Member Spotlight

Member Spotlight

ACFCS is built on the knowledge, success stories, and continued participation of our proud members in the world of financial compliance. With an ACFCS membership, your career development opportunities are endless.   

Read below to view our growing collection of member spotlights and join our talented community by becoming a certified financial crime specialist today!

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MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

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ACFCS Member Spotlight: For Quantifind’s Graham Bailey, success across 30-year career journey defined by courage to conquer data challenges, charisma to enlist human partners in public, private circles

For more than 30 years, Graham Bailey has made a career out of bringing structure, stratification and order to the unwieldy, subjective and ever-mercurial concept of risk – first in the government, then for bank fincrime fighters.

For Ciphertrace’s Pamela Clegg, the key to successful investigations in real, virtual worlds is following instinct, being a good teacher, and perpetual learner

For Pamela Clegg, Vice President, Crypto Investigations and Risk at blockchain analytics pioneer Ciphertrace, the answer to that age-old question of am I making a difference came during a case when the tools, expertise and financial crime instinct she had crafted for more than a decade came together to help rescue a young girl being trafficked.

For Uri Rivner, the CEO and co-founder of Refine Intelligence, mission to overcome scammers leads to industry-defining payment defenses: intelligent authentication, behavioral biometrics, automated customer fraud queries

Uri Rivner, the Co-Founder and CEO of Refine Intelligence, has been an innovator, startup founder and online payments fraud-fighting pioneer for more than two decades.

For Ruud Grotens, the Head of Fraud and Financial Crime Solution Consulting at Bottomline Technologies, inspiration to grow, conquer new challenges found in Dutch axiom: ‘nothing is too difficult for those willing’

With more than 30 years of experience in the field of financial crime and compliance, tuning the systems and empowering the human professionals running them, Ruud Grotens said inspiration for him comes from a powerful concept: that will can overcome adversity.

For Thomson Reuters Institute’s Rabihah Butler, jumping into fincrime fight was a ‘crazy’ decision borne of passion, desire to learn, grow and guide others in legal, compliance fields

For Rabihah Butler, getting into the compliance field wasn’t an accident or aberration, simply falling into it because it was an upgrade from her current position. It also wasn’t an easy fallback – such as someone coming from a background as a regulator or government investigator.

In quest to capture data, conquer corporate ownership registry challenges, Moody’s Analytics’ Ljubinka Slaveska gets ‘absorbed’ into AML world

While maybe not aware of it at the time several years ago, learning how to digitize, capture and upgrade ownership registries in Macedonia set Ljubinka Slaveska on a path to tackling one of the biggest financial crime challenges of the modern era: shell companies and, more broadly, the seedy world of corporate secrecy.

ACFCS Member Spotlight: For BottomLine's Dalit's Amitai, fighting fraud, bolstering compliance defences is an 'all in' effort to better harness techonology empower teams, thwart creative criminals

Dalit Amitai knows that criminals, whether they are cyber hackers, fraudsters or money launderers, are infinitely creative – always looking for a way to breach systems, steal from customers or cleanse sullied funds through an institution.

ACFCS Member Spotlight: For Sayari's Jessica Abell, unasked question leads to quest to better uncover illicit finance by bridging divide between investigations, intelligence, rising data capacity vs. eduring corporate opacity

For Jessica Abell, the irony doesn’t escape her that her career thus far has been a quest to answer the question: are certain actions, transactions and reactions to geopolitical power dynamics by a given entity a threat to national security.

ACFCS Member Spotlight: For PwC's Vikas Agarwal, advice to 'choose the harder right than easier wrong' has fueled convergent stratagem, drive to master AML tech, training, auditing, data divination, cyber disciplines

For Vikas Agarwal, even decades ago, he seemed predestined to become a fincrime fighter and compliance champion – even though he didn’t know it yet. But looking back, there were early signs. A gift with numbers. At ease with deconstructing data. Being able to pull back and see what it all means.

