Wendy
Ward
Wendy has over 25 years of financial crime experience and is currently Vice President, International Financial Crime Governance and Project Enablement for the Asia-Pacific region at American Express. Her role is to provide oversight of each financial crimes program, provide subject matter advice and establish safety and soundness for compliant and forward-thinking financial crimes programs. Wendy was also previously the AML/CTF Compliance Officer for American Express in Australia and New Zealand.
Prior to her role at American Express, Wendy worked at AUSTRAC. Wendy worked across a number of areas of the organisation, including in the Intelligence branch where she worked onsite with law enforcement agencies and later managed the FIU’s relationship with law enforcement and national security partners. Wendy also spent three years leading AUSTRAC’s international technical assistance and training program, managing eight programs that assisted counterpart agencies in 37 countries in the Asia – Pacific region and Africa. Her final role at AUSTRAC was as General Manager, Compliance overseeing the front-line supervision staff who assess the compliance of reporting entities in Australia and as a member of various executive and governance committees.
Wendy has represented the Australian Government overseas at various financial crime and APEC forums resulting in a greater understanding of Australia’s approach by stakeholders, and closer ties with overseas partners; and she has developed and fostered key relationships with domestic and international partners including other regulators, law enforcement, national security, and counterpart FIUs, resulting in closer collaboration and a greater understanding of common goals.