The Academy of Information Technology and Engineering

Silberman College of Business at Fairleigh Dickinson University

Customer Obsessed, Growth Minded Group Product Manager & People Leader / Leading Innovation & Transformation: Compliance, Payments, Fraud Prevention, Risk + Trust & Safety / Passionate about Economic Empowerment

New York, New York, United States

As the Lead Product Manager for Buyer Fraud Protection at Square, I am responsible for driving the development and success of Risk Manager, a sophisticated fraud monitoring solution for our sellers. Risk Manager uses advanced machine learning algorithms to automatically identify and block suspicious online transactions, providing real-time results in the Risk Manager Dashboard. I have led the development and implementation of this product, which allows businesses of all sizes to authenticate payments with 3D Secure and shift fraudulent chargeback liability from the seller to the card issuer. Additionally, Risk Manager provides maximum flexibility, allowing sellers to take control of fraud detection on online purchases and set the level of risk that works best for their business.
            

    
    

    
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Square

Lead Product Manager: Buyer Fraud and Risk Manager

As a Lead Product Manager for Credit and Fraud Risk for Banking Products at Square, I have made significant contributions to the company's success by driving the development and implementation of cutting-edge solutions that have reduced fraud losses by over 40%. I have worked closely with data scientists to build new models for carding, historical profile deviations, and fake accounts, which have greatly enhanced the risk management capabilities of Square's banking products. My ability to effectively lead cross-functional teams and my deep understanding of the financial services industry have been key to my success in this role, and I am proud of the results I have achieved for Square and its clients.

In this role I supported Credit and Fraud Risk Coverage for Banking: Checking, Savings, Credit and Debit Card Products.
            

    
    

    
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Lead Product Manager: Banking Credit and Fraud Risk

As the Group Product Manager for Make Etsy Safe Globally, I am responsible for leading the development and implementation of a comprehensive strategy to ensure the safety and trust of Etsy's global community. My role encompasses a wide range of areas including Risk, Compliance, Fraud Prevention as well as Trust and Safety. I have a proven track record of successfully leading cross-functional teams to drive the development and launch of innovative solutions that improve the safety and trust of online marketplaces. My strong leadership skills and deep understanding of the e-commerce industry have enabled me to effectively manage complex projects and deliver exceptional results for Etsy and its users. I am passionate about using technology to create safe and trustworthy online communities and am committed to making Etsy a safe place for buyers and sellers globally.

I left Etsy following their acquisition and integration of Depop, Reverb and Elo7.
            

    
    

    
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Etsy

Group Product Manager, Make Etsy Safe Globally (Risk, Compliance, Trust and Safety)

As a Lead Product Manager for Payments Risk at eBay, I was responsible for driving innovation and transformation in the areas of Anti-Money Laundering, Compliance, Fraud and Trust & Safety. My role focused on eBay's overall risk strategy and its impact on buyers and sellers. I built a state-of-the-art platform for capturing behaviors of interest, which greatly enhanced eBay's ability to detect and prevent fraud.

I have a strong background in leading cross-functional teams to drive the development and launch of innovative solutions that improve the safety and trust of online marketplaces. I collaborated with Compliance, Operations & Risk teams to understand the impact of compliance & risk strategy on broader operations and support requirements that allow products to scale. I manage a large portfolio of new product launches that require consultation, support, risk and operations assessment, prioritization across the portfolio, identify and communicate dependencies, and highlight and help resolve blocking issues.

I co-lead Agile scrum teams with engineering to deliver the product roadmap; drove sprint planning, story prioritization and backlog grooming. I was involved in developing compliance operations strategy for new types of products and designing sustainable operations experiences that challenged conventional operational models for new products at scale. I communicated and liaised effectively with key cross-functional partners, including Engineering, Product Management, Legal and others during design, build, launch, and expansion phase of product life cycle. I ensure appropriate tracking and transparency on milestones is maintained in JIRA.

I have a passion for building safe and trustworthy online communities and was thrilled to be able to make eBay a safe place for buyers and sellers globally!
            

    
    

    
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eBay

Lead Technical Product Manager - Payments Risk: AML, Compliance, Fraud and Trust & Safety

I was the subject matter expert responsible for leading consulting engagements and building products that leveraged my background in data science and technology to solve financial crimes business problems, including fraud, anti-money laundering, and trade surveillance.

