Shana Leyva

Shana Leyva is Head of Marketing for the Americas at Hawk, where she leads go-to-market strategy, partnerships, and marketing programs to help financial institutions combat financial crime with AI-driven technology. She has more than a decade of experience in B2B fintech and RegTech marketing, working closely with banks, fintechs, and compliance leaders to advance next-gen approaches to anti-money laundering, fraud prevention, and financial crime risk management.

Shana is actively involved in the fintech and financial crime community. She serves on the ACFCS Midwest board and is a leader within the NYC FinTech Women community in Chicago. She is also an advisor to Fiat Growth. Through events, partnerships, and thought leadership initiatives, she works to connect practitioners and promote innovation across the financial crime and compliance ecosystem.

What makes you a Risky Woman?

Aside from being a literal woman in risk and compliance, I take risks and ask the same of those around me to broaden how we think about financial crime, how we can better come together to create communities, and to challenge the status quo.

Name your top 3 achievements

1. My career arc/path and where I am today
2. Broadening and facilitating community around me through my volunteer work and advocacy of women in fintech
3. The (ongoing) act of raising 2 young girls

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

Shifting careers paths over 8 years ago to enter the risk and compliance space.

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

I took and completed Second City’s full improv program to overcome social anxiety!

What is the best quality for successful leaders in Risk?

Humility