Inclusion in Financial Crime Compliance
In this special pre-event episode of FinTech’s DEI Discussions, Nadia sit down with Iain Armstrong, Executive Director, FCC Strategy at ComplyAdvantage to explore how inclusion, diversity, and intelligent teamwork are reshaping the world of financial crime compliance. Ahead of the Financial Crime 360 event hosted by the Payments Association, Nadia speaks with Iain Armstrong about how he and his organisation are actively “walking the talk” for inclusion, and why diversity of thought is critical for solving the industry’s most complex problems.
This episode isn’t just a conversation about values; it’s a deep dive into how FinTech firms can structure their teams, systems, and leadership mindsets to make inclusion more than a buzzword. From Iain’s early experience tackling investment fraud to his current role at ComplyAdvantage, he reflects on the lessons that have shaped his views on building high-performing, inclusive compliance teams and how diversity strengthens both business performance and ethical responsibility.
Building a Career in Financial Crime and Compliance Leadership
Iain Armstrong brings over two decades of experience in financial crime and compliance to his role at ComplyAdvantage, where he’s spent the past three years shaping the company’s financial crime strategy. His journey began in the enforcement division of a regulator, where he worked on criminal investigations into investment and boiler room frauds, experiences that introduced him to the complex, high-stakes world of anti-financial crime.
After a decade in enforcement, Iain moved into anti-money laundering (AML) and financial crime roles within banks and FinTechs, gaining a front-row view of how institutions manage risk across both the first and second lines of defence. That varied experience, bridging enforcement, technology, and compliance, now informs his leadership approach at ComplyAdvantage, where culture, communication, and collaboration form the backbone of success.
Inside ComplyAdvantage: FinTech Values That Drive a Safer Future
Nadia invites Iain to share what drives ComplyAdvantage’s mission and how its company's values translate into daily work. He explains that the company’s purpose is clear: to empower businesses, especially financial institutions, to identify and manage the true risk of their customers efficiently and accurately. ComplyAdvantage builds advanced tools and platforms that allow companies to make faster, more confident decisions, supporting compliance professionals in their ongoing battle against global financial crime.
Underpinning this mission are three core values that define the firm’s culture: focus on team, Kaizen, and delivering results.
The first, focus on team, represents the belief that everyone across global offices plays an equal role in the company’s success. With teams spanning time zones from Singapore to the US, clarity of communication and empowerment are vital.
The second, Kaizen, meaning continuous improvement, is a principle both Iain and Nadia passionately endorse. It embodies curiosity, learning, and the willingness to adapt quickly to change. Iain describes it as the company’s most central value: an ever-evolving drive to be better every day.
Finally, delivering results means setting ambitious goals, embracing challenges, and learning from failures. At ComplyAdvantage, mistakes aren’t punished; they’re seen as opportunities to improve.
As Iain puts it, these principles aren’t just cultural slogans; they form the foundation for tackling one of FinTech’s most ambitious missions, to one day eliminate financial crime. While no single organisation could ever achieve that entirely, the company frames it as a guiding challenge, a “thought experiment” that helps prioritise the work that will have the biggest impact.
Redefining Inclusion in Financial Services and FinTech
The conversation shifts towards inclusion in FinTech, a theme central to Harrington Starr’s DEI Discussions series. When Nadia asks what inclusion means to him, Iain offers a perspective rooted in complexity theory and organisational design. He explains that inclusion, at its core, is about how organisations process complexity and make decisions. Drawing on the “law of requisite variety,” he explains that the more complex a system or environment becomes, the more internal variety an organisation needs to manage that complexity effectively.
Nowhere is this truer than in financial crime compliance, an area characterised by multiple jurisdictions, evolving regulations, and increasingly sophisticated criminal activity. To keep pace, teams must reflect that complexity by bringing together people who think differently, come from diverse backgrounds, and can see patterns others might miss. For Iain, this is more than an ethical stance, it’s an operational necessity.
He cautions against treating DEI as an input-only initiative, one focused purely on hiring metrics rather than systems design. Without inclusive structures and cultures in place, even diverse hiring won’t deliver meaningful change. “It’s like having an amazing product,” he says, “but running it on outdated software.” True inclusion means designing systems where differences aren’t just welcomed but harnessed productively. It requires leadership teams to embrace variety at every level, including the executive suite, where homogeneity still dominates across much of the financial services industry.
Designing FinTech Teams That Allow Diversity to Thrive
Iain’s views on team leadership and inclusion are grounded in practical experience. Over his career, he’s built and led diverse teams that have delivered strong performance precisely because they valued difference. He credits part of his success to great mentors and managers who modelled inclusive leadership. But he’s also been intentional in removing barriers that prevent diverse teams from succeeding, particularly structural and cultural ones.
He highlights that organisations often unintentionally reward the loudest voices in the room, whether through promotion structures or visibility bias. In such systems, introverted or less self-promotional individuals, who may be equally capable or even higher performing, are overlooked. These environments systematically filter out valuable perspectives, not through lack of skill, but because the “operating system” of the company is biased.