I led a team responsible for developing, implementing, and optimizing best-in-class models and analytic tools. I worked with clients to implement or improve compliance and risk management programs and managed remediation projects, look backs, system implementations, advisory efforts, and model validation projects. I developed and implemented marketing plans and related activities to drive new business and provided leadership and direction on the sales and positioning of the firm.

Initiatives I led included: Fraud Model Development for a large U.S. issuer of premium credit and charge card products, Identity Management Model Development for a mid-market U.S. issuer of credit card products, Custom Development and Implementation of a transaction verification system at the retail line of business at a U.S. banking conglomerate, Fraud Model Development for the retail banking division at a U.S. banking conglomerate, supporting peer to peer payments, Fraud Model Development at a bank specialized at issuing stored value cards to consumers, AML Model Development for the New York Branch of a Japanese based correspondent bank designed to detect nested activity, Tuning & Optimization of a trade surveillance system at a Canadian Investment Bank, custom model development for off-market transactions, Implementation of an Actimize Suspicious Activity Monitoring 8.5 platform at the New York Branch of a global bank.

I also led marketing efforts, including event marketing at conferences and managing submissions to industry publications. My goal was to provide clients with cutting-edge solutions that improved their compliance and risk management capabilities and ultimately helped prevent financial crimes.
            

    
    

    
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Davies Group

Director, Product Management - Fraud and Financial Crimes Compliance Consulting Practice

Experienced financial crime subject matter expert responsible for business development and sales to SAS's clients looking to leverage SAS technology to fight financial crime. My responsibilities included exploring alternative approaches to grow market revenue through new offerings, partnerships, or joint venture models.

I delivered senior-level solution demonstrations and presentations outlining the functional capabilities, competitive, advantages and business benefits to meet clients' needs. I conducted meetings to collect, analyze, clarify and document business requirements during the sales cycle to support the implementation team and to produce a detailed solution proposal. I identified an enterprise-wide view of gaps and identify opportunities to leverage software technologies to eliminate those gaps. I developed and maintained strong working relationships with Account Executives, Sales Engineers, Professional Services, Customer Support, and Product Management supporting Fraud Security & Intelligence's customers and solutions.

I also followed up with customers to track satisfaction levels and to discover additional revenue opportunities. My goal was to help clients leverage SAS's cutting-edge technology to prevent financial crime and improve their compliance and risk management capabilities.

SAS Institute is an American multinational developer of analytics software based in Cary, North Carolina. SAS develops and markets a suite of analytics software (also called SAS), which helps access, manage, analyze and report on data to aid in decision-making. The company is the world's largest privately held software business and its software is used by most of the Fortune 500.
            

    
    

    
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Product Marketing Manager, Global Fraud and Security Intelligence Practice

I was responsible for driving the development and implementation of best-in-class models and analytic tools for operational risk technology, coverage strategy, and business intelligence. Utilizing my skills in project management, internal advisory, model development, and data analysis, I helped the bank to effectively manage its risk profile.

I managed multiple vendor relationships related to risk technology, data streams, system validations, business process outsourcing, and workforce procurement; evaluated business requirements, determined the best resources, negotiated pricing and terms. I evaluated process effectiveness and efficiency, managed book of work related to process improvement. I implemented new tools for Client On-boarding, KYC, CDD, EDD reviews, client and transaction list screening. I developed relationships with internal audit and external examiners to cultivate openness, collaboration, and robust controls.

I launched new models, rules, and scenarios for capturing behaviors of interest and optimize existing ones. I established methods to effectively address risks associated with virtual currencies and collaborated with clients engaged in heightened risk businesses to address client needs related to developing programs for On-boarding, KYC, and ongoing AML monitoring. I performed analysis of risk processes and procedures, identified areas which could be automated within Actimize. I ensured all system thresholds were accurate, executed threshold validation and managed below the line testing. I built interactive dashboards for analyzing risk factors, consolidating data from multiple source systems.

I functioned as the business partner on upgrades and enhancements to Actimize, liaison between technical development and business users. I composed documentation for the Conceptual Soundness Review, mandated by the OCC, detailed descriptions of typologies, context, and interworking of each scenario deployed, supporting the overall coverage strategy.
            

    
    

    
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Signature Bank

Strategy Manager, Risk Management and Compliance

I supported the optimization of Transaction Monitoring and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Surveillance. My responsibilities included producing quantitative and qualitative analysis to support maintenance and enhancement of existing AML surveillance models, rules, and scenarios. I developed and tested new surveillance solutions, including tuning and configuration. I utilized statistical modeling to optimize risk scoring methodology and explored thresholds, sampling above and below the line.

