Regulatory Compliance & Risk Management Conference

Kevin Gould joined the California Bankers Association (CBA) in 2004, bringing with him more than seven years of legislative experience. In his role as executive vice president and director of state government relations, he oversees the management and operation of CBA’s state and federal government relations department and also serves as one of CBA’s three registered lobbyists.

Jason Lane is vice president and deputy director of government relations for the California Bankers Association and manages California state tax policy for the association, which involves analyzing legislation and regulatory activity, and the development of policy positions for the association. Lane is one of three lobbyists at CBA and, in addition to his primary focus on taxation, he also lobbies on behalf of the association on issues related to the state budget, and consumer lending legislation. Lane has significant expertise in handling legislative issues including taxation, data security, identity theft, and housing.

Experienced Wealth Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. Strong Risk Management professional skilled in Securities, Asset Management, Retirement Planning, Mutual Funds, and Trading.

Mike is a Principal and the Director of the Virtual Risk Management group where he’s responsible for leading the strategic direction. He actively participates in many of the group’s client engagements including Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), ESG, Virtual CRO, board training, and others for banks, credit unions, fintech firms, and professional service organizations. With over 25 years in the banking and technology industries, he has extensive knowledge in strategic planning, corporate governance, technology strategy, and fintech management issues. Mike also regularly presents strategy and ERM trends and techniques at conferences and for industry professionals.

Scott is a Principal in Wolf’s Assurance Group and leads the Firm’s Technology Team. He provides audit and advisory services to rapidly growing entrepreneurial technology companies—consulting on complex accounting matters such as revenue recognition, equity and derivative instruments, business combinations, internal control best practices, and corporate governance. He also has significant experience with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) registrant considerations such as initial public offerings (IPO), reverse mergers, and crowdfunding.

Robert Baron serves as Chief Experience Officer of StandardC, and oversees cannabis banking compliance and financial institution integration. Robert is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) and holds an advanced certification in AML Risk Management (CAMSRM). Prior to joining StandardC, Mr. Baron was Senior Vice President of Member Services of Technicolor Federal Credit Union where he established and oversaw its cannabis banking program, including serving over 200 of the largest cannabis companies and processing over $3 billion in annual transactions. Mr. Baron has received a B.A. International Relations and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Davis.

With almost 20 years of experience in the banking industry, James Jefferson currently serves as Senior Vice President Chief Risk Officer, for Montecito Bank & Trust, a $2.5 billion bank which operates 14 branches in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. James began his banking career right out of college at Montecito Bank and Trust (MB&T) and holds the designation of Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager. He currently oversees enterprise risk management and regulatory affairs for MB&T and leads the Bank’s AML/BSA, fraud, information security, and regulatory compliance teams. James lives in Solvang with his wife and son, and enjoys playing (and watching) hockey, kayaking, and brewing his own beer.

As a vCIO at Meriplex, Greg has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry. For more than13 years, he served at the executive level as the SVP/Director of IT for a 3+ billion dollar financial institution with over 40 locations.

Greg’s first-hand knowledge as an executive makes him a valuable asset to the clients he serves, as he understands the needs in many critical areas such as cybersecurity, disaster recovery, federal level audits, and examinations, project management, and many other essential domains.

In 1994, Len Suzio founded GeoDataVision to provide to community banks the significant benefits that a relatively new type of software called GIS made possible. Prior to starting GeoDataVision, Len Suzio had been in banking in Philadelphia and Connecticut for more than 17 years. Mr. Suzio was an executive vice president, senior loan officer and director of American National Bank and a director of two other Connecticut banks. In 1983, he was recognized as the Outstanding Banker in Connecticut by the Small Business Administration. He also testified as an expert in front of the United States Senate Subcommittee on Small Business that same year.

Mark has over 25 years providing balance sheet and model risk management education and consulting to the community and mid-size banking space.

A frequent author and top-rated speaker on a wide array of risk management topics, Mark facilitates educational programs and workshops for numerous financial institutions, industry and state trade associations, and regulatory agencies. He is also a member of the Financial Managers Society’s Finance Council.

