Anila represents over 300 firms on sanctions compliance and export controls implementation at UK Finance, the collective voice for the banking and finance sector. This includes advancing work with international regulatory bodies, governments and enforcement agencies to align on foreign policy objectives via public and private sector information.

Winner of the 2023 ICA Europe Awards, Anila is recognised and celebrated as Founder of the Women in Sanctions Forum and Co-host of the UK Finance Sanctions School podcast series, regularly bridging the gap as a generational leader promoting Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

Anti-money Laundering and Sanctions professional with a background gained over nine years across several sectors, including e-commerce, financial services, banking, payments and corporate. Sara has been at GlaxoSmithKline for the past four years leading their sanctions compliance programme, a role that has allowed her to develop valuable experience in managing various stakeholder groups across the organisation, mastering resilience through the delivery of key sanctions compliance changes.

Victoria is a Principal Associate in the Corporate Crime and Investigations Team at Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP. Her specific areas of expertise are financial sanctions and anti-money laundering ("AML").

With over 10 years of experience, Victoria is a highly regarded specialist in areas of AML, international financial sanctions, internal investigations and remediation.  She primarily advises a range of global top tier financial institutions and corporate entities and also has extensive experience in respect of criminal and regulatory investigations, prosecutions/enforcement and self-disclosure in the context of sanctions violations.

Victoria has experience in:

• leading on large scale investigations in respect of potential US, EU and UK sanctions violations, working internationally across the US and UK;
• providing strategic advice to a range of multinationals and financial institutions regarding sanctions and AML policies and procedures;
• providing strategic advice regarding sanctions and AML remediation programmes;
• conducting independent audits and risk assessments upon AML and sanctions control frameworks;
• defending claims made under the Equality Act in so far as they relate to actions taken in alleged compliance with financial sanctions; and
• advising on the day-today application of sanctions in the context of financial transactions and arrangements.

Starting her career as a trader and then following her passion of geo-political topics into compliance and Sanctions for over fifteen years at a number of investment banks. Experience of the breadth of sanctions compliance framework topics.

Currently the Global Head of Financial Crime for Bupa, Dara leads the financial crime risk management prevention agenda for the organization with a special focus on providing senior SME sanctions advice. Dara is a US qualified lawyer who has worked both in law firms and in house, having devoted much of her time in the last 9 years to sanctions compliance in the US, UK, and globally.

Emily Dias joined the Morgan Stanley EMEA Legal and Compliance team as a Sanctions Advisor in November 2024, having previously worked at Standard Chartered Bank since 2016 as a Director, Group Sanctions Specialist. With a total over ten years’ experience in the financial services sector, working for top tier international banks, Emily’s particular focus area is interpreting multi-jurisdictional regulations and guidance to formulate sanctions policies and providing advice with subject matter expertise.

Natalie has worked at Marsh McLennan for over 11 years covering the full range of financial crime risks including anti-bribery and corruption, money laundering and trade sanctions.  Natalie is now Head of Sanctions & AML, responsible for the company’s sanctions and AML framework and providing advice to the business on the many and increasingly complex sanctions that may affect our company globally. Marsh McLennan’s services include insurance broking, health and benefits and management consultancy so sanctions questions are frequent and varied.

Previous jobs in communications and change management have provided an invaluable background for work on the many financial crime developments over recent years, such as implementing new anti-bribery laws and managing the increasing numbers of complex trade sanctions and export control regulations.

Sinéad Goss is the General Counsel for AML, Anti-Bribery and Sanctions Legal across the UK, Europe and Middle East and Africa at Citi. Having originally trained and qualified as a corporate solicitor she joined Citi in 2007 as the EMEA Head, Investment Banking Legal. Sinéad fulfilled this role for 7 years before moving into her current role in 2014. She provides legal advice to the bank on complex AML, Anti-bribery and sanctions issues across the region, including both advisory and investigations work, and has been substantially involved in navigation of the Russia/Ukraine sanctions. 

Before joining Aviva Investors and the fight of wider financial crime in July 2017, Fiki was already enjoying fighting crime in general insurance side of business tackling fraud for 10 years for commercial property claims. Since joining the team, Fiki has qualified and is a member of Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists and has also gained Certificate of Global Sanctions Specialist.

During her time in AI, she has also been involved in projects in implementing new system of records for customer onboarding and risk assessment and due diligence of third parties, working with a number of stakeholders across AI and wider Aviva. Outside of work, she enjoys simpler things in life such as spending time with her family and her two cheeky Jack Russells. In addition, she loves reading, enjoying good food and wine and has discovered a painful passion in running to eliminate the effects of the wine and dine!

Lucy started her career as a litigator at Clifford Chance.  For the last decade she has been in-house at Morgan Stanley as the Financial Crimes Legal Counsel. Her practice started with a focus on Anti-Corruption, now more recently focused on Economic Sanctions legal and advisory work.

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, leveraging AI/ML, data analytics and specialist advice. She provides support to regulated firms during FCC transformation projects, process re-engineering and automation initiatives, quality assurance reviews, proactive programme reviews in advance of regulatory visits, on-site audits, benchmarking reviews, program design and implementation support, issue management/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 providing proportionate and practical advise that delivers desired risk management outcomes.

Samar has led numerous Section 166 reviews on behalf of the Financial Conduct Authority, and worked on behalf of US authorities 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 client work and engagement with regulators around the world provides her with a unique insight into financial crime mitigation best 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 Programme 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.

Compliance professional with extensive experience in both Industry and Government, with wide-ranging regulatory, transactional and transformation expertise. 

After completing a bachelors in Business Management and two master degrees in Law, Nat joined BAE Systems where she supported the business throughout their consent agreement. Nat supported their Shared Services and Head Office Functions and was deployed in Naval Ships, Land and Group Business Development. 

In 2018 Nat joined the MOD to head up the Assets Subject to Special Controls Programme which was a programme dedicated to cohering the MOD’s Export Control Classification Data and supporting the International Relations Group with the implementation of a compliance framework (i.e. policy, resource and etc). Nat went on to programme manage several enterprise-wide logistics and support chain transformational change programmes. 

In 2023, Nat joined the Rolls Royce Defence team to lead, support and advise a team of global export and sanctions professionals. Nat works collaboratively with the business, industry peers and regulators to enable compliance across a vast array of Defence platforms – ranging from combat air to submarines to space.

Lotte joined Standard Chartered in May 2021 as a Director in the Group Sanctions Team and leads on monitoring applicable global sanctions laws and regulations, drafting sanctions policies and standards for the bank, and providing technical advice on business and transactional matters. Prior to joining Standard Chartered, Lotte was at Barclays bank where she drafted and provided guidance on the bank’s Financial Crime Policy and Standards.