Our Leadership Team

Andreea Ward biography

Andreea completed her master’s degree (University of London – SOAS) in Diplomacy and International Law, before moving to Hong Kong to work for a media company. Prior to that she worked briefly for the BBC and in the UK Houses of Parliament.

Whilst in HK, Andreea took the leap from media to risk management and due diligence, establishing TSG in 2010. From there on her career has been that of an entrepreneur in a highly specialized field.

Under her leadership TSG has grown in the past twelve years from a subcontracting due diligence provider to a company with a growing list of corporate and FI clients, together with an expanding base of employees around the globe.

After having spent 15 years in Asia (Hong Kong and Singapore), Andreea moved to the U.K where she remains active in the company’s leadership. Her primary focus is to grow the business whilst preserving its reputation and delivery model, centered on quality service and products. 

A strong supporter of sustainable business, Andreea has chaired panels at industry events in Eastern Europe, as well as taking TSG into partnerships with think tanks and NGOs.

Vicky has over 25 years’ experience in the legal, compliance and corporate governance fields. She held senior positions in a number of major multinational corporations in Australia, APAC and the US, including as Executive and General Counsel.

Her senior roles have spanned technology, as well as the risk and media businesses. These have included Sun Microsystems Inc, A2Zlogix, and Refinitiv (part of the London Stock Exchange group of companies).

In the latter role Vicky oversaw the global delivery of the Refinitiv’s risk products – including enhanced due diligence and risk compliance onboarding and management technology platforms. She led the development and implementation of enhanced due diligence products, research methodologies and technologies, quality assurance practices, as well as building a global team of integrity risk specialists

Vicky joined The Search Group as the global Head of Growth and Operations with a focus on growing business capacity, developing products, and building the necessary skills and structures needed for the continued delivery of projects to an expanding list of FI and corporate clients.

With Vicky’s background in shaping and transforming high-performing cultures with robust compliance programmes, TSG is confident it will be able to meet its strategic objectives, particularly around quality.  As a trusted advisor to boards of directors, executive management teams, legal counsel, and compliance professionals, Vicky brings considerable experience to TSG’s Executive Management Committee.

Jean-Louis is TSG’s financial institutions specialist. His career in financial crime spans two continents, and two “industries” – law enforcement and banking.

Jean-Louis has held senior global legal, risk & compliance department positions in large financial institutions – namely HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank and The Development Bank of Singapore. He started his banking career with JP Morgan.

Throughout his banking career Jean-Louis has devoted himself to the cause of clean financial systems. His activities have included FSVC projects with central banks in Russia and Indonesia, co-chairing advisory committees to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, long-standing membership of one ABS (Association of Banks in Singapore) committee, founding membership and directorship of ACAMS in Singapore, representing his FI at Wolfsberg, and working with OFAC on North Korean sanctions.

As a law enforcement officer, he spent many years investigating serious and complex fraud, and later money laundering – he was a senior member of Hong Kong’s JFIU (Joint Financial Intelligence Unit). In addition to this he has trained Asian police forces on financial crime, sat on advisory committees to money laundering law drafters in Hong Kong, and been trained by the FBI on cyber-crime.

IT has always taken a front seat throughout Jean-Louis’ professional career. Projects to which he has made significant contributions have centered on workflow and data management, surveillance systems, dynamic risk profiling, and data analysis.

Ivana holds a degree in Business Administration, Marketing and Management from the Hult International Business School, London, and is a member of the Serbian Association of Managers. Coming from a diplomatic family, Ivana has travelled widely, living in both Asia and Europe.

After graduating, Ivana held management positions in Rio Tinto, as well as in the insurance industry, Delta Generali Osiguranje (Compensation and Benefits).

Ivana joined TSG in 2011 as Head of Research and was instrumental in setting up and managing the Serbian hub in Belgrade. With the expansion of TSG, she took over responsibility for operations across TSG’s two hubs becoming TSG’s COO (Chief Operations Officer). In the period she ran operations TSG grew from 2 to over 50 employees covering over 100 jurisdictions.

As part of TSG’s transformation Ivana has taken over the building of an entirely new Learning and Development department, with a focus on delivering excellence through staff training, as well as developing new business lines around compliance training.

Douglas has worked as an entrepreneur and executive team leader in the risk and compliance sector for more than 16 years. His most recent post was as Chief Executive Officer of Dataflow Group, where he served for seven years, leading the successful sale of the business to EQT Partners.  Douglas was previously the global Head of Due Diligence for World-Check and Managing Director of IntegraScreen.

Before to his career in risk and compliance Doug was a journalist and he served in the Canadian Armed Forces. Douglas holds an MBA from Northwestern University and a master’s Degree in Journalism from Hong Kong University.

He has lived and worked in Hong Kong since 2000. He serves as a board member and advisor to several businesses.

Rodoula holds a bachelor’s degree in International and European Economic Studies from University of Macedonia (Greece) and is a certified Project Management Professional.

Rodoula joined TSG from Refinitiv (London Stock Exchange Group company) where she was the Proposition Manager-Third Party Risk Intelligence. Her responsibilities included defining strategy for third party risk solutions.

Prior to this she held various positions within the Research team at Refinitiv and The Red Flag Group. Responsibilities included leading a team managing third party onboarding programs, and project managing change and collaboration to define operational strategy for the Risk operations.

In addition to her Operations function Rodoula has undertaken third party risk management programmme advisory work for large global corporates. As she had a background in procurement, she was also designated the sector specialist, managing Refinitiv logistics sector clients in Greece. 

As TSG’s most recent addition to the management team, Rodoula is focused on growing capabilities in EMEA, and on the delivery of high-quality projects.

Nina is a graduate in Language and Literature from the University of Belgrade. She speaks three languages.

Nina joined TSG as a Junior Analyst in 2014. She was promoted to her present position, EMEA Research team leader, in 2020. Responsibilities include supervision of research projects in the EMEA Region, and management of 24 research analysts. Sectors covered by her teams include (but are not limited to) construction, logistics, energy, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology.

Research Teams

TSG’s researchers are strategically located in 14 locations around the world and speak over 45 local languages.  They come from a variety of backgrounds and are selected not only for their individual skill sets but also for their soft skills that embody TSG’s core values of people-centricity, accountability, quality, integrity, and collaboration.

TSG’s researchers are former journalists, corporate intelligence and due diligence professionals, legal professionals, procurement specialists and language specialists who have intimate knowledge of the countries and regions they cover. With capabilities in over 100 jurisdictions and its emphasis on quality and specialization in the regions it covers, TSG’s researchers are generally recruited from the countries they serve.

All researchers are multi-linguists with demonstrated fluency in English and at least one other language.

Editors

The editorial function is responsible for quality control. Accordingly, TSG editors are selected for their elevated skill levels – especially their understanding of risk, geopolitical, economic, and social contexts to reports. This is important as aside from quality control one of their functions is to provide analysis of the risks highlighted in reports. 

Editors are also equipped with a thorough understanding of the research and report generation processes, as it is their job to spot any potential lapses in research rigor.

Although editors are always at least bilingual, they are also selected on the basis of their English language skills, necessary given they are the ultimate arbiters of the often-technical language used in reports.

Several of our editors have been promoted from within TSG, which means that TSG has had time to assess their suitability for the role, and their understanding of TSG’s clients and processes – important when feeding back into our continuous improvement process.

A mix of skillsets and experience is also necessary, so editors are often recruited from within the industry for their knowledge of best practice. Given that the editorial function has a clear focus on spotting risk and research skills, a number of our editors come with a background in risk management, compliance, and journalism or from editorial roles in other parts of the industry.