ECONOMIC CRIME CONGRESS 2024

Kate has worked in financial services for over 20 years. Through a number of diverse roles in marketing, product development, technology and payments, the common thread for Kate is the delivery of great end user journeys and solutions. Kate has a very strong focus on innovation, driven by consumer demand and global market movements. Kate actively works with Fintech companies and this has given her further insight into the types of problems that end users experience and how to go about providing relevant and meaningful solutions. Kate now leads the Business Development function at Pay.UK with the purpose to power payments, champion innovation and give the UK choice in how it pays.

Nick Sharp has worked in the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) within the National Crime Agency since October 2023. Nick is the Deputy Director for Fraud and heads up the cross-system, operational response to tackling fraud against individuals and businesses. Prior to joining the NECC, Nick worked in HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) for 17 years, 14 of which he spent combating serious and organised criminal attacks on the tax system in either HMRC’s intelligence or investigation divisions. His most recent post was as Deputy Director of Economic Crime where he led HMRC’s anti-money laundering and financial investigation teams. 

I am the Head of the Line 1 FC Advisory Team at Virgin Money. I have over 23 years of Financial Crime Compliance experience in advisory, supervision, enforcement, policy development and legislative drafting, acquired through a variety of roles in both a private sector and governmental setting. I have the industry Diploma in Money Laundering (ICA) and I am a (former) Financial Action Task Force Assessor (on behalf of the UK). I am a Barrister and a New York Attorney.

Part of the Feedzai Product Strategy team, Dan collaborates closely with banks worldwide and supports them to understand the range of fraud prevention and detection capabilities offered by Feedzai. He focuses on aligning the company product strategy with the direction of the future market, ensuring that Feedzai stays ahead of the curve.

In addition to working directly with clients, Dan also plays a crucial role in enabling other teams within Feedzai to provide exceptional customer service and results. He is a thought leader within the industry, frequently authoring white papers and blogs, speaking with press and analysts, and appearing on stage at various events across the globe.

Before joining Feedzai, Dan served as the Director of Solutions at LexisNexis Risk Solutions and held various fraud-related positions at Lloyds Banking Group UK. In these roles, he leveraged the latest digital fraud technology to protect the bank's online and mobile users, demonstrating his extensive expertise in the field.

David has worked in financial services for over 40 years. At Barclays he worked for three Group chairmen, helped set up Large Corporate Banking, had wide experience in SME and consumer banking and ran the Group’s IT and operations function. David subsequently led Commercial Banking for Lloyds Bank, then was chief executive of Cattles PLC (a consumer finance and invoice finance business) before joining Moneycorp (an independent FX provider) as CEO. Before joining UK Finance David spent eight years at Bibby Financial Services as the chief executive.

Ben Donaldson OBE is our Managing Director for Economic Crime. His teams work on behalf of our members across fraud, financial crime, sanctions, and export controls. The UK Finance Economic Crime team provides traditional trade association services to our members, but also a range of operational services. The blend of the services we provide enables us to work in collaboration with our members, other sectors, government, regulators and law enforcement to protect society and the economy by reducing economic crime. 

Prior to joining UK Finance, Ben spent 23 years working for the UK Government in Defence and Foreign Affairs. In 2015, he was awarded an OBE for services to Defence.

Iggy Azad is a Senior Director at Coinbase, where he leads a team of investigators focused on targeting illicit crypto activity, ranging from fraud to terrorist financing. With 20 years of experience in the Met. Police in London, Iggy has worked in various roles, investigating crimes such as domestic violence, gang crime, drugs supply, cybercrime, money laundering, and fraud. Since joining Coinbase in 2019, he has risen to the position of Senior Director, overseeing investigations and intelligence while also managing law enforcement relations. Iggy has presented at many international conferences and serves as a board member for the ACAMS UK chapter.

Nick Perkins is currently Director of Fraud Prevention for NatWest Group, responsible for designing and delivering the Fraud prevention, detection and response strategy for the Bank, whilst helping drive societal change at industry level. He has over 25 years’ experience gained working globally across the Financial Services sector from Investment Banking and Markets to Retail, Commercial and Branch banking.

