AML SUMMIT 2025 Schedule

Alix Boberg
Partner
Bell Gully

Alix is a Partner in the litigation department at leading law firm Bell Gully, where she acts for clients facing regulatory investigations and enforcement proceedings. She has specialist expertise in financial crime and regulation, and routinely advises clients on their engagement with AML/CFT supervisors, particularly when enforcement action is threatened.

Alix has previously worked as a Crown prosecutor in Auckland, and defence counsel in the United States and United Kingdom, where she worked on international money laundering investigations. She is known for her thoughtful, timely advice and clear judgement in managing relationships with regulators.

Andrew Hill
Manager
Ministry of Justice

Andrew Hill is the manager of the Terrorism and Law Enforcement Stewardship Policy Team and the Head of the New Zealand delegation to the Financial Action Task Force and Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering.

He was responsible for leading New Zealand’s engagement in our Mutual Evaluation process.

Brandon Stanaway
Senior Consultant
AML Solutions

Brandon is an experienced AML/CFT professional having been in AML/CFT in New Zealand since the start of the regime. Brandon has extensive experience in various sectors in New Zealand including Banking and the Managed Investment Scheme Sectors.

During his career, Brandon has led a number of remediation projects and coached the business through the many practical challenges of the Act whilst also contributing to proposed improvements to the regime.

Chris Douglas
Founder
Malkara Consulting

For over 31 years, Chris Douglas worked for the Australian Federal Police investigating financial crime and crimes involving drug trafficking, people smuggling and human trafficking in Australia and in the Asia/Pacific region. With the AFP he also managed the Intelligence and the Investigations functions of the Perth Office.

Since retiring from the AFP in 2014, Chris was employed as a senior analyst in the Financial Crime Services area of the National Australia Bank, as a consultant to the United National Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Nigeria; the UNODC South-East Asia and on a Pacific anti-corruption project managed by the United Nations Development Programme. For several years he was a consultant and trainer for the Commonwealth Africa Anti-Corruption Centre in Botswana, where he delivered financial crime training programmes to participants from 15 Commonwealth Africa countries.

Chris is the owner of Malkara Consulting and has delivered training and/or consultancy services on financial crime in Australia, Asia, the Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East for government and non-government sectors.

Chris, while serving with the AFP and later as a consultant, pioneered the delivery of money laundering investigation training to NZ Police and partner agencies.

Christiaan Barnard
Detective Inspector, Field Crime Manager, NZ Police

Detective Inspector Christiaan Barnard is a Manager with the NZ Police Asset Recovery Unit and has spent over seven years working in the Financial Crime Group in roles including the Head of FIU and Acting Director.  He has represented the NZ Police at the Egmont Group of FIU’s Plenary; as an expert at the Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) Joint Experts Meeting on Asset Recovery; and as an expert as part of the INTERPOL Silver Notice Project.  He is a career Police Officer with 25 years’ service and he has worked in a range of investigations roles including homicide and serious crime, child protection, and organised crime.  He currently leads teams of investigators in Wellington, Palmerston North, and Hastings who are responsible for restraining and forfeiting criminally derived assets.

Christiaan remains actively involved in operational policing through his part-time positions as the Commander of the Wellington District Police Negotiation Team and as a commander in the NZ Police Disaster Victim Identification team.  He spent four months in 2023 seconded to the MFAT Papua Hostage Taskforce and deployed to Christchurch as part of the DVI Team in the 2019 Terrorist Attacks in Christchurch. 

Eilidh Penman
COO
AMLHUB Group

Eilidh is the Chief Operating Officer for AMLHUB Group, having previously been the Head of Outsourcing for AMLHUB Services.

She is a strategic leader with a proven track record of transforming organisations, driving operational excellence, and building high-performance teams. With extensive expertise in operational delivery and customer service, Eilidh is passionate about fostering inclusive, empowering cultures that enable employees to thrive and deliver outstanding results for clients.

