Diane Francis
Bestselling Author
Editor-at-Large, The National Post

Diane Francis has written three bestselling books and reported extensively on white-collar crime through her columns for the National Post and dozens of other media outlets. Her topics range from stock fraud to money laundering, offshore secrecy havens, Ponzi schemes, government entitlement scandals, boiler rooms, market manipulations and an investigative expose about Bre-X, the largest mining swindle in Canadian history.

James D. Ratley, CFE
President and CEO
Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

James D. Ratley graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration. In 1971, he joined the Dallas Police Department as a police officer. He was a member of numerous department task forces that concentrated on major fraud cases. In 1986, Ratley left the police department to join Wells & Associates, where he was in charge of fraud investigations. He handled investigations regarding internal frauds, conflicts of interest and litigation support. In 1988, he was named Program Director for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) and oversaw all aspects of the ACFE's training and education programs. In 2005, Ratley was awarded the ACFE's highest honour, the Cressey Award. He was named President of the ACFE in 2006 and continues to hold the title. Ratley has been selected as one of Security magazine's "Most Influential Security Executives for 2010" and Accounting Today's "Top 100 Most Influential People."

Paul Garside, CFE
Partner
Vidocq Group

Paul Garside is an expert in the fields of fraud and corruption investigations as well as the planning and management of major investigation projects. He had an exemplary career with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police where he began in 1987. He dedicated most of his career to his real passion, major – domestic and transnational – financial crime investigations.

Michel Juneau-Katsuya
President and CEO
The Northgate Group Corp.

Michael Juneau-Katsuya is internationally recognized as one of Canada’s foremost experts in international and national security and intelligence, and economic and industrial espionage. After working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, Juneau-Katsuya now performs threat and risk assessments and security audits in the private sector.

Philip Fodchuk
Partner
Deloitte

Philip Fodchuk is a Partner in Deloitte’s Enterprise Risk Services practice, focusing on cybersecurity. He is Deloitte’s Global Crisis Management Leader for the Energy & Resources sector and is Deloitte’s Canadian leader for cybersecurity incident response. Previous to Deloitte, Fodchuk was a sworn police officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and has worked with technological crime and cybersecurity matters for the past 20 years.

Lynn Danis
Criminal Intelligence Analyst
Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC)

John Ahern, CFE, LLB
Senior Crown Counsel
Ministry of Justice-Criminal Justice Branch-Appeals & Special Prosecutions
Commercial Crime, Proceeds & Securities Section

John Ahern is Senior Crown Counsel with the British Columbia Ministry of Justice in Vancouver. His province-wide law practice focuses on the prosecution of major white-collar criminal offences committed by both individuals and corporations. He has also practiced civil litigation, representing plaintiffs in civil fraud cases. Prior to attending law school, Ahern served 17 years as a peace officer with Canada Customs, the Peel Regional Police and the RCMP. He has taught law courses at the Canadian Police College in Ottawa, the Justice Institute of British Columbia and the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Law.   He is also a Director of the Vancouver Chapter of the ACFE.

Richard Arthurs, CFE, CMA, CIA
Director of Internal Audit
Altalink

Richard Arthurs has more than 25 years of experience in finance, accounting, audit, risk management and fraud investigation. He is currently the Vice President of Risk Management and the Chief Audit Executive of Altalink: Berkshire Hathaway Energy, based in Calgary. He was previously the Global Director of Internal Audit for General Mills Inc. in Minneapolis. Over his 13 years at General Mills he managed more than 100 fraud investigations in multiple countries around the world. Arthurs is the National Chair of the Thought Leadership Committee for the Institute of Internal Auditors and a facilitator of the the ERM program for the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Sherry Brandon
CEO/President
Career Concepts

Sherry Brandon is known as the "Business Behaviourist" because of her proven approach to affect change in morale and productivity in the organizations she helps. As a strategic advisor, executive coach and corporate trainer, she empowers individuals and corporations to thrive and grow through courage, leadership, vision and teamwork. She has taught more than 20,000 people and worked with many companies across North America. Her portfolio includes essential soft-skill topics such as leadership, project management, stress management, time management, master communications, people management, human resource law, marketing and train the trainer. Brandon is a body language expert, a former certified fraud examiner and private investigator as well as a recognized international speaker.

Garry Clement, CFE, CAMS, AMLP
President and CEO
Clement Advisory Group

Garry Clement is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of money laundering, interviewing, white-collar crime, organized crime and detection of suspicious activity, and is one of the pioneers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) proceeds of crime program. In addition to managing his firm, Clement Advisory Group, he is the Executive Vice President of TAMLO International Inc. which focuses on designing comprehensive online anti-money laundering courses. Clement has thirty-four years of policing experience, thirty with the RCMP where he worked in the areas of proceeds of crime and money laundering as an investigator, undercover operator and manager.

Guy Crepeau, CFE, CISSP/CPA, CA.IFA, CFF
Senior Manager
Deloitte LLP

Guy Crepeau has significant experience in conducting forensic audits, investigations, loss quantifications, business interruption claims, anti-money laundering investigations, shareholder dispute resolution and other litigation support matters. He also has substantial experience in the area of proactive fraud management including conducting fraud risk assessments, fraud analytics, anti-fraud controls assessments and anti-fraud program reviews as well as other fraud prevention engagements.