ACFCS Member Spotlight: For NICE Actimize's Adam McLaughlin, fincrime fight has turned from kicking down doors as London cop to busting down silos as compliance tech titan

NICE Actimize’s Adam McLaughlin, a self-proclaimed “adrenaline junkie,” is just as comfortable throwing himself headlong into the abyss – and the unknown – in the real world as he is leaping into the cavernous maw of a beastly compliance technology challenge in a virtual realm.

ACFCS Member Spotlight: For Dharm Patel, VP and General Manager of Fraud and Financial Crime at Fiserv, improving emotional intelligence can fuel team passion, compliance success

Dharm Patel’s career has been mainly focused on the challenges of better capturing, analyzing and wielding data, first to stop fraudsters and scammers and more recently, to buttress anti-money laundering compliance.

For Elliptic’s Stelios Tachtatzis, a picture is worth more than a thousand words – particularly when it can reveal criminals using virtual value to monetize illicit hauls

Stelios Tachtatzis is one of the rare figures in the financial crime and compliance space who has taken a truly expansive and convergent mindset to strengthen compliance and fight financial crime.

ACFCS Member Spotlight: The secrets to success for Jumio’s Craig Fetterman? Treat those under you like they were your boss, continually broaden knowledge, network

When Craig Fetterman finally got a chance to manage others in the compliance field, he made sure not to let it go to his head. Rather than trying to institute an authoritarian regime, he took a decidedly different tack, guided by a simple but powerful philosophy: “Treat people who work for you as if they were your boss.”

For Jim Dinkins, president of Thomson Reuters Special Services, persistence, disproving doubters a hallmark of 30 years in federal law enforcement, compliance

James “Jim” Dinkins has made a career out of fighting financial crime in all of its forms over more than 30 years – at the forefront of the intersection of national security, border security, organized crime, narco trafficking, global trade and terrorist financing.

For RV, a top countercrime system architect at software giant Oracle, the keys to success include turning disagreement to dialogue, staying informed to transform, letting disruption lead to innovation

Rajaram Vadapandeshwara has been at the vanguard of designing software to empower banks to better fight financial crime over the past two decades, tasked with adapting and overcoming criminal groups using ever more exotic schemes and sophisticated technologies to evade detection.

ACFCS Member Spotlight: For Sensa’s Deleep Nair, background in data science, statistics, leads to finding illicit drug shipments, census cheats, sharpening compliance tech, tactics

Early in Deleep Nair’s career, he confided to a mentor that he felt a “bit intimidated” and wondered whether he could compete in such a crowded field when his competitors could easily impress recruiters and target employment firms with just a word: Harvard, Yale or Princeton.

ACFCS Member Spotlight: For Moody’s Katie Conroy, fincrime analytics, compliance problem solving mirrors holism approach of anthropology, study of ‘how’ to learn, not just ‘what’ to learn

For Katie Conroy, fincrime compliance problem solving is more than just analyzing rules, ruminating on regulations, digesting data and settling on a defensible risk plateau. It’s about the history of human problem solving itself: anthropology to amplify strategy.

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What everyone is saying...

The CFCS tests the skills necessary to fight financial crime. It's comprehensive. Passing it should be considered a mark of high achievement, distinguishing qualified experts in this growing specialty area.

KENNETH E. BARDEN  
CFCS, Washington, DC

The exam tests one's ability to apply concepts in practical scenarios. Passing it can be a great asset for professionals in the converging disciplines of financial crime.

DANIEL DWAIN 
CFCS, Chief Compliance Officer, Cidel Bank & Trust Inc. New York, NY

The Exam is far-reaching. I love that the questions are scenario based. I recommend it to anyone in the financial crime detection and prevention profession.

BECKI LAPORTE
CFCS, Principal - AML Strategy and Innovation, FinScan, Atlanta, GA

This certification comes at a very ripe time. Professionals can no longer get away with having siloed knowledge. Compliance is all-encompassing and enterprise-driven.

KATYA GOZIAS
CFCS, Los Angeles, CA

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

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