Nordics Chapter

Rut is an AML, investment banking and governance specialist with over 20 years of experience in the financial sector. She is a senior manager at KPMG, Risk Consulting, and focuses on consulting and auditing financial undertakings. Prior to that she was with Íslandsbanki, one of the three biggest banks in Iceland, for 13 years. She was Head of Compliance and MLRO for 8 years at the bank. Before she joined the bank she was a securities, insurance and pension surveillance specialist at the Financial Supervisory Authority for 9 years, leading many of the biggest market abuse investigations following the financial crisis in 2008, which resulted in the first convictions in Iceland in that field.

She is very enthusiastic about financial crime prevention and educating employees and companies in the financial sector has been a passion of hers for over two decades. She is an avid speaker and lecturer and has taken part in many educational events and conferences focusing on AML and market abuse, both in Iceland and abroad.

Rut graduated as a lawyer from the University of Iceland and has passed the Icelandic bar exam. She is a licensed securities broker from Reykjavík University and holds an MBA degree from UIBS, Barcelona, in investment banking as well as being a certified board member from Akademias.

Rodrigo is a financial crime prevention professional with 18 years’ experience, being 9 years in management consultancy and 9 years in the financial sector. He has served in the three-lines of defense and has had the opportunity to acquire deeper knowledge in extremely complexes ownership structures and the risks that they might pose.

Rodrigo has been involved in extensive and comprehensive risk management and assessments, investigations as well as compliance engagements supporting third parties, assuring and reviewing effectiveness and mapping and improving policies, procedures and internal guidelines.

Rodrigo has been an internal auditor and is a professional with a significant amount of international exposure in Americas, Europe and Africa in addition with a solid and concrete overall experience and knowledge in Financial Crime Prevention with a passion for the AML/CTF. He graduated as lawyer in Brazil, and he is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS®) and possesses specific certifications in ESG and project management.

Flemming Klausen has 28 years of experience in Danish law enforcement, including 14 years as Detective Inspector at the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime, where he led major financial crime investigations both nationally and internationally. He also served as a supervisory lead for financial crime investigations across Danish police districts.

Since 2017, he has worked as a Senior Sanctions Subject Matter Expert in both the first and second lines of defence within financial institutions, contributing to both mature and developing compliance environments. Most recently, he has been engaged in the digitalised global capital markets. He brings extensive practical experience in international financial crime prevention, sanctions governance, and case management.

He is also the author of The ABC of Investigation and The RBA Doctrine – both of which are recognised as professional reference points in financial investigations and risk-based compliance practice.

He holds a postgraduate qualification from Strasbourg University in Financial Investigations and Financial Crime Analysis and is a recipient of the Medal of Honour awarded by His Royal Highness King of Denmark.

Starting in banking and finance with a focus on financial regulation at a top tier Swedish law firm and moving on to the banking sector and AML/CTF regulation explicitly, David has gained extensive experience balancing business needs with administrative requirements. At the firm he served as main point of contact in regard to regulatory queries on AML/CTF. His work at Swedbank has included providing legal opinion in specific customer cases and on issues stemming from regulatory ambiguities, overseeing the roll-out of a regulatory framework for an international branch, conducting internal trainings, and researching and providing legal opinion in respect of international financial sanctions and requirements on the governance of the bank. David is regularly engaged to handle and provide material for reviews of the bank by supervisory authorities. He has partaken in the Swedish institute against money laundering’s (SIMPT) expert group developing industry guidelines.

David holds an LL.M. from the University of Gothenburg, a Postgraduate Certificate of International Finance Law from Queen Mary University of London, a B.A. in History from the University of Gothenburg, and a CAMS certification.

Yulia is a Sanctions Risk Officer at Danske Bank, Norway. Before joining Danske Bank, Yulia worked as a sanctions expert and open-source researcher at the Forensic Services unit of KPMG Norway. Yulia was part of the Corporate Intelligence team that provides KPMG clients with the intelligence and analysis to mitigate and manage risks related to third parties. Her main areas of expertise are integrity and sanctions due diligence. For the past few years, Yulia has been mainly engaged in projects that concerned complex questions of sanctions applicability and scope, sanctions evasion, and ownership/control under EU sanctions. Prior to joining KPMG, Yulia worked as a research analyst/team leader at The Red Flag Group (currently a Refinitiv Company).