Crepeau has wide-ranging experience in working with federal government departments, crown corporations and agencies, other public sector organizations such as hospitals and not-for-profit organizations, private corporations, major financial institutions, and technology, media and telecommunications entities.

David Debenham, J.D., CFE, CPA, CMA
Chair of Supreme Court of Canada Group
McMillan LLP

David Debenham is the Co-Chair of McMillan’s Supreme Court of Canada Group. Trained as both a trial lawyer and a forensic accountant, he has led many fraud investigations over the past 25 years. He is the author of The Law of Fraud and the Forensic Investigator (3rd ed, Carswell, 2012).

Ken Derakhshan, CFE
Sergeant, Team Commander
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)

Sgt. Derakhshan is the team leader of a fraud team with the RCMP’s Greater Toronto Area Financial Crime Section. During his past nine years in Financial Crime, Sgt. Derakhshan has led, supervised and directed several major investigations which include mortgage frauds, breach of trust by public officials, and investment frauds involving non-traditional organized crime groups. As a result of his 22 years in law enforcement, Sgt. Derakhshan has given evidence in various criminal court jurisdictions within Canada, as well as in the State of New York.

Alexander De Zordo
Partner
Borden Ladner Gervais

Alex De Zordo is a partner in the Commercial Litigation Group, as well as head of the Litigation Department in the Montréal office, a member of the Management Committee, and Regional Leader of the Fraud Law Group. He regularly acts for financial institutions, corporate victims of occupational or external fraud, forensic accountants, security and investigation services, information services and high-tech companies, as well as companies of every size in the context of complex litigation, injunctions, seizures, trials, arbitration and class actions. De Zordo has expertise in all aspects of commercial fraud and corruption, including detection, investigation, prevention and recovery. He also has experience with fraudulent financial statements, embezzlement, bank fraud, financial and securities fraud, bills of exchange, letters of credit, fraudulent transactions, money and asset tracing, money laundering, proceeds of crime, Paulian Actions, unfair competition, IP fraud and counterfeiting.

Dorian Dwyer, CFE
Detective Staff Sergeant, Unit Commander, Health Fraud Investigations
Ontario Provincial Police

Detective Staff Sergeant Dorian Dwyer has been an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer for 30 years and has been a member of the Anti-Rackets Branch of the OPP for more than 12 years. During his tenure in the Anti-Rackets Branch he has investigated and/or case managed many major economic crime offenses, corruption cases and health fraud cases involving millions of dollars in losses. Detective Staff Sergeant Dwyer also spent 18 months seconded to the RCMP-led Integrated National Security Enforcement Team investigating national security matters.

Keith Elliott
VP Operations & Business Development
Reed Research Limited

Keith Elliott has been a licensed private investigator in varying capacities for more than 23 years. He has extensive experience with property-casualty, criminal, life, health and disability insurance investigations across Canada and internationally. He has presented evidence and testified in precedent-setting cases at the Supreme Court of Ontario and FSCO.

In addition to overseeing the daily operations and company’s development, Elliott is the primary point of contact for many clients. He is regularly asked to provide in-house training to various insurance company staff on the function and use of investigations, surveillance and social media surveillance for insurance purposes

Bethmara Kessler, CFE, CISA
Chief Audit Executive
Campbell Soup Company

Bethmara Kessler is the Chief Audit Executive at the Campbell Soup Company and is on the ACFE Faculty and Advisory Council. Prior to joining Campbell’s, Kessler served as the CAE and Co-Chief Compliance Officer at Warner Music Group. Her extensive experience includes leadership roles in audit, compliance, risk management, corporate investigations, business process improvement and IT in a range of businesses including The Fraud and Risk Advisory Group, L Brands, EMI Group, Avon Products, Nabisco and Ernst & Young.

Kessler is a passionate fraud fighter and frequently speaks on a variety of topics related to fraud prevention and detection, investigations, auditing, compliance, and risk. She is a contributing author to the ACFE’s Fraud Examiners Manual and Fraud Casebook: Lessons From the Bad Side of Business as well as several articles that have appeared in Internal Auditor Magazine, The Journal of Accountancy, and other specialty publications.

Clayton Knight
Senior Manager
Deloitte LLP

Bio coming soon.

Derek Knights
Senior Manager, Strategic Initiatives
TD Bank

As part of TD Bank’s Global Security & Investigations group, Derek Knights is responsible for enterprise-wide activities, practices, governance and delivering training sessions in business and report writing. Prior to TD Bank, he was with Sun Life Financial, where he handled domestic and international investigations that fell outside the specific areas of traditional insurance-related matters. Knights previously spent 20 years working in Toronto public housing properties in security, investigations and property management, dealing with street and serious crimes, and a variety of frauds.

