Privacy Seminar Speaker: Alexis Bell, Global Forensic Audit Manager, FINCA International

Thursday, May 1, 2014
3:30 - 4:45PM in 3120 Computer Science Instructional Center (CSI)
Our visitor in the privacy honors seminar will be Alexis Bell, whose talk is titled Antifraud Challenges in Microfinance. Ms. Bell works for a nonprofit organization that provides micro-loans to primarily women who make $2/day or less in post/active conflict developing countries. She is responsible for the Global Antifraud program. Her talk in the main privacy seminar starting at 3:30 will give an overview of this financial system and discuss security in developing countries, reliable transactions and the many competing privacy issues.

Then at 5:00PM those interested in either continuing or joining the discussion are invited to do so in a roundtable meeting, which will convene in Room 4185, AV Williams Building (connected to CSI.) In this hour, Ms. Bell will talk about the monitoring and data analysis techniques one would use in a fraud investigation in this global system.


Ms. Bell is the former Board President of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners' Charlotte Area Chapter and has served on numerous nonprofit boards in an executive capacity. She is a Certified Fraud Examiner and a Private Investigator licensed by the Private Protective Services Board of the State of North Carolina. She is also an active member of North Carolina InfraGard task force of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation which is tasked with protecting critical infrastructure and is a member of the Electronic Crimes Task Force of the U.S. Secret Service in Charlotte, NC. She most recently become an ASCENT Fellow of the Mastering Management Program with Tuck Executive Education at Dartmouth. She has degrees from Cornell University (Bachelor of Science in Applied Economics and Management) and Southwestern Community College (two Associate of Applied Science degrees in Accounting and Business Administration). Ms. Bell has investigated a multitude of domestic and international fraud cases for a variety of organizations over the course of her career. She has been featured on Financial Executives International Television (FEI TV) and is frequently featured as a speaker at financial and forensic conferences and events. She is the author of two books on fraud; Data Analysis for Corporate Fraud Risk: Ratio Red Flags for Fraud, and Mortgage Fraud & the Illegal Property Flipping Scheme: A Case Study of United States v. Quintero-Lopez.

As always, any student in the Honors College who has an interest in meeting our seminar speakers is welcome to attend class as our guest. Details on the course are at http://doubletap.cs.umd.edu/purtilo/239R/
Prof. Jim Purtilo   (purtilo@cs.umd.edu)