Karen Casas is a seasoned financial crime compliance and data science expert at K2 Integrity. With 15 years of experience in analytics and data science, Karen excels at formulating problem statements and transforming them into actionable solutions in diverse, fast-paced, interdisciplinary, and multicultural environments. Karen’s expertise in the application of risk methodologies and technology tools leads her to explore avenues to benefit K2 Integrity’s customers, weaving data-driven narratives that provide insightful answers to streamline strategic decision-making processes.
Before joining K2 Integrity, Karen served as the head of applied analytics on HSBC Middle East’s Risk Assessment team, serving HSBC’s Europe and MENA regions. In this capacity, she harnessed diverse data science and analytics techniques to combat various forms of financial crime, using natural language processing, outlier analysis, time series analysis, distance calculations, supervised learning, significance tests, and regular expressions to uncover and address fraudulent activities.
Before being appointed to head the applied analytics team, Karen was part of HSBC Middle East’s Compliance department, where she was an integral member of the institution’s global compliance analytics team. In this role, she ensured the successful delivery of global AML transaction monitoring controls in the region, emphasizing robust governance, collaboration, and communication among stakeholders, including technical development teams, business units, risk stewards, subject matter experts, and risk owners.
Karen has an M.S. in engineering sciences with a focus on applied mathematics from Universidad Iberoamericana, Ciudad de México, and a B.S. in applied mathematics from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She holds an Agile Project Management certification from Google and a Risk Management certification from Fitch. A native Spanish speaker, Karen is proficient in English.
