Steve Sanford

Banking – Global Top 50 – Scotiabank

• Creation & implementation of net new operational risk management framework, and associated risk and compliance programs, for business units in 35 countries–covering 35,000 employees spanning the Caribbean, central and south America, and Asia.
  • digital consolidated risk and compliance reporting for executive management, risk committees and the board of directors with a defined a suite of risk metrics to ensure common risk reporting
• Optimization of International compliance processes efficiently through common processes
• Designed & implemented enhanced due diligence reviews for Politically Exposed Persons and High-Risk Customers.
• Technical design, compliance and risk for mobile wallets and open & closed loop digital payment products

Information & Technology Company – Hewlett-Packard

• Led Global Compliance teams for clients in financial services, manufacturing & logistics supply with contract values totaling $800 million; customer operations in 40+ countries globally.
• Provided strategic guidance and leadership for infrastructure development and operational improvement projects
• Developed, implemented and managed security, regulatory frameworks and programs for customer business units—improving quality assurance and client operational confidence
• Managed internal and external customer audits and problem remediation across all aspects of operation

Steve Sanford is a senior expert with a proven track record in business and technology management and managing operational risk, security and regulatory compliance. He has more than 12 years of professional experience implementing and overseeing regulatory compliance and risk frameworks with leading multinational banking, technology, and utility companies. He has a deep understanding of regulatory and supervisory technology and processes, as well as vast experience on BOTH sides of the regulatory and compliance challenges of outsourcing expensive infrastructure and delivery of shared services.

At Hewlett Packard, as Global Compliance Lead, Enterprise Security Steve was an expert on the side of the third-party provider to bank clients, including Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Steve worked on the development of HP’s global security policies and procedures, and refined processes related to security and regulatory compliance. Regulatory regimes included: Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX), HIPPAA; ISO 27001; ITAR. In the process of working with customer and support teams to ensure adoption of and ongoing compliance with security policies and procedures, Steve became expert in change management techniques including ITIL. His improvements to the management of security and regulatory frameworks and programs for customer business units significantly improved quality assurance as well as client operational confidence.

Steve moved to Scotiabank, International Division in 2010 to become Director, New Products and Payments, with responsibility for the design, development, and implementation of new payments products across 24 countries in the Americas. He was immediately called upon to help support the design and launch of the “Tcho Tcho” Mobile wallet program in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Following this, Steve designed and implemented prepaid products to benefit emerging market users in Costa Rica (open loop payroll product: “Mi Pago”), and Peru (closed loop, reloadable consumer payments card). He helped to secure the bank’s implementation and rollout of the EMV (Europay, Mastercard, and Visa) Chip standard across all operations in Latin America and then designed the program to convert existing cardholders to the EMV Chip standard across all countries in Latin America and Caribbean. In conjunction with this initiative, Steve renegotiated individual country contracts with payment providers Visa & Mastercard into a single, effective master regional contract.

In his role as Director Operational Risk, for International Division, Scotiabank, Steve provided strategic leadership to both executive management and country management to strengthen the organization’s risk and regulatory compliance culture. As a key leader of the Compliance team, Steve led the optimization of compliance processes across the International Division, ensuring country teams and back office teams worked efficiently through common processes. To facilitate this, he designed and implemented new processes, including enhanced due diligence reviews for Politically Exposed Persons and High-Risk Customers.

Steve led the team that developed, defined and implemented new risk processes including: the assessment of New Product Risk; audit remediation tracking; and End User Computing Risk Management and training in response to new regulatory requirements. Since Scotiabank outsources much of its data functionality as well as a significant part of its IT, Steve was deeply involved in the bank side of vendor (3rd-party) risk and SLA management.

Most importantly, Steve created a net new operational risk management framework, and associated risk and compliance programs, for business units in 35 countries–covering 35,000 employees globally (spanning the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia.). He developed and delivered digital consolidated risk and compliance reporting for executive management, risk committees and the board of directors with a defined a suite of risk metrics to ensure common operational risk reporting across all markets.

Steve is now the Compliance and Risk specialist for all projects of digital financial.