Author: Kate Winter

Categories
Members News Research

Member survey 2023

This June we are reaching out to members to see if they’d like to get more involved with building the ACi. As you’re aware, the Executive Committee at ACi are all volunteers, who have full-time in-house investigations roles. The popularity of the Association means we are always on the lookout for subject matter experts who are willing to share knowledge and experience, and for investigations professionals who want to give back to the profession by reaching out to their networks to expand ACi’s mission.


Categories
News

Banking Investigators Forum Round up

On Thursday, 26th May ACi proudly hosted its first Banking Investigators Forum event, kindly sponsored by Forensic Risk Alliance. The event was attended by banking investigators from 80 different banks and covered a range of issues, all of which had been selected by delegates as points of interest.

Our prestigious speakers included:

  • Colin Bell, CEO, HSBC
  • Stephen M Kohn, Managing Partner, Kohn & Kohn LLP
  • Jonathan Shatford, Head of Investigations, JP Morgan EMEA
  • Madalina Florea, Head of SM?MRT Investigations, Lloyds Banking Group
  • Michael Delf, Global Employee Conduct Director, Citibank
  • Charlie Steele, Partner, FRA
  • Dave Francis, Head of Litigation & Investigations, NatWest Bank Plc
  • Lorene Wiggin, Managing Investigator, NatWest Bank Plc
  • Gerben Schreurs, Partner, FRA
  • Jamie Brown, Executive Director, Head of Fraud Intelligence and Investigations, Standard Chartered Bank
  • Paul Carroll, Manager, Fraud Inestigations, Intelligence & Policy, TSB
  • Ronan Guckian, Deputy Head, Financial Crime Unit, KBC Bank
  • Magdalena Boskik, Head of RegTech and Crypto Compliance Services, Sygnum Bank
  • Katerina Androutsou, RegTech & Crypto Compliance Services, Sygnum Bank
  • Robert Clarke, Managing Director, Global Head of Investigations, Citibank
  • Cecillie Fjellhoy, romance scam victim

During the day, delegates grappled with a range of issues such as whether investigative interviews should always be recorded, the current crypto landscape and what it means for investigators, and skills and tools that investigators should have for successful outcomes.

The day was ably managed by Simon Scales who had the delegates giggling in their seats with his engaging and witty moderating style.

Feedback from attendees has been outstanding. For example one delegate said,

“The event was run really efficiently, the venue was excellent but mostly important the speakers and subject matter was just brilliant. Often I see people on their phones at lot at these events catching up with emails etc but as I looked around, like myself everyone was listening intently. It really was one of the best conferences I have attended in many years (ignoring the pandemic). Thanks to everyone involved, with a little special mention to Simon who I thought was amazing as an MC.Already looking forward to the next one, please keep my details within your database. I will be selling the events for you as I speak with all of my bank investigator contacts throughout the whole industry. So many of them would have benefitted and enjoyed yesterday.”

You can read our event programme here. Thank you to everyone involved especially our sponsor Trevor Wiles and the FRA team, Simon Scales, our speakers and not least of all the delegation who made it such a special event.

We look forward to seeing everyone next year.

Categories
External Events News

Tweets from #RelativityFest

ACi’s Steve Young, Mary Eastwood Jones and Manu Hanspal had an exceptional reception at #RelativityFest in London this May, as they revealed the Association’s new Investigations Principles and Guidelines and Investigations Typology (available in the ACi Members’ Area).

Categories
Uncategorised

27 April 2022 – Members Meeting

Our next members’ meeting takes place on Wednesday 27th April at 12.30 – 1.30 pm UK time. Members are invited to attend via teams meeting invite. Please visit the members area for information.

Categories
News Webinars

Add your voice to the #BreakTheBias Campaign

This year, in support of the International Women’s Day 2022 campaign #breakthebias, ACi is collecting quotes, anecdotes and thoughts from our corporate investigation community on working with, hiring, promoting or supporting women in corporate investigations, or your experiences as a woman working in corporate investigations and how we can all break the gender bias. You can read all about the campaign here.

Please share your views with us – just click the button below to send us your quote.

QUOTE ME

Women’s Day Webinar

You can also register for our #Breakthebias Women’s Day event. It takes place on Wednesday 8th March 2022 from 12.00 pm – 1.30 pm. Click here to see details of our women panellists and register for your free place.