Yulia is a certified global sanctions specialist (CGSS) and a member of ACAMS since 2021. Previously, Yulia was a certified fraud examiner (CFE) and a certified compliance & ethics professional (CCEP-I). Yulia has lived and studied in various countries including China, Sweden, Poland, and Norway.

Yulia holds a bachelor's and a master's degree of Science in Business and Economics, Specialisation: Business Administration and Finance from Umeå University in Sweden.

Stuart is an integrity and compliance professional in green investment banking. He is currently a Senior Compliance Officer in Nefco – the Nordic Green Bank, an international financial institution owned by the Nordic countries. As part of a small team, Stuart works on a wide range of integrity, ethics, anti-financial crime and accountability issues. These include identifying and managing integrity risks in Nefco projects, developing and implementing policies, rules and procedures related to ethics and compliance, as well as delivering internal training and responding to complaints.

Before joining Nefco, Stuart worked in the Legal Department of another international financial institution owned by the Nordic and Baltic countries, the Nordic Investment Bank, and in a Nordic startup as Ethics and Sustainability Officer.

Earlier in his career, Stuart served in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as a diplomat (Second Secretary and Consul) in Nigeria. In that role he advised Australian businesses on the opportunities and risks (including corruption) of doing business in Nigeria, and wrote reports on the domestic security situation, regional terrorism, and transnational crime.

Also in the Australian foreign service, Stuart was a Legal Specialist focused on sanctions law and a founding member of the Sanctions and Transnational Crime Section. His team was specially established by the Australian Government to coordinate the implementation, administration and enforcement of UN Security Council and Australian autonomous sanctions, including counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation financial sanctions.

In addition to professional qualifications that include the CAMS Certification, Stuart has a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from the Australian National University, a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice from the College of Law, as well as a Master of International and Comparative Law from the University of Helsinki. He has been admitted as a solicitor and barrister in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, Australia, and has worked in private legal practice in Australia.

Maria is an Internal Audit Manager and Product Owner, working at OP Financial Group, Finland since 2018. She has previously worked for Risk Advisory at Deloitte Finland and Corporate and Institutional Banking at Nordea Finland.

For the past 10 years, she has worked in internal audit and consulting, largely focusing on AML/CTF audits and engagements both in external engagements and in-house. At OP Financial Group, she leads the AML/CTF audit planning and risk assessment and AML/CTF audit quality assurance as well as the development and quality assurance of member cooperative banks' internal audit framework and comprehensive audit programme.

Through her extensive internal audit and compliance background, Maria has gained a strong understanding of financial institutions' key AML/CTF processes and regulation, as well as the roles and requirements set by the three lines of defence model to business, risk management, compliance, and internal audit. She is an advocate of continuous learning and also serves in the Institute of Internal Auditors Finland as a trainer/lecturer, board member and the chairperson of the education committee.

Maria is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA). She holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in Economics and Business Administration from Turku School of Economics, Finland.

Sylwia is a compliance and audit executive with over 25 years of international experience. She currently leads the Whistleblowing and Global Investigations function at Volvo Group in Sweden. Prior to this role, she held senior positions in compliance and internal audit across Volvo Group and KPMG. Her expertise encompasses regulatory compliance, anti-money laundering (AML), fraud investigations, and internal audit. During her tenure at Volvo Financial Services—the Group’s captive finance company—Sylwia oversaw global regulatory and AML compliance. She led global initiatives in digitalizing and automation of compliance processes contributing to improving operational efficiency.

With a strong foundation in both internal audit and compliance, Sylwia brings insights and perspective from outside the traditional banking sector, coupled with hands-on experience managing AML topics in a captive finance company across diverse jurisdictions. She is an advocate for continuous learning and dedicated to fostering a culture of learning from experience and professional networking.