Nick joined NatWest in 2005 and since then has taken on a number of roles within the Group including Director of EC Solutions, responsible for delivering key components of RBS’ State Aid Obligations, COO for Non Core Division involved in winding down businesses and exiting non core markets and loan portfolios as part of RBS’ restructuring and implementation of the Asset Protection Scheme as part of RBS’ bail-out.  He has also been involved in the execution of a number of major change programmes across the Group.

Prior to joining the Bank, Nick was consulting for Accenture for over 10 years managing complex and wide-ranging programmes to support global investment banks.

Adam joined Lloyds Banking Group in January 2022 as Head of Consumer Servicing Fraud Systems & Controls. Prior to this, Adam has held a number of senior roles in other financial institutions.

Adam has extensive experience from a career in fraud prevention spanning over 20 years. He has worked within fraud prevention at two other tier 1 banks and most recently as Head of fraud for 7 years at a challenger bank.

He has provided representation at key industry forums including UK Finance and is currently the chair of the Money Mule cross industry Working Group.

Liz is the Consumer Fraud & Financial Crime Director for Lloyds Banking Group. 

She has held a number of senior roles in Lloyds Banking Group, mainly in retail banking, across credit cards, customer services, transformation as well as integrations & divestments. 

Earlier in her career Liz worked for the Group in a number of jurisdictions including the Spain, the Channel Islands, Switzerland and Australia. 

Steve Elliot, Managing Director of LexisNexis Risk Solutions UK & Ireland, is a specialist in financial crime compliance, with a wealth of relevant experience, having had responsibility for Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Financial Crime, Security, Investigations / Litigation, Payments and Controls (1^st line) across a range of roles in consulting, as a practitioner and within international law enforcement.

Steve has considerable experience of operating across a number of different industry sectors, including a strong focus around Financial Services, both in his former role with consultancy firm, Huntswood, and in previous roles with Old Mutual Wealth and Zurich Financial Services.

Steve is passionate about the role of technology and innovation in supporting effective risk management and compliance, and has advised many organisations on the transformation to digital KYC to create a safer customer on-boarding process.

Nik Adams was appointed as Temporary Assistant Commissioner to oversee the City of London Police’s Economic and Cyber Crime Directorates in October 2023, having transferred to the City of London Police in March 2022 as Commander for Economic and Cyber Crime. Prior to that, Nik spent 4 years as the National Coordinator for Prevent and the lead for Safeguarding within Counter Terrorism Policing based within CTPHQ. 

Nik spent most of his earlier service with West Yorkshire Police working in Leeds, where he was latterly the Leeds City Centre Commander and Neighbourhood Policing lead for South Leeds, before moving into Counter Terrorism Policing in 2015. He is passionate about working with other agencies and organisations to develop new ways to better protect the public, prevent crime, and bring offenders to justice, and he has put this at the heart of his approach during two decades in policing. 

As Assistant Commissioner, Nik is focussed on national delivery, which includes Action Fraud and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. He oversees the national Economic and Cyber Crime Academy and a diverse range of operational units within the City of London Police. These units tackle complex and specialist aspects of economic crime, and include partnership units specialising in intellectual property crime, insurance fraud and payment crime. He is additionally the NPCC lead for the Financial Investigation, and the NPCC lead for Elections.  

She specialises in delivering policy and advocacy on behalf of members, leading on UK Finance's domestic anti-money laundering offering and wider economic crime reform matters. She leads on anti-money laundering related regulatory and legislative projects, oversees the Money Laundering Advisory Panel and provides support on strategic issues within the wider economic crime reform programme. 

Prior to UK Finance, Aminah worked as consultant at KPMG within the financial crime department. She specialised in providing advisory, investigation and analytical services within AML and sanctions to global financial services clients.

Julie joined UK Finance in March 2020 as Managing Director, Major Projects. Reporting to the CEO as part of the Executive leadership team she is responsible for leading the delivery and execution of mission critical, high profile, large scale industry projects.

