As the requirements and risks associated with regulatory compliance become increasingly onerous, the demand for risk experts with intimate knowledge of financial technology startups, due diligence of high-risk clients, outsourced services, and litigation support has grown steadily. Stratis Advisory is uniquely positioned in Silicon Valley and provides a broad range of on-demand risk management and compliance services to financial institutions of all sizes.
From developing bank-sponsored programs that capture new areas of revenue growth to launching new digital products and platforms to acquire digitally minded customers to managing emerging growth portfolios, Stratis Advisory helps financial institutions to participate in digital financial services. With intimate knowledge of how Silicon Valley startups operate, Stratis provides financial institutions with valuable insights on emerging market developments, services, and technologies. Our on-demand TempCCO® services and support are tailored to the unique needs of each of our client institutions.
Unlock new revenue streams by standing up a new approach to banking services such Banking-as-a-Service or Embedded Finance for FinTech companies seeking to offer their clients savings accounts, cards, payment rails, lending, and other services.
Deploying AI agents requires the development of an AI Program to manage single or multi-agent systems, intelligence agents, deployment strategy, behavior dynamics, governance, assurance, and testing. AI Programs ensure you have the appropriate insight and oversight.
Double down on customer acquisition strategy by unlocking new opportunities to keep up with digital-savvy customers. Understand the nuances of the market, regulatory approach, and operational and risk management maturity.
Going global? Opening new geographic markets comes with plenty of nuances, we have you covered as a single provider across six continents, whether going from the US to SG, UK/EU to US, AU to UK, etc.
Whether it’s a new idea, a pivot, or an expansion, your new product takes on a host of risk challenges that drive customer and transaction activity. Determine the readiness of your risk infrastructure before, during, and after launch.
After years of building, identify where risk lurks across your firm from product to compliance to technology, roll it up for transparency and strong governance, and tighten up those initial building blocks and blind spots to keep your rocket ship on course.
Dive into scale-appropriate regulatory audits on your risk management infrastructure, including ABC, AML/CFT, business continuity/disaster recovery, cybersecurity, Nacha Operating Rules, OFAC sanctions, data privacy, vendor management, and NYS DFS Part 500 and 504.
Gearing up for an exam? Is bandwidth limited or teams currently disbursed? Our dedicated risk management operation prepares your firm from first-day letter through to opening presentations, onsite exam, response, and remediation.
Seeking to expand into new areas for revenue growth or a new portfolio, or to maintain higher risk relationships? Our due diligence provides you with actionable risk and compliance intelligence.
Elevate from the basics to enhanced insight for directors, executives, and investors on your firm’s risk profile and culture, what it means, how to mitigate it, and where the costs are in this regulatory market.
Live regulatory and operationally focused training that integrate technology, engineering, business, and compliance teams on local and global AML/CFT, ABC requirements and best practices to increase the knowledge base company-wide.
Determine the appropriate risk, fraud, and compliance systems for your business and risk profile. Establish scorecards, rules, and settings throughout the customer journey to align with back-end monitoring, processes, workflows, and reporting.
Sanctions screening is a critical process for organizations to ensure compliance with global regulations. Stratis has developed Valkyrie, a streamlined sanctions screening service designed to help organizations meet sanctions compliance standards with ease.
Utilizing internal and external systems to perform IDV, KYC, KYB, CDD, OFAC, fraud, transaction monitoring and screening may require model validation from regulators or strategic partners. For NY licensees, NYS DFS Part 504 requires model validation to annually certify compliance.
RISK | STRATEGY | CYBER COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT
Z Segismundo, a Director at Stratis Advisory, has over 20 years of experience managing global clients and teams in business strategy focused on management execution, development and transformation, project management, and process standardization and improvement.
At Stratis, Z leads research, development, and process transformation for globally operating emerging growth companies. She is responsible for supporting clients growing and scaling their regulated and partner-based operations in multiple jurisdictions across Asia-Pacific, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and the United Kingdom, unlocking new markets, and aligning risk management processes across money services businesses (“MSB”), payment facilitators and payment service providers, trust companies, and banking as a service (“BaaS”) and software as a service (“SaaS”) providers. Z serves as the program manager for Stratis’ Licensing as a Service (“LaaS”) program, which includes supporting multiple startups through Fortune 500 companies, with MSB and corporate reporting, licensee examination management, and management of all licensing requirements. Moreover, she manages Stratis Wealth, which includes supporting ultra-high net worth (“UHNW”) clients with navigating global beneficial ownership, corporate structuring, due diligence, and board reporting.
