Bernadine Reese

Bernadine is a Managing Director within our Financial Services Industry (FSI) Regulatory practice in the U.K. Prior to joining Protiviti 17 years ago, Bernadine was a Director in KPMG’s Regulatory Services practice. A chartered accountant by training, Bernadine has over 28 years financial sector experience including 17 years at KPMG as a highly regarded regulatory expert within FSI. She works across a variety of Risk and Compliance topics, helping client assess their regulatory requirements, advising on control and risk frameworks and implementing regulatory change relating to both anti-financial crime or regulatory compliance.

Major Projects

• Regulatory Change – Bernadine has helped a variety of financial services firms deal with regulation affecting both regulatory compliance (e.g. MiFID and MiFID2, FCA Handbook changes) and financial crime compliance (e.g. Money Laundering Directives, Criminal Finances Act, UK Bribery Act). This has included setting up appropriate project structures, conducting impact and gap analyses, advising on policy, procedures and systems changes and quality assurance and post-implementation reviews.
• Compliance assurance – Bernadine has worked with global clients to design, set up and implement a variety of compliance monitoring, testing and assurance models and frameworks.  These have included technology adoption, offshoring arrangements and meeting regulatory needs and expectations with multiple regulators.
• Conduct Risk and Consumer Duty – Bernadine has led a variety of Conduct Risk reviews under S166 Skilled Persons and is working with a number of banks and other regulated firms to address the Consumer Duty changes. She leads Protiviti’s Conduct Risk Centre of Excellence and speaks on the topic at a variety of industry forums.
• Governance arrangements – Bernadine has an interest in governance arrangements and assisting firms with optimising their governance structures, processes and management reporting, and the review and operation of risk and control frameworks across the three lines of defence. She has an interest in the overlaps of conduct risk and culture and the impacts of these aspects in a fit for purpose ESG framework.
• Regulatory investigations and Skilled Persons reports – Bernadine has also led seven complex regulatory investigations (commissioned under s166 of the FSMA and the predecessor regimes under the Banking Act 1987 and the SFA’s rules) covering Governance arrangements, risk management, compliance function and compliance oversight, and other Conduct of Business issues, including suitability of advice, anti-money laundering controls and policies, customer due diligence and account opening procedures.

“Leading with integrity and the right values is paramount to delivering positive change to clients and wider society.”

Areas of Expertise

• Financial Crime Compliance
• Governance and Board Effectiveness
• Regulatory Compliance
• Internal Audit and assurance reviews
• Operational Risk
• Operational Resilience
• Risk and controls frameworks
• Regulatory Investigations
• Risk Based Compliance Monitoring

Industry Expertise

• Financial Services – specialising in Regulatory Compliance

Education

• M.Commerce, Natal, South Africa

Professional Memberships and Certifications

• Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ACA)
• Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments (CISI)
• Member of the CISI Compliance Forum Committee