Linda Lister, CFE, CPA, CGA, CMA
Senior Manager, Fraud Investigation & Dispute Services
Ernst & Young LLP

Linda Lister has more than fifteen years experience in investigating whistleblower accusations, financial statement manipulations, misappropriations of cash, salary sacrifice schemes, ghost employees, check fraud, expense reimbursement schemes and multiple types of procurement fraud. She has provided assistance to governments, not-for-profit organizations, public utilities and a broad range of public sector entities. Her expertise in theft and fraud investigations, corporate financial restatement activities, assisting clients in designing compliance programs and reporting to regulators on their corporate governance has been gained through her position at Ernst & Young and through various internal auditing appointments.

Steven Malette, CFE, CPA, CGA, CIRP
Managing Director
PricewaterhouseCoopers

Steven Malette is a Managing Director and holds the dual role as PwC’s National Capital Region (NCR) Deals and Forensic Services Leader. He joined the firm in 1995 and since that date has specialized in the areas of forensic investigations/audits, bankruptcies, restructurings, corporate, receiverships and financial reviews. Such assignments have been completed on behalf of governments (Federal and Provincial), financial institutions, non-profit organizations, private sector companies, lawyers and creditors. Malette’s assignments have been completed in a wide range of industries including government, construction, medical, property management, transportation, retail, manufacturing, high tech, aboriginal organizations, property management, not-for-profit and mining.

Ross McGowan, LLB
Partner
Borden Ladner Gervais, LLP

Ross McGowan does a broad range of compliance, risk management and litigation support, with a focus primarily on providing legal advice to financial institutions to combat loss arising from fraud, corruption and regulatory compliance. He provides advice to financial institutions and others relating to operations, payment systems and policy advice. He has acted on matters ranging from litigation defense work of individual customer disputes, to class action defense and mass tort Ponzi scheme claims. McGowan provides operations and compliance advice relating to the design of banking systems, cards and payments, trade finance, account agreements, policy manuals, anti-corruption regulatory compliance and investigations affecting organizations globally.

Simon Padgett, FCCA, CPA
Forensic Accountant

Simon Padgett is a British-qualified accountant with an MBA from Oxford. He was previously Head of Forensic Services for PwC in Vancouver, Canada, and Head/Director of Forensic Services at Protiviti in the United Arab Emirates. He has also held positions of Head of Internal Audit, Risk Management and Forensic Services for large public companies and has worked for the Big 4 accountancy firms including six years at Ernst & Young in South Africa and KPMG in the Caribbean region. His experience crosses the spectrum of forensic accounting, auditing, risk management, corporate governance and more. His career for the last 20 years has had a focus on forensic accounting, fraud and corruption investigations.

Gerald Peng, CFE, EnCE, GCFE, CISSP
Managing Director
Mocato

Gerald Peng is the founder of Mocato Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in digital forensics, e-discovery and data analytics. In the last 12 years, Peng has provided services in computer forensics, incident management and information security. He has worked closely with financial institutions, law firms and government to perform computer forensic investigations and fraud analysis.  

Andy Reid, CFE, CPE, CGA, EnCE
Senior Consulting Manager, Forensics, West Coast and Cross-Border
Altep

Andy Reid has more than five years of digital investigative experience from regulatory enforcement to criminal code investigations in addition to his 15 years of accounting, auditing and operational experience. He has a deep personal and professional interest in the emerging cryptocurrency landscape, and has made presentations on the subject internally to the Government of Ontario and externally at the 2014 Computer and Enterprise Investigations Conference in Las Vegas, NV.

Brigeeta Richdale, J.D., CFE
Associate
Bennett Jones LLP (Vancouver Office)

Brigeeta Richdale is an Associate at Bennett Jones LLP in Vancouver where she practices corporate and commercial litigation with an emphasis on securities and regulatory matters involving investigations and enforcement proceedings before various Securities Commissions, the RCMP’s Commercial Crime division, self-regulatory bodies including IIROC and the MFDA, as well as national and international agencies including the CRA, IRS, FBI and Interpol.

As a former litigator in the BC Security Commission's Enforcement Department, Richdale prosecuted various complex and high profile cases. As a Criminal Investigator and Special Provincial Constable, she investigated breaches of the Securities Act and Criminal Code. Richdale is the Chair of the Canadian Client Consultation Committee that regulates and oversees the law school moot for interviewing, and the Canadian delegate for the Louis M. Brown and Forrest S. Mosten International Interviewing Foundation.

Rohan Sethi, CPA, CA-IFA, CBV
Director
Duff & Phelps Canada Limited

Rohan Sethi has spent more than seven years specializing in the areas of forensic accounting investigations, commercial damages claims, business valuations and financial due diligence engagements. His experience includes in-depth forensic analyses of facts and evaluation of damages. He consults on various areas including allegations of fraudulent financial statement reporting, accounting irregularities, securities-related fraud matters, professional negligence of accountants and auditors, corporate fraud, and employee embezzlement.

Shannon Walker
President
Whistleblower Security

Shannon Walker is the founder of Whistleblower Security Inc., a Canadian-based global provider of customized ethics reporting services dedicated to safeguarding businesses against risk. Prior to founding WhistleBlower Security, Walker worked in a number of entrepreneurial environments including public multimedia companies, aftermarket products and her own business. Her passion for business and ethical workplaces helped shape what WhistleBlower has become.