Che Sidanius is the Global Head of Financial Crime & Industry Affairs at Refinitiv (an LSEG business). His role is to identify regulatory changes and lead programs of action with the sole purpose of enhancing the fight against financial crime more effective and delivering the best possible outcome for the industry. Together with the World Economic Forum and Europol, he’s the founder of the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime and Co-Chair of the B20’s Integrity and Compliance Taskforce.

Prior to joining Refinitiv, his work experiences include being a Senior Advisor to the Bank of England's Financial Stability Directorate and previously a Senior Bank Examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY. His most notable awards included receiving the Presidential Award for managing the 2007-09 Financial Crisis and a driving force behind Refinitiv’s Impact Company of the year award in 2019 and contributor to the same award in 2021.

Che received his Master’s in International Affairs from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and undergraduate degree in Political Science from UC Berkeley in California.

I am a lawyer by profession with over 25 years of work experience in the field of financial monitoring, sanctions policy, countering money laundering, and financial terrorism. From 2018 to 2022, I served as the Head of Latvia's Financial Intelligence Unit, leading the overhaul of Latvia's AML/CFT/Sanctions system. During that time, I also led a delegation to Moneyval and FATF, where we successfully demonstrated the establishment of a strong and robust financial crime prevention system for the country. Under my leadership, the FIU Latvia underwent a transformation process, and I initiated and successfully led several innovative collaborations, information exchange platforms, and research initiatives such as CCG (public-private partnership), supervisory platform, AMLIH and IFIT. In 2022, IFIT received the BECA (Best Egmont Case Award).

I have authored numerous publications on law, fraud, money laundering, and corruption, and I am a regular columnist for www.amlintelligence.com. Additionally, I frequently speak on these topics and have contributed to several research books, including the Research Handbook on Unilateral and Extraterritorial Sanctions.

I was admitted to the Latvian Bar in 2002 and, as a sworn attorney-at-law, I specialize in dispute resolution, with expertise in regulatory issues, insolvency, IP, anti-bribery and anti-money laundering, fraud, and white-collar crime. I have been a partner in Law Firm "Znotina&Rubene" and Deloitte Legal, simultaneously leading the Forensic Practice of Deloitte Baltic region.

I have completed my doctoral studies in law, specializing in International and European law, and have submitted my doctoral thesis to the Faculty of Law at the University of Latvia. I hold a master's degree in international and European law from Riga Graduate School of Law, and I hold CAMS certificate.

Throughout my career, my team and I have organized, hosted, and moderated numerous international conferences, seminars, and workshops, including the Plenary Session of the Egmont Group of FIUs in 2022 and the Annual Sanctions conference, which is widely recognized for addressing practical challenges in the implementation of targeted financial sanctions.

As of 2023, I am actively involved in capacity building activities in various jurisdictions (subject to confidentiality). This includes reforming AML/CFT systems, preparing for FATF Mutual Evaluation, providing technical assistance to national FIUs and central banks, and building strategic analysis capacities while implementing international, national, and targeted financial sanctions.

Since entering the Fintech space more than a decade ago my key passion has continued to be on developing cutting-edge solutions on the intersection between Payments, Crypto, Blockchain, P2P lending, Equity, Insurtech and Regtech. That has been materialized it in different forms: being an executive in leading Fintech companies, covering the stories as a Contributor on Forbes.com and blending it up with academic Insights. Collected information has been transformed into knowledge while teaching and speaking to executives as well as releasing reports and books. Knowledge has been transformed into the utility in different Fintech products and regulatory frameworks to ensure that we stay on both the innovative as well as secure side of the Fintech world. Every day.