Keerthana Lakkaraju
Toronto,Canada
Summary
ACAMS-certified AML & Compliance professional with 9+ years of experience across technology, consulting, and financial services in the U.S. and Canada. Valued for clear communication, adaptability, and a strong drive for continuous learning. Experienced in sanctions screening, audits, regulatory compliance, and cross-functional collaboration. Brings a strategic, data-driven mindset, a proven track record of process improvement, and a deep commitment to financial crime prevention.
Overview
10
10
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Manager, Compliance & AML Data Governance
Scotiabank
Toronto, Canada
10.2021 - Current
- Led a team of three to implement Data Governance for Compliance Risk & Control Assessments (CRCA), successfully closing OSFI Theme 5 review for the Global Compliance Function.
- Developed data governance assets in Collibra, including metadata, data lineage, and criticality score for critical data elements.
- Built a live PowerBI dashboard to monitor CRCA data quality and drive actionable insights.
- Created DQ Business Requirement Document and revised data quality rules, reducing false positives by 40%.
- Partnered with Compliance and Internal Audit to meet regulatory requirements for OSFI submission.
- Implemented and maintained end-to-end Data Governance for all AML Name Screening Systems in LATAM countries as per the regulatory standards, receiving successful sign-off from Audit.
- Reviewed country-specific KYC policy to ensure all required data is being collected during customer onboarding.
- Built script in Python to identify gaps in data lineage form source to target.
- Identified around 10k unscreened customer records, protecting the bank from potential financial crimes and regulatory fines.
- Collaborated with the technology team to set up the Global Data Analytics (GDA) Platform, to initiate migration of data from the EDL to Cloud platform. GDAP included a variety of tools such as BitBucket, Airflow, Rancher, etc. Attended over 14 hours of training and created eight training documents, for internal training and development purposes.
- Led data management for AML Metrics Reporting and Assessment across all business lines, increasing data governance efficiency by nearly 65%.
- Worked with various teams like AML Operations, EDDU, Sanctions to ensure data governance controls are in place.
- Performed assessments of governance artifacts to check if metric is operationally ready to be reported.
- Reported ratings BL CAMLOS to along with gaps, risks, ways to improve ratings.
- Conducted annual QA validation for AML Risk Assessments for over 50 Assessable Units across all business lines to support the Enterprise Money Laundering/Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment (EMRA) and Enterprise Sanctions Risk Assessment (ESRA) processes.
- Evaluated data collected through Deloitte’s DERA (Deloitte Enterprise Risk Assessment), assigned final rating indicating ML/TF and sanctions control effectiveness.
- Enhanced data governance requirements which improved ratings by an average of 30% across units since previous year.
- Automated data extraction for Canadian Banking units using PowerBI and Oracle 8.0.8.
Senior Business Analyst, Global Sanctions Screening
Scotiabank
Toronto, Canada
10.2019 - 10.2021
- Automated List Management processes to centralize and govern Commercial and Internally Sourced Lists for Global Sanctions/AML/ATF screening, reducing error margins by over 90%.
- Generated lists with vendors like Fircosoft, Hotscan, Lexis Nexis, World-Check to maintain accurate, up-to-date screening lists.
- Championed data cleanup of Oracle Customer data using file repairs, to improve data quality and improve screening efficiency by nearly 25%.
- Led Business Acceptance Testing for Oracle Client Risk Rating Tool; developed test strategies, gathered technical requirements, and created BAT documentation across multiple releases.
- Maintained centralized policies, procedures, and controls for global list management in compliance with Sanctions/AML/ATF regulations.
Lead Business & Data Analyst
Mu Sigma
08.2018 - 11.2018
- Worked extensively on the Cost-To-Serve engagement with Walmart USA to realize item-level profitability of its grocery products across USA.
- Modeled Walmart shipping routes using UML and MS Visio to optimize logistics.
- Automated data extraction from Hadoop Data Lake via MySQL Workbench.queries.
- Developed Hive queries to calculate item-level cost and profitability using transport and storage metrics.
- Conducted UAT with Hive, SuperPutty, and Jupyter to validate Big Data accuracy, boosting efficiency by 40%.