Prior to Stratis, Z managed global business process portfolios for technology and financial services companies in the US, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific regions. She was responsible for global service delivery, business growth and financial health, including handling verticals in the credit card, network security, consumer electronics, and internet services providers.
Victoria Howard, a Director at Stratis Advisory, is a compliance professional with over 20 years of experience in financial services, specializing in regulatory compliance, payments, and money transmission licensing. She has a strong background in navigating complex regulatory frameworks, implementing risk-based compliance programs, and securing and maintaining money transmitter licenses across multiple jurisdictions. Victoria’s expertise spans anti-money laundering (“AML”), sanctions compliance, fraud prevention, and regulatory licensing, balancing between traditional depository financial institutions and emerging payment technologies, inclusive of digital assets.
At Stratis, Victoria leads the Licensing as a Service (“LaaS”) program, which includes supporting startups through Fortune 500 companies, with regulatory analysis of their business model, operating as a money services business (“MSB”), connecting to bank and payment partners, compliance program development, and executing and maintaining US money transmitter and consumer lending licenses. She has managed transactional and non-transactional licensing programs from de-novo, mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcy, and divestiture, inclusive of supporting global expansion in the Americas, UK, Europe, APAC, and MENA. Moreover, Victoria supports regulatory and partner required third-party AML, sanctions, vendor, and cybersecurity assessments and training.
Prior to Stratis, she held key compliance and risk management roles at OFX, Bank of America, and NEXXO Financial, where she developed investigative frameworks, strengthened internal controls for onboarding and customer monitoring, executed enhanced due diligence programs, and designed and implemented regulatory reporting functions. Victoria holds the Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (“CAMS”) certification and is a CAMS-Risk Manager candidate. Additionally, she has contributed to the industry as an ACAMS Exam Developer and serves as a member of the First 5 Contra Costa Parent Advisory Board.
Ryan Hodge, a Senior Director at Stratis Advisory, is a compliance and risk expert with more than 20 years of experience in banking and payments from Fortune 500 banks to startups. Ryan applies his knowledge to global risk management frameworks across anti-money laundering (“AML”), sanctions, fraud, consumer protection, data privacy, and cybersecurity.
At Stratis, he leads an international portfolio of financial and technology companies developing and executing strategic growth plans, risk management frameworks, and technology systems design and implementation. Ryan supports banks and technology companies seeking to launch, scale, and optimize payment and lending products, services, and operations. He advises on new regulations, guidance, and best practices, implementing proactive enhancements to risk and compliance programs, inclusive of payment and data flows, customer journey, and onboarding optimization, sanctions and transaction monitoring tuning and validation, and global shared services deployment. Ryan designs and executes regulatory and partner-required AML, sanctions, fraud, Nacha, vendor, data privacy, and cybersecurity program development, systems, assessments, and training.
Prior to Stratis, Ryan led risk and compliance functions for two separate Banking-as-a-Service (“BaaS”) ventures supporting the early development of the FinTech market. Furthermore, he served in multiple risk, compliance, and operational leadership roles from credit unions to global banks, including serving as the designated Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) & Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) Officer. Collectively, the roles provided Ryan with a multi-faceted approach on scale, growth, and optimization of risk management, processes, technology, resourcing, and operations in financial services.
Ryan served on the award-winning board of directors for the Northern California Chapter of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (“ACAMS”), has been featured as a speaker at both local and national ACAMS and financial crimes prevention events, and holds an advanced Certified Anti Money Laundering Specialist – Audit certification (“CAMS-Audit”).
Deb Wood, a Senior Director at Stratis Advisory, has over 20 years experience in fraud, investigations, financial crime, corporate security, technology and project management disciplines across global financial services organizations. At Stratis, she leads fraud and financial crime technology implementation appropriate for the size and scale of the organization from early stage payments firms to global financial institutions. Moreover, Deb manages due diligence portfolios for financial institutions managing emerging growth companies, higher-risk relationships, and nascent technologies, including developing and executing a global token due diligence (“TDD”) program. Furthermore, she supports regulatory and partner required AML, sanctions, fraud, Nacha, vendor, data privacy, and cybersecurity assessments and training.