Sylwia is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist and Global Sanctions Specialist and has been a member of ACAMS since 2021. She also holds several other professional credentials, including Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), and is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Sylwia earned an international MBA from the Warsaw University of Technology School of Business, in collaboration with London Business School, HEC Paris, and NHH Bergen. She also holds a postgraduate degree in tax law from Kozminski University in Warsaw, Poland.

Lilja Kristjánsdóttir is the Executive Director of Business Surveillance at Íslandsbanki, Iceland. In this senior management role, Lilja oversees the bank’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing programs in the first line of defence, leading the Business Surveillance department in implementing AML measures, customer due diligence, and the development and maintenance of the bank’s risk assessment framework.

Before taking on her current position, Lilja served as an AML specialist in Compliance at Íslandsbanki, where she was responsible for implementing the bank’s AML monitoring framework and combining supervisory and advisory functions to ensure effective compliance and risk mitigation.

Her main areas of expertise include AML/CFT, operational risk management, and compliance frameworks.

Lilja is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) and a member of ACAMS since 2023. She holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) and a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Reykjavík University.

Ingrida is an experienced regulatory compliance and Financial Crime Prevention professional with over 15 years of experience in the financial sector, spanning multiple geographies.

She, originally from Riga, Latvia, is based in Stockholm. She possesses vast experience in AML, CTF, Sanctions, and Fraud across both Nordic and international markets.

Since early 2024 she is Head of Sanctions Advisory team within the Financial Crime Prevention organisation at Swedbank AB where she oversees sanctions risk across multiple divisions, leads a team of FS Specialists who provide expert advice to a variety of stakeholders across the bank and subsidiaries.

Prior to that she was holding various roles over a decade within Group Internal Audit primarily auditing Financial Crime Prevention and sanctions controls across 10 jurisdictions, as well as contributing to enhancement of Group-wide risk and control concept and reporting, major transformation projects and strategic initiatives at Nordea, one of Europe's largest financial institutions. Ingrida was also over a year joining Nordea's first Financial Crime Prevention organisation where she designed and implemented AML controls for the banks Group-wide KYC capabilities, performed AML/CTF Risk Assessment, as well as participated in regulatory remediation initiatives and reporting to several Regulators across Europe.

Before career at the financial sector Ingrida was working for Big 4 auditing companies and National Audit Office of Republic of Latvia. Ingrida holds master’s degree in business administration, is Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS®) from ACAMS and Certified Financial Sector Auditor (CFSA®) from The Institute of Internal Auditors (The IIA) and remains actively engaged in the global anti-financial crime and internal audit community as moderator and speaker at various events.

Erica is an accomplished compliance professional based in Copenhagen, where she leads Danske Bank’s Sanctions Advisory Team within the Financial Crime Compliance division. At the helm of this specialist global team, Erica oversees a group of sanctions experts dedicated to providing advisory services to a wide range of stakeholders across the Bank.

With more than seven years of experience in various financial crime and investigative roles within Danske Bank’s compliance department, Erica has gradually carved out a niche in the complex world of sanctions. Her extensive background within the organization has equipped her with a nuanced understanding of the challenges facing financial institutions in today’s regulatory landscape.

Before joining the financial crime field, Erica built expertise in open-source intelligence, strategic communications, and geopolitical risk management, developing a sharp analytical perspective that she continues to bring to her current role. Her professional journey is further enriched by an academic foundation in politics and international relations, which has instilled a global outlook. This worldview was deepened by her time living and working abroad, including extended periods in the Middle East and Turkey, experiences that continue to inform her approach to international compliance and advisory work.

Erica holds certifications from ICA (International Diploma in Managing Sanctions Risk and Advanced Diploma in Anti-Money Laundering), ACAMS (Certified Global Sanctions Specialist), and ACSS (Certified Sanctions Specialist), and actively participates in the global sanctions community.

Erica holds a BA in International Studies and Political Science, with a focus on Islamic Studies and Arabic, from the University of North Carolina, and a MA in Middle Easter Studies from the American University in Cairo.