- Reduced freight costs and cut production expenses by 10% through route optimization analytics.
Business Data Analyst, Risk and Analytics
CRISIL-S&P Global
New York, USA
01.2017 - 12.2017
- Performed model risk analytics and validation for Citibank in New York to validate and manage the model risk for Market Risk and Interest Rate Derivative models as per the CCAR regulatory requirements.
- Engaged with PM to gain a firm understanding and breakdown of the high-level business needs, business charter, acceptance criteria, project scope and the communication plan.
- Planned and executed global market financial research and statistical modelling using querying with Oracle, Tableau and R. Provided strategic insights into projected performance and market/competitive trends.
- Contributed to strategic, cross-functional initiatives within the model risk organization; analyzed business, market risks and develop strategic recommendations with implementation roadmaps; realized $1.8 million in revenue and cost improvements for leading financial client.
- Built a regression model in R to exhibit the impact of macroeconomic variables on the US stock market and predict the S&P 500 index for a given year.
Business Analyst, Technology Transformation Advisory
EY
New York, USA
03.2015 - 09.2016
- Conducted data analysis as part of the IT Strategy and Performance Improvement team, for leading client firms across IT, Healthcare and Media industries using advanced BI methodologies to develop recommendations that generated continuous cost savings.
- Utilized R, MySQL Workbench, Excel, and Gitlab to perform research and trend analysis, to help agribusiness client minimize its travel expense by nearly 25%.
- Analyzed business requirements and implemented IT Cost Optimization as a part of the IT Strategy team, for a leading Media & Entertainment client by building a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) model, leading to nearly $50 million in savings during the first phase.
- Utilized Hyperion and MS SQL Server to extract IT expenses of the client design dashboards using Tableau to visualize client expenses across various areas of IT spend.
- Consulted with multinational Data Management Company in Application Rationalization efforts, creating a savings opportunity of nearly $10 million. Assisted PM with feasibility analysis, business case and cost benefit analysis.
Education
Master of Science - Information Management
Syracuse University
Syracuse, New York01.2014
Bachelor of Engineering - Computer Science
Manipal Institute of Technology
01.2012
Accomplishments
- Championed a cross-functional team to successfully close the OSFI Theme 5 review implementing Data Governance for Compliance Risk & Control Assessments (CRCA) process, with a high regulatory impact of 45%. Closure resolved all previously identified gaps from OSFI and ensured Bank’s full compliance with regulations.
- Established data quality and issue management process for majority of Compliance functions such as Compliance Testing and Privacy Incidents. Designed business and technical data quality rules in SQL server for Compliance Testing process, which reduced false positive issues by over 60%, garnering praise from stakeholders.
- Tested and rated AML/ATF and Sanctions risk controls for multiple business lines- including examining transactional data of each unit such as wires, ACH data etc. Worked closely with 1st line data providers to gather missing data and enabled them to achieve Satisfactory rating, crucial for their future operations.
Certification
- Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), 08/01/21
- Certified Scrum Master (CSM), 06/01/21
- Financial Intelligence Specialist (FIS), 10/01/20
Volunteer Experience
- Mentor, GEM (Girls E-Mentorship) Program, Selected as a member to support high school girls facing socio-economic barriers to achieve their full potential.
- Ambassador, Scotiabank Employee Giving Campaign, United Way, Toronto, ON
- Volunteer, Meals on Wheels, New York, NY, Packed and served food to senior citizens from low income households in Harlem.
Timeline
Manager, Compliance & AML Data Governance
Scotiabank
10.2021 - Current
Senior Business Analyst, Global Sanctions Screening
Scotiabank
10.2019 - 10.2021
Lead Business & Data Analyst
Mu Sigma
08.2018 - 11.2018
Business Data Analyst, Risk and Analytics
CRISIL-S&P Global
01.2017 - 12.2017
Business Analyst, Technology Transformation Advisory
EY
03.2015 - 09.2016
Master of Science - Information Management
Syracuse University
Bachelor of Engineering - Computer Science
Manipal Institute of Technology