Prior to UK Finance, Julie was Global Head of Operations and Chief of Staff at TP Icap. Spanning a 30 year career, Julie has held a number of senior roles delivering and implementing large scale strategic projects and organisational transformation programmes across operations and technology. Julie spent the earlier part of her career in roles at Deutsche Bank, Nikko Europe and UBS. Julie is also a Trustee of Leadership through Sport and Business and Futures for Kids.   

Jana is the Managing Director for Payments, Innovation and Resilience at UK Finance where she leads discussions on payments, fintech and digital agendas.

Before joining UK Finance, she was head of the Worldpay (then FIS) Global Government Affairs team, shaped competition and regulatory policies at the Financial Conduct Authority and Payments Systems Regulator and prior to that supported companies across public and private sectors globally through her various roles.

She has added commercial credentials delivering and implementing policies in practice, holds several board positions and works with a number of charities.

Paul believes that technology isn’t necessarily the enemy, but it is our relationship with it that needs some work. Applying behavioural principles to the core of his work in order to maximise impact in the prevention of fraud and cybercrime. Paul explores the relationship we have with our technology and how it amplifies our vulnerability and changes the meaning behind our communication.  With a background in law enforcement, intelligence, counter terrorism and later finding a passion in cybercrime and fraud, he now works in a joint partnership role as the Strategic Fraud Prevention and Behavioural Lead for UK Finance and City of London Police, assisting in the coordination of the Economic and Cyber Police Headquarters.

Iain has held a number of senior compliance roles in major financial institutions, including NatWest, HSBC, and Barclays. Iain also spent eight years working at the UK's Financial Conduct Authority.

As part of Global Regulatory Affairs team at ComplyAdvantage, Iain supports our teams to build industry-leading financial crime detection tools, acting as the 'voice of the customer'.

Rob Woods is a senior expert for LexisNexis Risk Solutions with a particular focus on fraud, identity, Authentication and biometrics. With more than a decade in threat readiness and fraud prevention, Rob is a leading industry expert on this topic.

Rob is responsible for international market planning for financial services for LexisNexis® Risk Solutions. One of his core priorities within the fraud and identity leadership team is delivering the product portfolio and planning the strategic roadmap to service current and future client needs.

Rob’s background and product expertise has led the design and delivery of major agile transformation programmes in financial services that are purposefully focused on authentication, fraud and digital identity. A notable project was the implementation of an authentication as a service platform for PSD2 / strong customer authentication at Lloyds Banking Group.  

Rob’s philosophy is customer oriented, which he applies to create services that are centred on identity protection and focused upon a smooth digital banking experience, whilst enabling end users to shop and carry out online transactions with confidence.

Duncan joined the UK Home Office in 2019 as Director, Economic Crime. He leads Home Office policy on anti-money laundering, fraud and asset recovery. Duncan started his career as an economist, including in the UK Treasury and Cabinet Office before moving to be Deputy Finance Director at the UK Department for Business. He has also held senior roles in Local Government, focused on leading major infrastructure and IT delivery programmes.

Faraaz leads PA’s global Fraud and Financial Crime business, helping clients adopt market-leading practices to enhance risk mitigation. He specialises in combining technical expertise with technology accelerators to deliver effective outcomes in regulatory compliance and digital transformation.

Faraaz has led end-to-end Financial Crime reviews, regulatory assessments, and remediation programmes across major financial services and payments institutions. 

He has worked with government bodies to build and deploy advanced Fraud prevention technologies and global regulators to deliver comprehensive cross divisional Financial Crime reviews. His experience includes developing technology architecture frameworks and leading large-scale strategic migrations, ensuring operational efficiency, data integrity, and sustainable risk management solutions.

Jon Higham is Director of Policy Development in Online Safety Group at Ofcom, UK's communications regulator. He oversaw the development and delivery of Ofcom’s recent consultation on protecting people from illegal harms online. Jon has worked on online safety since 2020 and has played a central role in developing Ofcom’s approach to online regulation. Prior to working on online issues, Jon spent 12 years working in a variety of regulatory policy roles across Ofcom focusing on a range of sectors. 

