Financial Access for All: Advancing Financial Inclusion Priorities

Dr William Scott Grob, CAMS-FCI, CGSS, FRM, CAIA, is the Director of Research and Analysis, responsible for promoting quantitative research methods. He has built customized programs, such as the two Illegal Wildlife Trade certificates developed with the WWF & WJC and the two Ending Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking with the FAST Initiative & Polaris. Previously, he was the ACAMS AML Director for the Americas and Asia. Dr. Grob has over 25 years of financial and banking expertise. His most recent role was as Regional Head of Affiliates Management, HSBC, where he worked on mitigating financial crime and correspondent banking risks across Asia. His 12-year career at the bank also included managing risk within the Equity/FX prime brokerage business, Structured Funds business, and Hedge Fund units.

Prior to joining MasterCard, Mr. Fields was with GE Capital for twelve years in various senior compliance officer roles, including Deputy Chief Compliance Officer for both GE Capital Solutions and GE Capital America, AML Counsel, and Compliance Leader – Financial Crimes Compliance Group. Previously Mr. Fields’ practiced White Collar Criminal defense for Wiggin & Dana, LLP, and prior to that he was an Enforcement Attorney with the United States Securities & Exchange Commission.

Mr. Fields is a certified anti-money laundering professional under ACAMS, and served as a founding board member for the ACAMS Connecticut chapter.

Mr. Fields graduate with a Juris Doctorate from Pace School of Law and earned his B.S. from Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. He is a member of the bar for the 2nd District, New York State, and Connecticut.

Maha Khan is Financial Sector Lead with the Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAST) initiative, a project based at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research. Hailing from Pakistan, Maha has over 15 years of experience spearheading and managing multi-million dollar research and strategic operations programs in 15 countries across Asia, Africa and the US, focusing on sustainable finance and technology for good. Prior to joining UNU-CPR, Maha led the Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) at Accion FinTech data initiatives that bridge the information gap between financial service providers, investors, and donors. 

Maria Sofia Reiser is a Research Analyst at RUSI’s Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies. Her recent work has focused on restricting kleptocracy by empowering civil society activists and investigative journalists in East Africa, the Western Balkans and Latin America with greater knowledge of domestic and international anti financial crime standards.

Her other expertise includes the human harms of illicit finance, achieving inclusive financial integrity and developing national risk assessments for the DNFBP sector.

Prior to joining RUSI, Maria Sofia was an intern at the UNODC Global Maritime Crime Programme, researching illegal trafficking, migration and piracy in Latin America and the Caribbean. She holds an MA (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Edinburgh.