United Kingdom Chapter

Jessie Apple is the Group Head of Financial Crime Compliance & Risk at Wise and the UK MLRO. She is responsible for Wise’s global financial crime compliance and risk programme. Prior to joining Wise, Jessie was the Head of Financial Crime & NL Board Member at Airwallex and prior to that she was the Group Head of Financial Crime Compliance at Revolut.

She has also held other positions such as VP Principal Auditor for Financial Crime at Deutsche Bank as well as Associate Director, Financial Crime: Sanctions Advisory, Due Diligence & Strategy at MUFG. Prior to joining industry, Jessie spent 5 years at Deloitte UK where she was a Manager in the Global Export Controls & Sanctions team. Jessie holds a BA from New York University and an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Aamir is the Vice President, Compliance for EMEA for Western Union. He has held multiple positions in the anti-financial crime space in the public and private sectors including as the Head of Financial Crimes for EMEA / UK MLRO for Stripe, the Regional Head for the US Law Compliance Program for ASEAN and South Asia for Standard Chartered Bank, and the Head of Financial Crimes for the Middle East and North Africa (excluding the UAE) for Standard Chartered Bank. Aamir has also led financial management teams for Expedia and Boeing; and spent nine years working in the U.S. government focusing on geopolitical, intelligence and global financial crime issues. Aamir has an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the Johns Hopkins University and a Masters in International Policy and Practice from George Washington University.

Adam is a Manager within Protiviti’s Risk & Compliance practice, specialising in financial crime compliance. He has held leadership positions across the three lines of defence and has acted for a variety of clients, including large global financial institutions, payment service providers and Designated Non-Financial Institutions (DNFIs) across EMEA, APAC and the Americas. Prior to Protiviti, he spent four years at Handelsbanken providing relationship banking services before undertaking various positions across the financial crime framework. Adam has a Graduate Diploma in Law from Manchester Metropolitan University and a degree in Criminology & Criminal Justice from the University of South Wales and Western Carolina University.

Samar Pratt is the Global Financial Crime Compliance Advisory Leader at Capgemini, based in London. She specialises in anti-financial crime compliance, tech-enabled advisory solutions and managed services. Samar helps clients to enhance their financial crime compliance control frameworks through advice and tech-enabled solutions across the three lines of defence. This includes assisting Front Office, Operations, Compliance and Internal Audit functions to transform their programmes through process automation, analytics and expert advice. She provides support to regulated firms by undertaking quality assurance reviews, proactive programme reviews in advance of regulatory visits, on-site audits, benchmarking reviews, program design and implementation projects, process re-engineering and automation, issue management and validation and specialist training. Through her work, Samar has assisted clients to manage risk more effectively, sustainably and in line with applicable regulatory requirements, industry guidance and best practice, whilst making proportionate and practical recommendations that deliver desired risk management outcomes. 

Samar has led Section 166 reviews of a number of banks and been appointed a Skilled Person on behalf of the Financial Conduct Authority. Samar had also led independent regulatory exams of bank financial crime programmes on behalf of US authorities, having served as a Deputy Monitor on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice and as an Independent Consultant on behalf of the New York Federal Reserve Board. Her work as a deputy monitor for the largest ever court-appointed monitorship brought her into contact with regulators around the world giving her a unique insight into financial crime mitigation practices and regulatory expectations across Europe, Middle East, Americas and Asia Pacific. 

Samar actively supports The Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) on a voluntary basis and is the Programming Director of the ACAMS UK Chapter Board. She is an accomplished speaker and has covered topics related to financial crime compliance, audit and assurance at various U.K. and international conferences. She has also published several white paper and articles.

Rajeev has worked in London’s financial markets for over a decade having started his career in the front office with Lloyds Banking Group and subsequently at Barclays Wealth International. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, he worked on various Financial Crime change programs driven by regulatory demand delivering target operating models at Santander and Lloyds where he also worked in an advisory capacity with a focus on Correspondent Banking & Financial Institutions.

At ACAMS, Rajeev was appointed as Financial Crime Subject Matter Expert for the EMEA Region, Rajeev was extensively involved in research and development of new ACAMS certifications, direction of programming for ACAMS conferences and facilitation & moderation of training; as well as network outreach and thought leadership in the Anti-Financial Crime space.

In his current role as Vice President –Head of Corporate Bank KYC Policy and Training at Deutsche, Rajeev has takenhis Anti-Financial Crime training experience ‘in house’ leading the Corporate Bank KYC Policy and Training team; responsible for setting up the function, the design and launch of the training framework and global delivery of FCR training for the business with a strong focus on instilling an AFC culture.

John Dodsworth is a Senior Programme Advisor (my title will be changing soon) as part of WWF UK’s Conservation Programme’s team. His areas of work include commodity supply chains, drivers of deforestation, and addressing environmental crime across Asia, Pacific and Africa.

Prior to joining WWF, he spent 3 years with an international development consultancy, specialising in forestry and supply chain projects and supporting programmes related to the illegal wildlife trade and illicit flows. Before that he lived in the Middle East working in shipping focussing on compliance and China working in the manufacturing sector.

Mr. Dodsworth completed an MBA from the University of Edinburgh Business School, with a focus on business-led sustainability and social enterprises. He studied undergraduate Politics at the University of  Nottingham with a focus on China.

Iggy Azad is a Director at Coinbase focused on investigations and intelligence. He joined the company in 2019, prior to this he was detective with the Metropolitan Police Service in London investigating Cybercrime.

Jane Alimonda is the Head of Audit for Financial Crime, Fraud, ESG and Legal at a newly established clearing and payments bank, The Bank of London (TBOL). She is responsible for independent assurance over the financial crime programme globally. Prior to joining TBOL, Jane was the Head of Audit EMEA for Financial Crime, Fraud, Compliance and ESG at MUFG (Japan's largest wholesale bank) leading a team of 20 across Europe and the Middle East and prior to that held a number of senior audit positions at HSBC, Lloyds Bank and PwC.  Jane speaks at numerous Financial Crime related events including ACAMS Europe in topics such as the three lines of defence, risk and controls and Artificial Intelligence and Fraud. She is a member of ACAMS, holding the certified sanctions specialist qualification.  She was awarded a first-class degree from Cardiff University in Business Administration.