in the financial sector across risk management, financial crime, internal controls and IT advisory. She is a technology evangelist specialising in AI innovations and transformation. Charmian is responsible for providing practitioner expertise, thought leadership and analysing key policy, regulatory and technology drivers transforming the compliance market.

Prior to joining Symphony AI, Charmian was a Fincrime Expert with BAE Systems, a Regional Director of Strategy and Performance for the Risk business at Refinitiv, the Head of Audit in North America at Lloyds Banking Group USA and a Vice President at Morgan Stanley covering Institutional Securities and Capital Markets.

Charmian is CAMS, CDPSE, CRMA and CISA certified.

An Assistant Director and financial intelligence specialist with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Toni manages work involving forensic audits and investigations of issues ranging from federal program fraud to sanctions violations. She has 20 years’ experience in auditing banking, securities, and various payments systems issues, and fraud risk management.

Toni has led numerous audits on the oversight of anti-money laundering issues in the financial services industry, and more recently beneficial ownership and corporate transparency risks to federal programs and fraud in pandemic relief programs. Before her auditing career, she was a lobbyist in international trade. She holds a B.A. in Economics and M.A. in International Development from American University. Toni currently serves on the advisory board of the Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists.

Moyara "Mo" Ruehsen is a Professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in Monterey, CA and serves as the Director of the Financial Crime Management Program.

After receiving three graduate degrees from Johns Hopkins University, Professor Ruehsen spent a post-doc year at the University of California, Berkeley, to study international organized crime. Since then, she has been teaching courses on money laundering, corruption, trade-based financial crime, sanctions compliance, terrorism financing, proliferation financing and cyber-enabled financial crime.

Professor Ruehsen is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) and a Certified Financial Crime Specialist (CFCS). She served for several years on the Editorial Advisory Board of Money Laundering Alert, and has published many articles and book chapters on topics related to threat finance. Professor Ruehsen conducts training domestically and overseas for the US government, the United Nations, and the private sector.

Suneeta is overseeing a team of 2,300 people across various countries. She worked in HSBC for 15 years where managed large scale transformation at both local and global levels.

Her experience spans across Dubai, Turkey, India, Egypt, Sri Lanka and now Poland. Suneeta has been involved in HSBC’s efforts to detect financial crime since 2013 when the bank was under the DPA, till date. She has been involved in both the creation and execution of a global standard for detecting potential money laundering and terrorist financing activity. This has now expanded to also include Human Trafficking.

Ruth joined the International Compliance Association (ICA) in 2017 from Barclaycard, where she was Head of Financial Crime Strategy and Control.  Ruth has over 16 years’ experience as a financial crime prevention practitioner, thought leader and innovative business thinker.  Since joining the ICA she has focussed on helping compliance practitioners, and the organisations they work for, manage their knowledge risks with learning solutions that develop capability in financial crime and compliance risk management.

Ruth is a champion of lifelong learning and believes learning solutions work best when embedded into our everyday lives.  Ruth is currently leading the digital transformation in learning at the ICA utilising forward-thinking design and visual communication, innovative learning technologies and driving a vision for experiential learning that puts behaviour-led and personalised solutions at the centre of effective learning outcomes.

Sujata Dasgupta is a multiple international award-winning industry leader, and Global Head of Financial Crimes Compliance Advisory at Tata Consultancy Services, based in Stockholm, Sweden.

She has over 20 years of experience, having worked extensively in the areas of KYC, Sanctions, AML and Fraud across banking, IT services and consulting for premier banks in 7 countries across US, UK, EU, and Asia.

She is an accomplished thought leader, author, columnist, and speaker, and is regularly interviewed by reputed international journals for her analysis and opinions on contemporary topics in this area.

She has been named ‘Risk Professional of the Year 2021’ by Waters Technology, ‘Head of Financial Crimes of the Year 2021’ by GRC World Forums, won the ‘Fraud Prevention Award 2021’ from Themis and featured among ‘The 10 Young and Inspiring Businesswomen to Watch in 2021’ by Tycoon Success Magazine.

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.

Elizabeth Hearst is the Digital Editor of AML Intelligence, having previously served as Senior Correspondent since its inception in 2020.

Elizabeth is responsible for the curation of daily content, editing and publication of news stories on AML Intelligence, as well as management of all social media platforms and event co-ordination.

A graduate of Dublin City University's Masters of Journalism programme, Elizabeth spent time as a Schuman Trainee at the European Parliament's Liaison Office in Dublin, and previously interned with the national broadcaster RTÉ at Ireland's General Election 2020.

Elizabeth has a passion for politics, banking and current affairs and brings an in-depth understanding of European politics to her role at AML Intelligence.

Federica is a Partner at Interpath Advisory, where she co-leads a team of regulatory experts who assess and investigate regulatory and financial crime concerns on behalf of regulators and enforcement agencies globally.

Federica has led and been involved in numerous of the recent large-scale investigations (Swedbank, Latvian/ABLV flows, organised crime) on behalf of regulators in Europe and the US, including a dual-track (criminal and regulatory) investigation into a major universal bank that revealed the facilitation of significant terror-related activity.

Federica translates her direct, hands-on, experience of investigating complex financial crime schemes (encompassing illicit use of shell companies/complex ownership structures, cryptocurrencies, hacking incidents, ransomware scams, identity theft schemes and bribery and corruption) involving a wide range of jurisdictions (including Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Malta, Cyprus, UK, US, Sweden, Italy, Libya, Hong Kong, the BVI, Panama, Bermuda and Curacao) into practical advice for supervisors and regulated firms and advises regulators and law enforcement agencies as to how to build and improve (intra-)jurisdictional infrastructure to prevent an investigate financial crime .

Federica has conducted investigations and served as a strategic advisor to the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) and Malta Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) on the topic of financial crime and served, on an interim basis, as Head of the MFSA’s Financial Crime Unit. She also advises the regulators and other government entities in preparation for upcoming FATF assessments.

Amongst Federica’s clients are the EMEA regulators (including the UK FCA, MFSA, FIAU, CySEC, CBUAE, BaFIN, Bermuda Monetary Authority, Guardia di Finanza and Danish FSA), governments (e.g., UK, Malta, UAE, Cyprus, Lithuania and Cayman Islands) and a wide range of financial institutions (including gambling and cryptoassets businesses).

She is a Board Director of Malta’s ACAMS Chapter and AML Intelligence and a senior adviser to the EU AML/CFT Global Facility on the topics of beneficial ownership and virtual assets.

In her early career, Federica set up and co-led an independent firm consulting financial services and government agencies in Europe on quantitative risk management and general compliance.

Later, Federica held senior compliance and control roles (including Head of Compliance and MLRO) in industry (including at Credit Suisse, RBS and ICICI Bank, all in the UK), setting up and leading control and compliance units. She also led the regulatory affairs team that negotiated (with, inter alia, the FCA, PRA, HMT and European Commission) the terms of the Banking Licence Application for Williams & Glyn as part of the RBS rescue package deal with the UK government.

Federica is a frequent speaker and writer on various financial crime topics, the predicate offences that drive it, the small (but impactful) shortfalls that cause illicit flows to pass through the financial system, the consequences of financial crime and to provide pragmatic advice as to how to remediate them.