Dr Stefan-John BERRY
MACO Council President
Dr Stefan-John BERRY
By profession, Stefan is a lawyer with a Doctor of Laws, a Master of Laws degree in International Maritime Law, a Magister Juris specialisation in EU Commercial Law and over 20 years experience in the financial services industry. He commenced his professional career at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) and later joined Lombard Bank Malta plc, a well-established and highly reputable local retail credit institution, where he helped set up and consolidate the Internal Control functions. He then moved on to MAPFRE Middlesea plc, where he has provided Compliance and Company Secretarial services to Maltese insurance and reinsurance companies that passport their products in the European Union. Thereafter, Stefan has served as Company Secretary, in-house Legal Counsel, Compliance Officer and MLRO with a number of licenced institutions, authorised to passport their products and services to other EU Member States. Stefan is currently involved in providing advisory services on Internal Controls for FinServ and FinTech licenced entities, he also serves as Executive and Non-Executive Director on a number of licensed entities in the Financial Services and Gaming industries.
Mr Antonio Gianino
Vice President
Antonio Giannino is Amagis Capital’s Chief Risk & Compliance Officer and he supervises all the risk management procedures including the development of a proprietary UCITS and AIF risk management software. With Amagis Antonio has launched successful business initiatives, including Mitigate (a RegTech AML solution) and AmagisTech, the reference partner of Google Cloud in Malta.
Prior to joining Amagis, Antonio was teaching in Bocconi University in Milan in several Mathematics and Economics classes, including Financial Mathematics and Financial Macroeconomics. Moreover, he managed several research projects for respected and acknowledged scholars at Bocconi, coordinating research assistants and applying cutting-edge statistical models.
Finally, Antonio is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Malta University, as well as Vice-President of both Malta Association of Risk Management and Malta Association of Compliance Officer.
Prof Simon Grima
MACO Council Member
Professor Simon Grima Ph.D (Melit.), MSc (Lond), MSc (BCU), B.Com (Hons) (Melit.), FFA, FIPA, FAIA (Acad), is the Head of the Insurance dept, in charge of the Bachelor of Commerce in Insurance, the Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) and Master’s degree in Insurance and Risk Management and an Associate Professor at the University of Malta. He served as the President of the Malta Association of Risk Management (MARM) and President of the Malta Association of Compliance Officers (MACO) between 2013 and 2015 and 2016 and 2018 respectively. Moreover, he is among the first Certified Risk Management Professional (FERMA), is the chairman of the Scientific Education Committee of PRIMO and a member of the curriculum development team of PRIMIA in 2014. His research focus and consultancy is on Governance, Regulations and Internal Controls (i.e. Risk Management, Internal Audit and Compliance) and has over 30 years of experience varied between Financial Services and with public entities in academia, Internal Controls, Investments and IT. He acts as an Independent Director for Financial Services Firms, sits on Risk, Compliance, Procurement, Investment and Audit Committees and carries out duties as a Compliance Officer, Internal Auditor and Risk Manager.
Simon has acted as co-chair and is a member of the scientific program committee on international conferences and is a chief editor, editor and review editor of some Journals and Book Series. He was chair of the FERMA awards in 2019 and a mentor for the first FERMA Risk Management Advanced Certification. He has been awarded outstanding reviewer for Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance in the 2017 Emerald Literati Awards.
Vanessa Vella
MACO Council Member
Vanessa joined Apex in December 2016 as Head of Compliance and Corporate Services. Her role entails the compliance and regulatory monitoring of the operations of the company as well as the implementation of the necessary risk management processes, whilst ensuring that the company has the necessary procedures and controls in place in relation to anti-money laundering and counter terrorism requirements, amongst others. She is also responsible for the Corporate Services Team within Apex. She has over 15 fifteen years of experience in the financial services industry, mainly in the fund administration business, specialising in compliance. Ms. Vella holds a Masters of Arts in Financial Services and is a Council Member of the Malta Association of Compliance Officers.
Ms Sharon Cilia Tortell
Treasurer
Ms Sharon Seychel
General Secretary