Anastasia Savvateeva

Financial Crime Enigmatologist and AML, Sanctions and Audit Puzzle Solver. Compliance and Anti-Financial Crime Evangelist. Passionate globe trotter, having lived in 5 countries until now and visited a million more. Astronomy and astrophotography geek. Tango aficionado and foreign languages enthusiast. Incurable tiramisu junkie.

What makes you a Risky Woman?

I’m not afraid of being a divergent, some sort of a compliance / anti-financial crime maverick. It can be hard and often uncomfortable to oppose colleagues, managers and have a different opinion, even under a masked threat of retaliation. I’ve always considered courage as my main quality. Courage to resist and not to give up, defending what is ethical and denouncing things that do not feel right. Talking openly of compliance / anti-financial crime being inefficient, insufficient, at all levels.

Name your top 3 achievements

1. My students and mentees, young women but also young men (even if they are not “achievements” by themselves but what they achieve makes me so proud of them and feels like I’ve accomplished something important and have contributed to something positive in the lives of these people)
2. Conducting an internal audit in a situation of crisis (Deutsche Bank scandals)
3. Creating my own method for internal investigations

What is the biggest risk you’ve taken in your career?

I guess my career is still not so extensive to properly speak about “biggest risk”. Every decision I’ve taken had a pinch of risk: leaving my home country at 18 totally alone to start a new life, not willing to work in the filed I studied for and choosing what is right rather that what pays well, moving to another country without no working knowledge of local regulations and still successfully dealing with complex cases in a foreign environment, refusing to accept things I considered unjustified, ill-documented, non plausible, suspicious. Taking risks is not what we – especially women – naturally go for and seek. But this is one of the key components for our development and learning.

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

Counter-terrorist financing is closer to me than any other field of anti-financial crime. In 2010, several months before my departure for France for my university studies, Moscow underground was attacked by terrorists (bombs). I was there at that exact moment (my school was in this area) and this will stay with me until my final day. I survived and I promised to do everything I can to help stop this kind of atrocities. My profession has always been my passionate choice.

What is the best quality for successful leaders in Risk?

I always say that defining means limiting. I won’t be able to define, and therefore limit, successful leaders to one quality. It is always a set of features – and I must assume, not always extremely positive ones, especially if we consider what actually “success” and “being a successful leader in Risk” means for each and every person.

To my mind, the set of these features certainly includes courage, honesty, ability to recognize mistakes, to share (whatever it may be – knowledge, experience, tasks, responsibility, etc.) and empower people and being passionate about what you do.