With a strong background in operational efficiency, organisational change, HR, and strategic execution, Eilidh specialises in aligning business operations with revenue growth and long-term success. She has led cross-functional teams across the private sector and government, successfully navigating complex challenges to drive measurable outcomes and achieve ambitious goals.

Fiona Hall
Practitioner
Fiona Hall Law

Fiona Hall is a commercial barrister and solicitor based in Auckland’s CBD. Building on her extensive commercial law experience gained from roles with leading New Zealand and UK law firms, and as General Counsel for a number of financial institutions and senior counsel for the Commerce Commission, Fiona’s practice is now focused on assisting clients meet their ever increasing and challenging regulatory obligations.

Widely regarded as one of New Zealand’s leading AML/CFT experts, Fiona now practises primarily in this complex area of law. She combines her legal experience with the practical experience of having also been an AML Compliance Officer for a large financial institution, to help clients understand their obligations, implement compliant programmes and manage their relationship with their supervisor. Fiona regularly assists clients to prepare for audits or supervisory on-site inspections (including attendance at these), manage remedial work and advise and lead responses when enforcement action is being taken or proposed.

Kirsty Pleace
AML Manager
Financial Markets Authority

Kirsty Pleace has been working within the New Zealand AML/CFT system for more than 14 years, first with the Department of Internal affairs and more recently as the Manager of the AML Team at the Financial Markets Authority.

Over that time Kirsty has been involved in the Government Inquiry into Foreign Trust Disclosure Rules,  worked with the Ministry of Justice on the 2017 amendment to the AML/CFT legislation, lead the FATF Mutual Evaluation Project for the DIA from 2018 until 2021 and worked in the project team for the Statutory Review of the AML/CFT legislation.

Kirsty is also trained as an assessor for FATF/APG mutual evaluations (ME) and has been a financial assessor for a ME in the Pacfic.

Louise Coad
Senior Consultant
AML Solutions

Louise originally started her career in IT Managed Services and transitioned into the AML space in 2018. She has worked in other AML consultancy firms in New Zealand, and was a Senior Regulator at the Department of Internal Affairs. In her time in the AML sector, Louise has carried out consultancy for Phase 2 entities, undertaken audits and inspections, training, and written AML/CFT documentation for all types of reporting entities.

Louise has a Master of Arts, specialising in Defence and Security, and also holds a CAMS qualification.

Hon Nicole McKee
Minister for Courts & Associate Minster of Justice (Firearms)

Hon Nicole McKee is the Minister for Courts and the Associate Minister of Justice (Firearms).

Elected to Parliament as an ACT Party MP in 2020, Nicole is a mother of four, has a background in law, and is passionate about firearms reform.

Before politics, she was the coordinator of the nation’s volunteer firearms safety instructors for the Mountain Safety Council and the spokesperson for the Council of Licenced Firearms Owners (COLFO) and its Fair and Reasonable Campaign.

Richard Manthel
CEO
AML Solutions

Richard co-founded AML Solutions in 2012 and has developed AML Solutions into New Zealand’s leading AML/CFT Consultancy, Audit, and Training business.

Richard is fully dedicated to driving the AML industry in New Zealand and has close contact with government departments, regulating authorities, industry providers, and other leading professionals.

Since 2012 Richard has presented to thousands of people giving free guidance on the legislation and helping companies understand their obligations. To date AML Solutions has assisted over 1,000 New Zealand companies with the development of their AML Compliance Programmes, completing AML Audits or providing training solutions.

Tijana Misur
Head of Audit & Consulting
AML Solutions

Tijana is Head of Audit & Consulting at AML Solutions, and is a CAMS-Audit certified AML/CFT professional with extensive experience providing both audit and consultancy services to hundreds of New Zealand, Australian, and Pacific Island reporting entities.

Regarded as one of New Zealand's leading AML experts, Tijana manages a team of consultants who assist reporting entities across all AML sectors with their AML/CFT.

Tijana is a Chartered Accountant, and gained her Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist certificate through ACAMS in 2016, and the CAMS-Audit advanced certification in 2018.