I worked closely with members of other teams such as Investigations and Technology to research issues, define and evaluate possible solutions, document decisions, and support the implementation of changes. I authored, organized and maintained robust documentation associated with optimization analysis and related program materials/procedures. I presented findings and recommendations to internal and external stakeholders, explained analytical concepts, methodologies and data-based recommendations to a variety of audiences.

I managed work tasks and deliverables in a deadline-driven environment, planned and managed project activities with other teams, identified and resolved dependency and resource issues. I collaborated with vendors from NICE Actimize and Oracle Mantas to leverage the most up-to-date monitoring tools. My goal was to help Barclays to stay ahead of risk and effectively manage its risk profile.
            

    
    

    
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Barclays

Business Analyst, Risk Management, Surveillance Optimization

I was responsible for managing and optimizing the bank's risk management systems. I was involved in the upgrade to Oracle Mantas and NICE Actimize from legacy Fortent & Searchspace installations. I identified process improvements and leveraged technology to automate and streamline existing processes. I engineered sophisticated pattern recognition techniques to identify behaviors of interest.

I wrote business requirements for transaction monitoring coverage, case management tools, and developed workflow for users to disposition cases, addressed needs to support multiple triage groups and random sampling for quality control. I conducted user acceptance testing, escalated and tracked defects. I performed regression analysis and below the line testing to determine appropriate thresholds for alert generation/manual transactional reviews, validate models.

I utilized statistical modeling to develop risk scoring methodology, analyzed data distributions, volumes, processes, and systems, ensure adherence to risk management standards. I produced peer group performance and work flow analysis capturing relevant facts, best practices, and business rationale. I developed methods to improve suspicious activity reporting, monitoring transactions, conducting customer due diligence and risk assessment. I addressed concerns from The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's cease and desist order, related to Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).

I implemented improvements to internal controls and independent testing. I conducted training and quality testing. During my tenure at J.P. Morgan, I helped the bank to stay ahead of risk and effectively manage its risk profile. I am proud of the contributions I made to the bank's efforts to comply with regulatory requirements.
            

    
    

    
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J.P. Morgan

Business Analyst, Risk

As an Intern for the Market Watch Desk at the New York Stock Exchange, I was responsible for providing support to the Global Corporate Client Group. My responsibilities included creating and editing presentations and pitch books for potential transfers and new initial public offerings, developing and editing newsletters for clients, and creating documentation for external companies about NYSE processes, including stock-splits, name changes and dividends.

I compiled data from indexes including Standard & Poors and Russell to let account managers know about listed company status changes and worked with data feed providers, including Google and Yahoo, to correct discrepancies with information on listed companies. I also developed and improved automated circuit breakers that halt the trading of securities that exhibit unusual trading patterns.

I researched prospective clients and compiled reports for management, documented names of notable visitors coming to the exchange and disseminated information to related parties, set up precedence files for the Market Watch Desk, and created and organized notes for Corporate Board Member's webcast and This Week in the Boardroom.

I also reconciled databases using current information and using CRM software and created a bell schedule to help the group better understand how limited resources were utilized. This internship provided me with a great opportunity to learn about the inner workings of the NYSE and gain valuable experience in the world of finance.
            

    
    

    
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The New York Stock Exchange

Global Listings Intern, Market Watch Desk  -  Trade Surveillance  -  Marketing & Communications

During my time as a rotational intern at UBS Investment Bank in 2007-2008, I was responsible for a variety of tasks that helped me gain a thorough understanding of investment banking operations. My responsibilities included creating and editing presentations and pitch books in an effort to attract new business, formulating new algorithm designs in Microsoft Excel, Access, and SQL for trading desks, and liaising between technical teams and end users of RKYC (Really Know Your Client), a new database and software system.

I was responsible for conducting User Acceptance Testing (UAT) of RKYC, identifying issues with the software and formulating solutions to rectify the issues, reviewing the solutions with the technical teams. I also utilized Microsoft Excel to analyze data and generate reports on performance metrics and efficiency, reconciled information in databases and in CRM software and developed and implemented a business continuity management plan.

In addition, I set up SharePoint collaboration websites to allow for easier dissemination of information, worked with media relations to create a speaker series and generate press, organized special events for the group and created seating charts and helped the group move to a larger space to support a growing team. I also reviewed content and articles to compile a newsletter for company employees and external use. This internship provided me with a comprehensive understanding of investment banking and the skills I needed to be successful in the industry.
            

    
    

    
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Andrew Kostin

Andrew Kostin