Greater Toronto Chapter

Rebecca Ip is a Vice-President of KPMG Forensic Inc. in Toronto and has specialized in Forensic Accounting since 2007. Rebecca has extensive experience in advising clients in the financial industry on AML, sanctions, anti-bribery and corruption, fraud and litigation related matters in Canada, United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

On AML-specific projects, Rebecca assisted clients in compliance regime assessments, gap analysis, remediation projects and pre-and-post-regulatory assistance. Rebecca’s AML experience also includes non-financial entities such as real estate and dealers in precious metals and stones.

Rebecca is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF), Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and Chartered Accountant (CA) and has a Masters of Accounting degree from the University of Waterloo.

Lydia has over 17 years experience in Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing compliance within the MSB, global payments and push to card/prepaid card space having built and maintained compliance programs for multinational global payments firms. Lydia currently serves as the Head of Compliance for card issuing fintech and payments firm, AptPay Inc., located in Toronto, Ontario. Lydia has served in compliance leadership roles gaining extensive experience in AML, KYC, process development, project management, sanctions programs, risk management, quality assurance and relationship management with regulators, banking partners and auditors. Lydia has been a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) since 2005.

Sandeep Sharma is CAMLO of KEB Hana Bank Canada, a Schedule II retail Bank serving Canadian-Koreans individuals and corporate clients in Ontario, Alberta & British Columbia. In this role, he is responsible for AML Compliance regime, specifically all matters concerning anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (proceeds of crime, sanction programs, KYC, training, etc.), privacy & managing relationship with regulators and various stakeholders.

Sandeep has developed a strong sense of devotion for banking and financial services over the past 14 years. He began his career in the field of Compliance at MFC Global Asset Management and has worked at Royal Bank of Scotland, Sunlife Financial, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp of Canada and Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan.

Sandeep is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), CPA, CGA and ACCA from UK.

April Hannan, CAMS is currently an AVP, Enterprise FCRM Training & Communications at TD Bank. She is responsible for building the enterprise-wide AML/ATF training framework and program, working with various jurisdictions and business lines to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements for training.

April has over 12 years of experience in risk management and AML/ATF. She has worked in various roles within 3 Canadian financial institutions gaining experience in complex investigations, data analysis, design, development and implementation of new processes, procedures and training programs. April has also been an effective leader in managing others in various teams. She has been a member of ACAMS since 2014 and has a Bachelor’s of Commerce from Ryerson University.

Ryan Pedwell is currently the Director of Financial Crimes Practice at KPMG Canada. Ryan brings with him over 15 years of experience in the financial industry, in large and mid-tier federally regulated financial institutions, managing regulatory compliance and operational programs in Canada and abroad. Ryan has been a member with ACAMS since 2012 and has had the pleasure of serving as a board director for the ACAMS Vancouver Chapter between 2016 and 2021. Being born and raised in Ontario, Ryan is excited to bring his AMLATF subject matter expertise back to his home province, as he now lives with his husband in Toronto, ON.

Sean is currently an Audit Manager, AML/ATF and Sanctions at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. In this role, he is responsible for conducting risk-focused audits, by identifying potential control weaknesses that may prevent the bank from meeting its AML/ATF and sanctions regulatory requirements.

Sean has over 17 years of  experience in fraud, AML/ATF and sanctions spanning over all three lines of defense within the banking industry. In these roles, he worked on various AML/ATF remediation projects, alert adjudication, case investigations, STR/SAR filing and had an active role to coach and mentor new employees and support senior management within the second line of defense. He has also worked for a number of years in the fraud detection and prevention side of the business.

Sean is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and Certified General Accountant (CGA), Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) and Financial Intelligence Specialist (FIS).

Zain Baig, LL.M, CAMS, brings his expertise in Regulatory Compliance and Financial Crimes to the forefront of the Payments, Asset Management, and Corporate Banking sectors. As the Senior Manager of Compliance at American Express, he leads the company's Regulatory Compliance Management framework. His prior roles include pioneering Enterprise Asset Management Compliance, Financial Crimes, and Independent Testing functions at Sun Life and orchestrating comprehensive controls testing strategies for Wells Fargo Bank's international operations.  

