About
Cecilia Samsoondar is a Vice President at Accuracy. She is responsible for developing the advisory practice for financial institutions and large corporate groups. She has more than 17 years of experience in the financial services sector and management consulting.
Cecilia started her career with TD Bank, and held a variety of governance and risk related positions covering retail and commercial banking, wealth management, insurance and wholesale banking. She led the development of numerous enterprise-wide governance and change management initiatives including, the crisis management and recovery plan, executive and board reporting, new business product approval processes, and risk appetite program.
In 2015, Cecilia joined EY’s Financial Services Risk Management practice where she helped clients on how to drive value from implementing practical risk management plans and designed strategies to support large scale transformation programs. As the Canadian Regulatory Compliance Leader, she led numerous global engagements with teams spanning across the Americas.
Qualifications
- Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA), Ivey School of Business (2018)
- Bachelor of Arts in International Economics and Finance, Toronto Metropolitan University (2008)
In-depth expertise
Given Cecilia’s breadth and depth of experience across financial services, both locally and internationally, she has extensive expertise in risk, regulation and compliance:
- Risk and controls transformation including design and implementation of target operating models and frameworks across global banks, wealth and asset management firms, insurance companies, pension firms and fintechs
- In-depth and practical application of non-financial risk capabilities spanning regulatory compliance, ethics and conduct, privacy, financial crimes, operational risk, and business continuity
- Regulatory expertise in requirements relevant to financial services institutions including OSFI guidelines, Bank Act, FCAC, Securities legislation, Privacy laws, CDIC, FATCA, and CASL
- Extensive global expertise in implementing new regulations and internal policies, establishing sustainable programs, leading teams, executing strategic initiatives, preparing executive and board reporting, and conducting external reviews
Example of engagements
- Regulatory Compliance Management: Led the strategy and execution of several multi-year, enterprise-wide transformation programs including design of target operating models and frameworks. Developed methodology to implement all modules including regulatory inventory and controls mapping, risk assessment, monitoring and testing, issues management, and reporting.
- Risk & Governance Transformation: Designed and implemented enterprise and operational risk management frameworks and policies at major Canadian banks. Led teams in the implementation of operational risk management requirements including RCSAs, KRIs, scenario analysis, reporting, governance, loss data/events and risk appetite.
- Enterprise & Operational Risk Management: Delivered guiding principles and leading practices for development of third party risk management, change management, new business and product approval, conduct risk, corporate and IT security, environmental social and governance risk management, performance management, and crisis management policies for various financial services institutions.
- Risk & Compliance Reviews: Led teams in the execution of various regulatory, compliance & ethics, anti-money laundering, sanctions, and corporate governance reviews targeted at understanding current state gaps against peers and sound industry practice, facilitating desired future state and development of roadmaps with prioritized activities.
- Risk Program Optimization: Facilitated annual and ad hoc risk and controls workshops including self-assessments and risk scorecard refreshes with Executives in business and control functions covering all aspects of risk, compliance, privacy and AML.