Previously, Deb led the Fraud Risk Management team for OFX, a globally licensed online international payments firm, where she was responsible for managing the implementation of the long-term fraud risk strategy for the future direction. Her role was a conduit throughout the business, providing continuous feedback that would influence and drive the overall Fraud Risk Management roadmap. Prior to OFX, Deb led fraud innovation for Fidelity Worldwide Investment for the Asia Pacific region.
She is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) with experience in the financial services, technology, FinTech, and dCommerce industries in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Afric, and throughout Asia. Deb earned a Stanford LEAD Professional Certificate from the Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Education program.
Catalina Martinez, a director at Stratis Advisory, has over 15 years of experience in the areas of product development and management. At Stratis, she leads licensing execution for early stage companies seeking to achieve and maintain lending and payment-based licenses. Moreover, she oversees risk management operations from design to execution and implementation for product launches, exam readiness, and go-to market strategies.
Prior to joining Stratis, Catalina managed both the CAMS exams and the Advanced Certification programs for ACAMS – a globally recognized financial crime prevention association. She led the development of the CAMS-Audit and CAMS-FCI certifications, as well as the translation of the CAMS certification into nine foreign languages. During her tenure at ACAMS, Catalina also grew the organization’s community chapters to over forty in the U.S. and abroad.
Maria Potapov, a Partner in Stratis Advisory, brings over 25 years of experience in business strategy, risk management, banking and financial services innovation. As an economist with experience advising banks on high-risk customer portfolios who has also launched, led and served on the boards of over a dozen technology startups, Maria focuses on optimizing strategy and navigating risk for regulated and non-regulated business models in payments, lending and banking.
At Stratis, Maria leverages her expertise to architect tailored risk and compliance programs that support business growth expectations, meet requirements of strategic partners and regulators, and enable evolving product roadmaps through transactional, infrastructural and geographic changes. Depending on a business model complexity and extent of applicable regulations, Maria leads the analysis of regulatory requirements, federal, state, and global licensing programs, due diligence reviews, anti-money laundering (“AML”) compliance, fraud, vendor and enterprise risk assessments, and risk governance including policies, procedures, processes, customer risk and transaction monitoring.
Prior to Stratis, Maria served as the head of Research & Development at SVB Financial Group, where she helped create several new business lines for long-term Earnings Per Share (“EPS”) growth. Prior to SVB, she was founding partner, chief investment officer and chief compliance officer of Green Alpha Advisors. Maria started her career as a research analyst at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Maria is a Chartered Financial Analyst, holds an MBA from the Imperial College London and a BA in Economics from Boston University.
Brian Stoeckert, CEO and founder of Stratis Advisory, is a recognized risk management expert with more than 20 years of experience in providing startups through Fortune 500 companies with strategy intelligence, advisory services, and witness testimony. At Stratis, he manages an international portfolio of FinTech startups, MSBs, financial institutions, government agencies, universities, and entertainment companies. Brian has served as an expert witness in domestic and global civil and regulatory matters related to AML, foreign exchange, and virtual currency compliance and as a consultant to the 30-episode crypto crime drama tv series “STARTUP” on Netflix, which was produced by SONY Pictures, and was ranked in the Top 5 watched series for May and June 2021.
Previously, Brian led Booz Allen Hamilton’s San Francisco-based strategy and risk practice, advising boards of directors, audit and compliance committees, and executive management teams of financial institutions, MSBs and global intelligence firms. He has also served as a guest lecturer at New York University’s Law School and Stern School of Business on AML laws, regulations and digital currency compliance, and he is a frequent presenter at global risk, compliance and FinTech conferences.
Brian previously served as an executive board member of the award-winning ACAMS Northern California Chapter and as a Mentor for Silicon Valley Bank and First Data’s Commerce Innovated and Envestnet | Yodlee Incubators for FinTech startups. He received his JD from New York Law School and his BA in Political Science from Stony Brook University. In 2014, Brian received the University’s Top 40 Under Forty Award.