Financial crime has become a boardroom issue. Regulators in East Africa and worldwide now expect senior management to own the money laundering and terrorist financing risk, to fund the controls that match it and to evidence effective oversight. At the same time, criminals move faster through digital channels, virtual assets and layered corporate structures, which means static rule-based monitoring is no longer enough on its own.

This executive programme brings the two halves together. It starts with the international standards and the enterprise risk assessment that should drive every control decision. It then moves through customer due diligence, beneficial ownership, politically exposed persons, sanctions and correspondent relationships, before turning to the analytics that make detection work: scenario design, threshold calibration, anomaly detection, network mapping and the measurement of false positives. Leaders also examine investigations, reporting to the financial intelligence unit and the response to examiner findings.

Delivery favours discussion over lecture. Participants work through anonymised case studies, review sample dashboards and management information packs, and role-play a board challenge session. By the close they hold a draft risk appetite statement, a set of questions to put to compliance and data teams, and a prioritised plan for strengthening their institution's defences.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Explain the FATF Recommendations and what they require of senior management and boards.
• Evaluate an enterprise-wide money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment for quality and coverage.
• Challenge customer due diligence, beneficial ownership and sanctions screening arrangements.
• Interpret transaction-monitoring outputs, typologies and network analysis findings.
• Assess alert quality, threshold calibration and model validation evidence from compliance and data teams.
• Direct investigations and suspicious transaction reporting to the financial intelligence unit.
• Set financial crime risk appetite and report meaningful assurance to boards and regulators.

The programme is designed for senior leaders who carry accountability for financial crime risk, including:

• Chief compliance officers and money laundering reporting officers
• Heads of risk and chief risk officers
• Executive directors and board audit or risk committee members
• Heads of internal audit and assurance
• Senior managers in retail, corporate and trade finance
• Fintech, mobile money and payment service executives
• Regulators, supervisors and financial intelligence unit leaders
• Heads of data, analytics and fraud functions

Participants leave the programme with:

• A draft financial crime risk appetite statement tailored to their institution.
• A board-level question list for testing AML/CFT controls and analytics.
• A practical scorecard for judging the quality of transaction-monitoring and screening results.
• A clear view of the management information a board should see each quarter.
• An outline response plan for examiner findings and remediation.
• A prioritised twelve-month roadmap for strengthening financial crime defences.

The programme is designed for busy executives and keeps theory brief. It uses:

• Short briefings on standards followed by structured leadership discussion
• Anonymised case files from banking, mobile money and trade finance
• Dashboard and alert-sample reviews that build analytic judgement without coding
• A simulated board challenge session with feedback from the facilitator
• Peer exchange on how participants' own institutions handle common control gaps

Executives who attend the full programme and complete the practical exercises are awarded a CPD-accredited Certificate of Completion by Vision Reach Global Consultancy.