For Iain, building effective teams means focusing on collective intelligence, the combined problem-solving capability of the group, rather than individual brilliance. He notes that cognitive diversity is just as vital as demographic diversity. In financial crime prevention, success depends on spotting hidden patterns and connecting dots that criminals are trying to obscure. That kind of problem-solving demands teams made up of different types of thinkers, creative, analytical, detail-oriented, and abstract.
His leadership philosophy revolves around designing meeting structures, communication flows, and evaluation systems that bring out those diverse perspectives. In truly inclusive teams, he says, “the best answer doesn’t always come from the loudest voice in the room.” It’s a reminder that inclusion isn’t about silencing confident people, but about creating balance, where every team member has space to contribute and be heard.
The Power of Collective Intelligence in FinTech Recruitment and Leadership
The idea of collective intelligence becomes a focal point in the conversation, a topic Iain is particularly passionate about. He explains that collective intelligence refers to a group’s ability to perform effectively across a range of challenges. Research has shown that it’s a far better predictor of team success than the average or even the highest IQ within the group. The key, he says, is that group behaviour and structure matter as much as individual ability.
Teams with high collective intelligence tend to demonstrate strong social perceptiveness, the ability to read others’ emotional and mental states through subtle cues. They communicate frequently, listen actively, and distribute speaking time more evenly among members. Interestingly, research also shows that gender diversity enhances collective intelligence, with teams comprising slightly more women performing better on average. Similarly, racial and ethnic diversity contributes to better information processing, as people in diverse groups tend to question assumptions and engage more carefully with others’ ideas.
Iain encourages every leader in FinTech and financial services to explore this concept further, referencing the work of Anita Williams Woolley, whose studies have helped quantify how social and cognitive dynamics shape performance. For Iain, the takeaway is clear: diversity is not just a social good, it’s a measurable performance advantage. By intentionally cultivating gender balance, cultural diversity, and cognitive variety, FinTech leaders can build smarter, more adaptive teams capable of tackling the world’s most complex compliance challenges.
Creating Structural Change for Gender Balance in Financial Crime
While Iain’s career has included many strong female leaders, over half of his managers have been women, he acknowledges that this balance is far from the industry norm. In financial crime and compliance, women remain significantly underrepresented. Nadia adds that in her research, the recurring phrase “the only woman in the room” still appears too often when describing gender representation in the sector.
For Iain, improving this imbalance starts with reframing the argument for gender diversity from a moral standpoint to a performance-driven one. In financial crime compliance, technical expertise is vital, but so is emotional intelligence, particularly social perceptiveness, empathy, and communication. These are not “soft skills” but critical capabilities that directly impact decision-making and stakeholder management. Teams that combine technical rigour with social sensitivity deliver stronger results.
However, hiring is only one piece of the puzzle. Structural barriers, such as long-hours cultures, constant availability expectations, and performance criteria that undervalue collaboration, must also change. These cultural norms disproportionately disadvantage women and others with caring responsibilities. While Iain acknowledges that the industry has made progress, he stresses that there’s still work to do to create environments where balance and flexibility are embedded in how organisations operate, not added as afterthoughts.
Why Industry Events Like Financial Crime 360 Matter
As this episode of FinTech’s DEI Discussions was recorded ahead of Financial Crime 360, Nadia and Iain discuss why such events are essential for the FinTech and compliance community. Iain reflects on how, early in his career, there were very few spaces for professionals to share experiences, exchange ideas, or challenge norms. Events like Financial Crime 360 provide that much-needed forum, especially for those working in anti-money laundering and financial crime prevention, where the work can often feel isolating and intense.
He describes how compliance professionals often find themselves “deep in the hole” of complex problems for months at a time. Conferences like this one allow them to “come up for air”, to connect with others, gain fresh perspectives, and discover new solutions. Beyond professional development, these interactions also fuel innovation, collaboration, and sometimes even open doors to future employers or hires, reminding us that networking and knowledge sharing are vital parts of personal and organisational growth.
For FinTech recruitment businesses like Harrington Starr, these gatherings also highlight the incredible potential that comes from building diverse, cross-functional teams in areas like financial crime compliance, regulatory technology, and risk management. The talent driving these conversations is shaping the next generation of FinTech innovation, and inclusion remains at the heart of that evolution.
Embracing Diversity as the Engine of Innovation in FinTech
As the conversation draws to a close, Nadia thanks Iain for sharing such profound insights into the future of inclusive FinTech leadership. His reflections underscore a powerful truth: that inclusion and diversity are not only ethical imperatives, they’re essential mechanisms for organisational intelligence, innovation, and long-term success.
In a sector as complex and fast-moving as financial technology, success depends on the ability to see patterns others miss, challenge assumptions, and make collective decisions grounded in a diversity of perspectives. By designing systems where every individual can contribute fully, FinTech firms like ComplyAdvantage are proving that inclusion is not a side initiative, it’s the operating system for progress.
For those attending Financial Crime 360, this episode serves as the perfect prelude: a reminder that the fight against financial crime, and the push for inclusion, are deeply connected. Both require curiosity, collaboration, and courage, the willingness to keep improving, every day.
FinTech’s DEI Discussions is produced by Harrington Starr, a leading FinTech recruitment business helping organisations build diverse, high-performing teams across compliance, technology, and leadership roles.
