Ben is a successful New York-based FinTech/RegTech CEO and entrepreneur, having previously spent 24 years with HSBC in seven countries across four continents.
Ben is CEO of Complidata, an EU-based specialist artificial intelligence company helping banks better manage financial crime risk mitigation and trade finance process automation. Ben has also founded multiple start-ups and holds several roles focused on trade finance, financial crime prevention and ESG – as well as working with many founders in compliance, trade finance, payments and correspondent banking.
At HSBC Ben was head of various trade finance, commercial banking and payments businesses in the Middle East and Asia before becoming head of trade finance in Canada in 2011 – where he grew the business from 2.5bn to 7bn in assets winning best bank for trade finance as voted by corporates and FIs in 2015. Based in New York and living in Connecticut for the last seven years, Ben was regional head of trade services for HSBC and then head of compliance for the commercial bank, gaining significant experience remediating FinCrime issues, managing relationships with regulators and developing positions on cryptocurrency, gaming, money service and similar high-risk industries. During ten years with HSBC in North America Ben spent countless hours with regulators both remediating issues as well as setting a future course for a mature advisory compliance function.
A common theme to Ben’s career has been a proactive focus on detection and prevention of financial and environmental crime to the benefit of society in both developed and emerging markets.