Ms. Houlihan is a passionate AML/ATF, financial crime and regulatory compliance executive professional with over 20 years in the financial industry. Ms. Houlihan has over 15 years of AML/ATF, financial crime and regulatory compliance experience. Laura began her career as a teller at BMO Bank of Montreal and worked her way up throughout her nine year tenure with exposure to in-branch, project management and compliance monitoring roles. In 2005, Laura found her calling when working at AGF Trust as Senior Compliance Specialist where she was able to develop her forte in AML/ATF and financial crime. From 2010 – 2014, Ms. Houlihan held the role of VP, Global Financial Crimes Compliance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (Canada) where she reported and supported the CAMLO. In 2014, Laura was recruited by and appointed CAMLO at CXI Canada where she was instrumental in developing and implementing a risk-based, OSFI and FINTRAC-compliant AML/ATF compliance program which assisted the former MSB in successfully obtaining approval from OSFI to continue business as a Schedule 1 financial institution, Exchange Bank of Canada. Since then, Laura has held key executive leadership roles in the capacity of Chief Compliance Officer and CAMLO at DCBank and OTT Pay where she acted as subject matter expert on a wide array of complex AML, financial crime and regulatory compliance matters.

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Gene is The AML Shop’s Chief Identify Officer and delivers a “digital first” philosophy by creating a balanced hub where digital ID and AML initiatives connect as an expert shopper for clients and industry insider for technology firms.

As one of Canada’s leading voices in the anti-money laundering (AML) industry and digital identification space, Gene has spanned much of his career designing, implementing and sustaining AML/ATF programs including global CAMLO reporting, FATF risk-based approach guidelines and digital identity programs nationally and internationally.

Gene started his career running the systems, operations and compliance controls for financial planning firms offering securities, banking and insurance products. His compliance focus progressed with Manulife, where he most recently served as the Head of Global Compliance AMLATF program, responsible for the program design, relationships with AML vendors and working with Industry peers providing responses to government consultations.

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Caroline Tutakiewicz is an experienced risk management professional specializing in AML/ATF and human trafficking initiatives. Caroline has previously held roles of Senior Manager, Terrorist Financing Investigations and Director, Head of Money Laundering Investigations at the Royal Bank of Canada. In this capacity, she executed RBC’s risk management strategy, balanced regulatory requirements and supported the national growth of RBC’s AML unit. Throughout her AML career she has led and executed projects in organized crime, terrorist financing, and human trafficking that continue to have significant impact on Canada’s regulatory framework.

In her current role as Director, Strategy and Innovation at RBC Ventures, Caroline develops new and aligns existing ventures with RBC Royal Bank with an aim at converting a portion of the 3.2M users to RBC clients. Caroline’s unique experience in risk management has established her as a thought leader in start-ups bridging risk mitigation with the need to go to market and scale quickly.

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Gregory Dellas is the Chief Compliance and Innovation Officer at ECOMMBX, an Electronic Money Institution with a flexible FinTech platform for cross-border inter-bank transactions.

Whilst at the Bank of Cyprus, Gregory led the anti-money laundering (AML) risk management team within the International Banking Services Division and acted as the local compliance officer. His team was responsible for the onboarding of high-risk clients, the evaluation of large and complex transactions, as well as the review of existing and approval of new high-risk client relationships. In addition, Dellas was responsible for providing advice, guidance and specialized training to management and staff on AML and regulatory compliance matters.

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Victor started his risk and compliance career in 2007 at RBC, as an AML Systems Analyst, and has held progressively senior positions. He was the Senior Director of AML Strategy and Solutions at CIBC, and his latest financial organization, he was the VP of Risk Services and the Chief Anti-Money Laundering Officer (CAMLO) for Wells Fargo Canada.

With his experience and passion for technology, Victor decided to start his own firm and has co-founded Minerva AI. A technology company focused on empowering financial crime investigators through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

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Eric Hansen (CAMS, FIS) has been advising clients on issues pertaining to regulatory compliance and operational risk for 15 years. At present, he is the Head of Sales and Marketing at ManchesterCF, a Toronto-based firm that provides online financial intelligence training programs to financial institutions, financial intelligence units and law enforcement.

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Sam is a financial crime prevention professional with over 15 years of practical experience in compliance. Sam's previous work experience includes working as MLRO, Data Protection Officer and CCO and Group Head of AML for various financial institutions, both offshore and in Europe.

Sam also worked offshore for several years as the first legal counsel to the financial regulator in Guernsey heading up its enforcement activities. She subsequently set up the regulator’s first financial crime division, overseeing the examination of a variety of financial institutions and formulating the regulator’s ongoing supervisory activities across a diverse group of financial sector participants.

Sam continues to maintain ongoing engagement with other regulators on financial crime matters and was approved last year as an independent assessor for MONEYVAL, the European based body of the FATF.

Sam has extensive training experience in the field of financial crime prevention and corporate governance matters. She has most recently been involved in projects related to FenTech businesses, the use of RegTech to mitigate financial crime and list management relating to the screening of customers and third parties. Sam worked with ACAMS Europe as its first subject matter expert as its AML Director and subsequently ran her one advisory business, assisting Crypto, FinTech and AML/CFTvendor technology and outsourcing vendors on various financial crime prevention matters. Sam is recognised by ACAMS and the EIMF as a subject matter expert and has co-authored a number of online certificate courses, facilitated working groups on 4/5AMLD in Europe and assistance in the development of white papers.

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Prior to joining BMO’s Anti-money laundering team Cam spent over 30 years with the Toronto Police Service where he served in uniform patrol, criminal investigations, drug enforcement, child abuse and sex crimes unit, behavioural assessment and the investigative training lead. For five years he was also the Officer in Charge of the Corporate Crimes Team.

He joined BMO in 2017 and now works in the Anti-money Laundering team and is the intelligence lead for the Canadian Financial Intelligence Unit. He has published articles on public private partnerships, cyber based financial crime, illegal wildlife trafficking and human trafficking and is authoring two chapters for upcoming academic journals on financial crime.

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