Categories
Articles Members News

New Members’ Resource

ACi members can read Chapter 21 of GIR’s ‘The Practitioner’s Guide to Global Investigations (sixth edition). The chapter, written by ACi’s CEO Steve Young focuses on Whistleblowers: The In-house Perspective. The document is available in our members’ area. To purchase the full guide, visit:

https://globalinvestigationsreview.com/guide/the-practitioners-guide-global-investigations/2022

Categories
News

Announcing the appointment of Alex Gaft as ACi Advisor

The ACi is excited to announce the appointment of Alex Gaft as ACi Advisory Panel Member. As a seasoned corporate investigations professional, Alex will provide the ACi with advice on corporate investigations management, cyber fraud, networking, and will contribute to the ACi’s key projects (including training, investigation standards, and knowledge bank).   

Alex has over 20 years of professional investigation experience at both national and international levels, within the public and private sectors.  Alex started his career in 2001 as an investigator with the Israeli National Police. From 2010 to 2012, Alex worked as a Regional Head of Forensic Audit for ArcelorMittal, covering CIS and based in Ukraine. In 2012 Alex joined ENRC in London as Group Head of Investigations and between 2014 and 2018 led Corporate investigations team, covering 7 countries in CIS, for Veon, based in Amsterdam. In 2018 Alex returned to Israel and worked in Cyber Security and Cyber Fraud prevention. Since January 2020 Alex is heading Forensic Services team for BDO. He holds an MBA and is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), Certified Information systems Auditor (CISA), and is Certified in Financial Crime Prevention.  

Speaking of the appointment, ACi’s Executive Director, Mary Eastwood Jones, said: 

‘Alex has been a very proactive ACi supporter for some time- in fact, he introduced me to the ACi community.  Alex is a highly skilled and talented subject matter expert, networker, and horizon scanner. He really has his finger on the pulse of the key emerging issues of importance to corporate investigators, and we are excited to be working with him for the benefit of our community.’  

Please join us in welcoming Alex as an official member of our Advisory Panel.  

Categories
News

Wishing you a very happy New Year

As we launch into 2022, ACi wishes all our members and supports a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year ahead.

We are working hard to bring you more innovative training, networking and education events this year. While the Pandemic continues to disrupt the usual working practices of investigators, our community is continuing to adapt and evolve, learn new skills and tackle investigations challenges in new ways.

ACi is here to support its members and we appreciate the commitment of our members and our sponsors to help grow our community and to improve investigations standards. Watch this space for news of our upcoming events – to be announced very soon!

Categories
Members News Research

ACi launches ‘Pick a Project’ Initiative

The ACi is working on a number of trailblazing projects to champion the role of corporate investigators. These are all reliant on our members’ insights, ideas, and subject matter expertise.

We recognise the demands of your ‘day’ jobs, but we greatly appreciate any time contribution you can give us over the coming year. Where possible, we try to make the engagement as simple as possible for you through a short online survey or invitation to send us your thoughts via email so you can contribute at a time that is convenient for you. Some projects will also include an invitation to a focus or working group. Please take a look at the list of projects below and register your interest. We hope to have as much involvement as possible from around the globe.  Thank you in advance.  

  • Corporate Investigations Typology

Project runs to 11 February 2022

How many different types of investigation do you conduct or are you involved in as a corporate investigator?

From investigations into fraud, bribery and financial malpractice, to security, to bullying, harassment, sexual abuse and exploitation, to ESG concerns, to cyber enabled fraud, the breadth of matters being investigated by corporate investigators is expanding.

Help us map out our constellation of investigation types. The Typology map will be made available as an awareness raising graphic and can be adaptable for in-house use when considering incident classifications.

Please click the button below to register your interest.

  • Education Working Group

Ongoing

What does the gold standard in corporate investigation training look like to you?

Join our working groups and/or take part in our online survey in 2022 to help us enhance our Foundations in Corporate Investigations training and more advanced specialist modules as we develop a pathway to certification.

We are always looking for subject matter experts to peer review educational content, so please register your interest.

Please click the button below to register your interest.

  • Core Investigation Standards and Principles

Ongoing

As the leading international authoritative voice on corporate investigations, the ACi is developing a code of ethics and a set of core standards and principles to guide corporate investigators and their functions. We recognise that many of our members will have developed their own in house set of principle to guide case intake, planning, interviews, evidence collection, analysis and reporting. We aim to draw on collective expertise and our extensive research in this area.

Please click the button below to register your interest.

Expression of Interest

Categories
News

Merry Christmas

On behalf of the ACi Executive Committee and all the staff we would like to wish our members celebrating a merry Christmas and a prosperous and healthy New Year. We will be bringing you more webinars, training and networking events in the very near future!

We rely on our members’ input, ideas and perspectives so please get involved in one of our many projects, from education and certification pathway, investigation typology, to practitioner series. Please look out for our ‘Pick a Project’ initiative.