Stephanie Shea, a principal of Aldrich & Bonnefin, PLC, specializes in consumer regulatory compliance, fair lending and the flood insurance regulations. She is the Manager of the Firm’s Consumer Lending Practice Group.

Ms. Shea joined Aldrich & Bonnefin, PLC in May 2010 as a summer associate and remained with the firm as a law clerk until she became an associate attorney in December 2011. In January 2018, she became a principal.

Othel Rife has over 17 years of auditing experience, including more than 5 years of Anti-Money Laundering/Bank Secrecy Act (AML/BSA) compliance experience; that experience includes an in-depth understanding of the regulatory requirements set forth in the FFIEC exam manual including program requirements, customer due diligence, enhanced due diligence, monitoring practices, and economic sanctions. Over her tenure with RSM, Othel has performed numerous independent audits for various types of financial institutions throughout the years. She has been involved in and led teams of consultants engaged to perform long-term AML lookbacks that included an element enhanced due diligence review.

Steve is a Principal in Wolf’s Advisory Group and the Director of the Regulatory Compliance Team. He also leads the Firm’s New York Financial Institutions Team, where he guides clients through federal and state banking statutes from an operational and legal perspective. Steve joined Wolf in 1996 and has nearly 30 years of experience as a compliance advisor, facilitator, and resource for financial institutions, investment companies, mortgage industry professionals, and broker-dealers. He’s an avid speaker and regularly travels to events to educate members of financial industry associations throughout the country.

Karen joined CLA in 2020 after working in financial institutions since 2004. She has spent the majority of that time focused on regulatory compliance, Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) compliance and bank operations. Karen has spent her career working at a mortgage broker, local community bank and a larger regional bank.  Karen focuses on regulatory compliance, BSA, compliance management systems and special projects, such as compliance risk assessments and BSA assessments.  Karen has the Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager (CRCM) and Certified BSA/AML Professional (CBAP) designations.

Rob Pioli has over 25 years of experience in Procurement and Vendor Management. Rob has started 4 procurement departments from scratch, including his current department at Pacific Western Bank where he serves as SVP Procurement. He has also directly managed both Procurement and Vendor Management operations at 3 organizations under CFPB, OCC, or FDIC oversight, which required close collaboration between Procurement and Vendor Management throughout the third-party relationship lifecycle.

Michael Berman is the founder and CEO of Ncontracts, one of the fastest-growing risk management companies in the financial services industry. A risk management evangelist, he combines decades of legal and regulatory experience with an extensive background in business strategy to solve operational risk management challenges.

Paul Dunford is Co-founder and VP of Knowledge at Green Check Verified. Paul has extensive experience leading digital transformation initiatives predominantly in the healthcare and retail verticals. Previously he was retained by a Fortune 100 insurance company to design and implement a sophisticated solution for managing their field sales teams. At Green Check, Paul leads the compliance team that designs cannabis banking programs for financial institutions. Paul is an active member of the cannabis banking regulatory community, contributing to trade publications and speaking virtually and in-person across the country on the subject.

Noory has been working with financial institutions since 2005. His experience is focused in finance, accounting, operations, compliance, and risk management with specialties in the review of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), regulatory compliance, residential mortgage/commercial lending, and asset quality reviews. Noory devotes his time to consulting with financial institutions on operational and regulatory compliance matters, performing and managing operational audits and regulatory compliance reviews, and conducting risk assessments and anti-money laundering audits.

Darren Fago joined ALM First Financial Advisors in 2019. As a Director for the firm, Darren specializes in customizing and implementing actionable and effective ALM and investment strategies to maximize client performance. Additionally, Darren proactively designs sensitivity analyses and scenarios to test client balance sheet exposure to various factors and formulates action plans to optimize client performance within policy and risk tolerances. As a trusted advisor, he helps financial institutions build high performing investment portfolios and efficient balance sheets.