Kathleen Cahill

Governance - Manager - Private Banking & Wealth Management at Emirates NBD

Speaker

Kathleen Cahill is a senior financial crime governance and risk leader specializing in Private Banking, Wealth Management and complex high-net-worth and institutional portfolios. At Emirates NBD, she leads governance and financial crime risk oversight for Private Banking and Wealth Management, designing and strengthening control frameworks across complex UHNWI and international Sovereign wealth client portfolios.

Previously at Santander, Kathleen led financial crime risk and controls across Corporate and Commercial Banking, partnering with senior leaders across Structured Finance, Project Finance and regional business lines. Her portfolio spanned some of the bank’s highest-value sectors, including Industrials, Technology, Commercial Real Estate and Energy. Working at the intersection of regulatory risk and commercial execution, she developed risk-based solutions for complex transactions and onboarding challenges, enabling more than £1 billion in institutional deal flow while maintaining robust financial crime and regulatory standards.

Earlier in her career, Kathleen worked in second-line financial crime advisory at the National Bank of Kuwait, advising on complex oil, trade finance and cross-border transactions. Her international experience has also included engagement with U.S. and UK government and diplomatic stakeholders on political affairs, cross-border initiatives and regulatory alignment.

As a Director at Concentrix, she led AI governance, financial crime technology and transformation programmes, delivering multi-million-pound solutions for Tier 1 financial institutions and global enterprises.

Kathleen brings together financial crime expertise, governance, technology and commercial judgement, with a particular focus on building robust risk strategies that enable rapid international growth rather than obstruct it.

She is ACAMS certified, and ICA qualified in Sanctions and PEPs