Riyad Alashi
Leader In Fraud Risk, Analytics & Operations
Dubai
Summary
Dynamic leader in Fraud Risk Management with 8+ years of experience in the banking sector, specializing in data analytics and operations. With a proven track record of preventing financial fraud losses managing budgets exceeding $25M. Expert in transaction monitoring and fraud prevention, delivering data-driven insights that promote strategy execution and positive business impact. Adept at leveraging advanced analytics to identify risks, optimize processes, and enable informed decision-making.
Overview
7
7
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Head of Fraud & Fintech Analytics
Talabat
Dubai
04.2024 - Current
- Company Overview: Talabat is the leading food tech company in the MENA region.
- Designed and implemented a fraud detection and prevention strategy, which made Talabat the most efficient subsidiary in fraud mitigation, saving the organization €20M in fraud and first-party fraud annually.
- Initiated and led conversations cross-functionally to communicate the risk of fraud to the business, and influence the relevant teams to support anti-fraud initiatives, resulting in reduced customer friction and higher approval rates.
- Collaborated with external third-party providers to integrate device fingerprinting and behavioral security, which prevented €1.2 million in fraud.
- Overseen, reviewed, and written rules to address fraud leakages and system gaps, which.
- Represented Talabat in external prosecutions and investigations with the police and CID across the GCC region.
Head of Digital Fraud
Commonwealth Bank Australia
Sydney
06.2022 - 04.2024
- Company Overview: Commonwealth Bank is Australia's largest retail bank, serving over 20 million customers.
- Lead the bank's digital anti-fraud and scams function, a team of 40 analysts and managers responsible for managing all facets of fraud cases, from detection, dispute, assessment, remediation, and prevention, with an annual ledger budget of $35 million.
- Established Australia's first inbound fraud monitoring team, embedded the operational framework, and led the analytics team to design the optimal detection strategies and models. This propelled the bank to be the least preferred target for criminals and reduced fraud proceeds by $7.5 million.
- The project managed the delivery of real-time scam models used across the group to create intelligent friction, which improved the detection rate by 12%. Achieved by collaborating with technical BAs, product owners, and business stakeholders.
- Represented the bank in closed-door industry forums, presenting key insights to regulatory bodies, federal police, and other financial institutions to drive the industry to fight together against fraud and scams.
- Collaborated with regulators to adhere to financial crime reporting requirements (STRs, SMRs), and recommended and applied new policies and mandates, restructuring the department and designing the long-term strategy to set the department up for success.
Fraud Data & Analytics Manager
Optus
Sydney
01.2021 - 06.2022
- Company Overview: Optus is the second-largest telecommunications company in Australia.
- Stood up and led the company's internal fraud analytics department, harboring key stakeholder relationships.
- The project managed the delivery of the company's first internal fraud monitoring system by integrating with numerous data sources and systems, and writing the first detection algorithms, rules, and models.
- Identified a major data leak impacting over 125K customers after running anomaly detection models in SQL and Python, then swiftly engaged, initiated an investigation, and led the incident management team; this led to direct recognition from the CEO.
- Designed Tableau dashboards, visually summarizing key findings, highlighting potential suspects and accomplices to executive management, which facilitated confident business decisions to be made.
- Hosted hands-on coding training sessions, covering Python and machine learning, to help upskill the wider internal audit team.
Fraud Analytics Manager
Commonwealth Bank Australia
Sydney
06.2018 - 01.2021
- Company Overview: Commonwealth Bank is Australia's largest retail bank, serving over 20 million customers.
- Lead the bank's digital fraud & scams controls, rules, and strategies, monitoring for 70 million transactions a day
- Deployed powerful algorithms and models using H2O and SAS FM which resulted in a reduction of fraud loss by 30% ($560K) and allowed the bank to meet its fraud losses budget for the first time in 7 years
- Project managed large scale deployments of technologies such ASYNC messaging, enhanced 2FA, uplifted KYC & ECDD
- Lead my team to automate communication with OFIs (other banks) which improved accuracy of the reports and increases the chances of recovery by 26%
- Used SQL and SAS to identify a financial crime risk where criminal profiles holding $15 Million were found, this alleviated probable costly financial penalties against the bank
- Maintained an exceptional relationship with stakeholders and became a trusted adviser, assisting them with ad hoc requests and driving key discussions using data insights
Education
Master of Data Science - Data Science
University Of New South Wales
Sydney12.2024
Bachelor of Science - Mathematics and Statistics
University Of Melbourne
Melbourne12.2018
Skills
- Python, SAS EG, SQL, R
- Tableau, PowerBI
- Teradata, Oracle, Snowflake
- Modeling, Machine learning, AI
- KPI, OKR, KRI setting
- Transaction monitoring
- Project management
- Leadership
- Teamwork
- Automation
- Process improvement
- Strategy implementation
Certification
CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner), Analytics
Citizenship
- Australia
- New Zealand
Languages
English
First Language
Arabic
Proficient (C2)
C2
Timeline
Head of Fraud & Fintech Analytics
Talabat
04.2024 - Current
Head of Digital Fraud
Commonwealth Bank Australia
06.2022 - 04.2024
Fraud Data & Analytics Manager
Optus
01.2021 - 06.2022
Fraud Analytics Manager
Commonwealth Bank Australia
06.2018 - 01.2021
CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner), Analytics
Master of Data Science - Data Science
University Of New South Wales
Bachelor of Science - Mathematics and Statistics
University Of Melbourne
Similar Profiles
HIND MAJIDHIND MAJID
Sales executive at TalabatSales executive at Talabat
Ahmed Ali Hamed Al GhailaniAhmed Ali Hamed Al Ghailani
COORDINATOR RIDERS at TalabatCOORDINATOR RIDERS at Talabat
Kavya Ravichandran Kavya Ravichandran null
Account Manager at TalabatAccount Manager at Talabat