Zain's educational background features an LL.M. from the University of Toronto Law School, enhancing his Business, Securities, and Technology Law proficiency. Beyond his corporate endeavors, he's also the visionary behind Zane Barläs, a thriving online clothing brand. Zain's industry dedication shines through memberships with ACAMS, the Association of Certified Sanctions Specialists, and active engagement with the Practicing Law Institute, underscoring his commitment to advancing compliance standards and driving positive change in finance and beyond.

Email: zain.m.baig@gmail.com

Nicole Walsh has been a member of the Bank of Montreal (BMO) for over 10 years. Her AML expertise spans personal and commercial banking and Capital Markets. Nicole is a passionate leader in AML and an advocate for anti-human trafficking.

She started her career with BMO in their retail banking branches in Toronto, after which she moved to BMO’s AML Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) as a Senior Investigator. She has experience in complex fraud, bribery/corruption, terrorist financing, human and drug trafficking, and child exploitation investigations. In the FIU, Nicole led their Human Trafficking Unit comprised of 3 senior investigators and reimagined their human trafficking machine learning scenario to include FINTRAC’s updated indicators in their operational alert on the subject. Nicole has experience utilizing private public partnerships to liaison with law enforcement for financial crimes investigations. 

Nicole is currently a member of the BMO Capital Markets, AML Advisory & Risk Management team. Her work involves the risk assessment of corporate clients both domestically and internationally. She is the Communications Officer for the Capital Market’s Women’s Affinity Group. She has received her CAMS certification and been a member of ACAMS since 2020.

Email: Nicole.Walsh@bmo.com

Hinny Lam, CAMS, CBP is currently a Manager at Global Economic Sanctions at Royal Bank of Canada. In this role, he is tasked with overseeing the scanning of RBC's worldwide client base for potential sanctions concerns as they relate to certain regulations set forth by GAC, OFAC, EU, UN and other regulatory bodies. 

Hinny has over 5 years of experience in the financial services industry, having begun with mortgage compliance at TD Canada Trust followed by AML/ATF risk mitigation and now sanctions compliance at RBC. In his various roles thus far, he has developed into a leader who prefers to utilize data to help analyze past trends to help better future decision making. He also participates in working groups, trains new hires, provides ongoing input on updating  existing processes and is especially interested in macro-economics that affect client behaviour. 

Hinny is a member of ACAMS since 2022 and CBP certified since 2021. He graduated from University of Toronto with an HBA in Economics, Statistics and Political Science.

Email: hinyu.lam1@gmail.com

Elie Joe Dergham is currently a manager at Transaction Monitoring in the Financial Intelligence Unit in Bank of Montreal (BMO). In this role, he is tasked with leading a team of investigators and supporting the Robotic Process Automation and other technical initiates at BMO.

He started his banking career in 2015 in Bank Audi Lebanon as a retail officer. He later moved into an AML analyst role in Bank Audi from 2016 to 2020. Since joining BMO, he has succeeded in various roles including Senior investigator, Lead Investigator, and Team Lead. During his time in BMO, he led multiple initiatives in the sanctions sphere and technology efficiencies.

He received his CAMS certification in 2018 and has been an active member of ACAMs Toronto chapter since 2022.

Michael is PwC Canada’s National Financial Crime Practice Leader. He has nearly two decades of global experience leading large scale financial crime transformations, and leads PwC Canada’s near shore financial crime Acceleration Center. He has assisted clients in Canada, the US, Asia and Europe on topics such as regulatory response, program review and design, remediation and ongoing operational support in the domains of Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Client (KYC), Fraud, Surveillance, Sanctions and Anti-Bribery and Corruption.

Michael specializes in providing services for the mitigation of financial crime through the application of process, people and technology excellence. This includes the application of his wealth of knowledge in industry leading practices as well as the interpretation of regulatory expectations across multiple jurisdictions. Michael has led several large scale periodic reviews and remediations, including for global institutions operating under deferred prosecution agreements due to gaps in onboarding, periodic review and monitoring of client AML/KYC and transaction monitoring data. He also has specialized knowledge in capital market client regulatory lifecycle management, successfully running large scale client service teams in a business as usual setting across correspondent banking, trade finance and core capital markets business units. 

Michael has also assisted several organizations in the end to end transformation of their financial crime programs in response to regulatory, board or management requests. He has led the delivery of multiple regulatory response programs and operating model re-designs, as well as the associated change management initiatives associated with those engagements.

Email: michael.m.reystone@pwc.com