Tom Townson

I lead our financial crime team, and have 20 years’ experience as a practitioner and consultant covering fraud, anti-money laundering, sanctions, and conduct issues.

I've led globally-significant programmes advising on building, reviewing, or improving financial crime frameworks. These programmes were primarily at firms subject to intensive regulatory scrutiny involving multiple jurisdictions and regulators, such as banks, insurers, and payment service providers.

My recent assignments include:

• leading several significant s166 financial crime skilled person reviews
• leading several significant 'independent reviews' in offshore locations
• seconded to lead a 200-strong full-time financial crime team for a large UK retail bank –covering anti-money laundering, sanctions, anti-bribery and corruption, and investigations
• leading the financial crime change programme for a division of a globally-significant bank subject to a deferred prosecution agreement
• leading the European leg of an independent sanctions investigation at a top-five international bank, including an end-to-end review of their approach to sanctions customer and payment screening
• leading an investigation, alongside a s166, to establish the extent to which a UK-based salesforce, selling insurance products, were in breach of the firm's 'zero tolerance' approach to fraud.

Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my wife and children.