Stephen Kinsella OBE is founder of Clean Up The Internet, a UK non-profit campaigning for action to address the harm caused by fake and anonymous social media accounts, whose work was instrumental in securing the inclusion of a "user identity verification duty" in the Online Safety Bill. 

A competition lawyer by background, he's previously been Managing Partner of Herbert Smith’s Brussels office and global head of antitrust at Sidley, and is currently a Specialist Partner at Flint Global. Stephen is also a founder of public interest legal project Law For Change. In 2024 Stephen was recognised by the Law Society with a "Legal Hero" award "for his exceptional contributions to legal practice and social justice". 

Stephen currently holds the position of Head of Financial Crime Prevention within Leeds BS.

Stephen engages in various industry fora relating to the prevention of financial, has been on the board of National Hunter since 2018 and holds the position of chair of the BSA’s Financial Crime panel.  He has over 25 years in a variety of financial crime related roles with Bradford & Bingley, Santander and Leeds Building Society bringing broad experience on many aspects of financial crime within the financial services sector. 

David leads the risk and regulation team at PA, an innovation and transformation consultancy. David’s expertise includes supporting financial institutions to respond to disruptive market change and emerging regulation to improve corporate governance, risk management arrangements and commercial and operational changes required for regulatory compliance. 

David works with large banks, as well as medium-sized retail and commercial lenders, insurers and asset managers. Earlier in his career, David worked closely with the UK regulatory authorities, where he was responsible for the implementation of Solvency II and Structural Reform regulation and also co-authored the Financial Conduct Authority’s approach to supervising governance, risk management and conduct across financial services.

Manuel heads the Digital Assets Practice at Plenitude Consulting, advising both crypto and traditional finance firms on their regulatory obligations and the development of robust control frameworks for their cryptoassets-related activities, and playing an active role in shaping discussions on regulation through industry trade bodies. 

Prior to that, Manuel acquired over 17 years of experience in the global asset management industry across control functions like Compliance, Internal Control and Internal Audit, in positions with a global remit based in Paris, London and Los Angeles.

Dr. Ellison Anne Williams is the Founder and CEO of Enveil, the pioneering Privacy Enhancing Technology company protecting Data in Use. Building on experience leading avant-garde efforts in the areas of large-scale analytics, information security, and machine learning, Ellison Anne founded the startup in 2016 to transform how and where data can be securely and privately leveraged to unlock value. Enveil’s award-winning ZeroReveal® solutions are deployed and operational at scale helping global customers securely utilize data across silos and organizational, jurisdictional, and security boundaries in entirely new ways to reduce risk and accelerate the timeline for extracting actionable insights.

A mathematician by training, Ellison Anne leverages her deep technical background and passion for evangelizing the impact of disruptive technologies to advocate for the impact and advancement of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs). She has raised $40M in venture funding to cultivate and deliver Enveil’s category-defining capabilities for use cases ranging from cross-jurisdictional data usage to Secure AI, validating the substantial impact of PETs for business and mission users alike. Under Ellison Anne’s leadership, the company has been recognized by global influencers such as the World Economic Forum, Gartner, EY, and Frost & Sullivan, and won an expanding list of industry accolades: SINET 16 Innovator, RegTech 100, RSA Innovation Sandbox Finalist, SC Award Winner, Gartner Cool Vendor, and WEF Technology Pioneer.

Ellison Anne is a thought leader, speaker, and mentor in the broader privacy and technology communities, with contributed works appearing in publications including Forbes, CPO Magazine, SecurityWeek, Information Age, and HelpNetSecurity. She has been honored as a Business Insider Cybersecurity Leader, SC Media Reboot Leadership Innovator, EY Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, and a Cyberscoop Leet List Honoree.

Beginning her career in the U.S. Intelligence Community with roles at the National Security Agency and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Ellison Anne is accomplished in the fields of distributed computing and algorithms, cryptographic applications, graph theory, combinatorics, computer network exploitation, network modeling, machine learning, and data mining. She holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics (Algebraic Combinatorics), a M.S. in Mathematics (Set Theoretic Topology), and a M.S. in Computer Science (Machine Learning).