Our Faculty Members

Sunil Kansal

Sunil heads the Consulting and Valuation division at Shasat Consulting and is a seasoned expert in leading projects across a diverse range of domains, including financial structuring, IFRS, UK & US GAAP, IPSAS adoption, market and credit risk hedging, valuations, ESG implementation, regulatory compliance, and change management. He boasts over 23 years of industry experience, having worked with prominent banks such as Bank of America, ING Group, Nomura, and with all of the big four accounting firms (KPMG, Deloitte, PwC, and EY) across multiple jurisdictions.  Sunil is a well-known writer and expert in financial instruments, including insurance products, IFRS, US GAAP, valuation, and regulatory compliance issues. He has published numerous technical articles and books on a variety of accounting topics such as IFRS/UK & US GAAP, risk hedging, regulatory compliance, financial structuring, asset management, and other relevant industry topics. He is a sought-after speaker at conferences including Risk, Informa, CIMA, AICPA, ICAEW, and Marcus Evans. Sunil is a Chartered Accountant and holds the distinguished status of Fellow with the ICAEW, ICAI, and ICMAI.

Michael Winkler

Michael is an actuarial expert and also a renowned speaker. He is currently leading Shasat’s actuarial desk and has been providing advisory services to reinsurance and insurance companies in the area of Financial Solutions, mainly focused on Solvency II and IFRS 17. Besides working on the actuarial models, he is supporting few major reinsurance companies on the specific impact of the IFRS 17 and potential measures mitigating adverse effects. He has also been nominated on the board of many international insurance companies. He has spent many years working for the life insurance and reinsurance firms. He was the Chief Actuary at Union Re and then Swiss Re. He was leading the international project group developing the first Spanish annuitant mortality tables in 2000 and was the author of the Swiss Re publication “To live and let pay. Longevity and pensions insurance in Europe”

Charles W. Hester

Charles is a renowned US GAAS and US GAAP specialist and also a speaker. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) from the Arizona and California State Board of Accountancy. He has taught for the Government Audit Training Institute in Washington, DC, the Pacific Islands Training Institute in Honolulu, the California Association of State Auditors, the California Society of Accountants and various other accounting and auditing professional organizations. He is a member of various professional auditing and accounting organizations and has written several articles that have been published in professional journals. In California, he has served two 8-year terms as a member of the Qualifications Committee for the California Board of Accountancy and has again been appointed to the Committee. He has also served on the California State Bar’s Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation. In the past, he has served on the Disciplinary Board of the Oregon State Bar and the Oregon Boards of Geologists, Engineers, and Land Surveyors. Also, he served as the Receiver for the Bank of Micronesia in Palau.

Chris Boland

Chris Boland is a professional IFRS consultant and trainer specializing in assisting clients with their transition from local or US GAAP to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the application and adoption of new IASB standards, such as IFRS 17 Insurance. Mr. Boland is a CPA, CA and CMA. Mr. Boland has extensive experience with IFRS, US GAAP, and corporate disclosure requirements. Prior to establishing his IFRS public practice and teaching practice, Mr. Boland was General Manager of Accounting and IFRS reporting at Canada Post Corporation. His prior positions at other public and private organizations included various CFO roles. Mr. Boland also has over 30 years of experience in numerous sectors.

Claire Dean, BSc, FCA

Claire Dean is an experienced speaker who has been delivering high energy, engaging and practical learning programs on IFRS, UK GAAP and the technical developments in these areas. Claire previously worked within Ernst & Young’s Financial Reporting Advisory team in London, providing technical advice and training to clients of EY. She has extensive training experience delivering public and in-house courses to corporates from a wide range of industries worldwide for over 15 years.

Alexandre Pinot

Rachana Kulkarni is a renowned IFRS speaker. She is a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in the United Kingdom. She has over 18 years of professional experience in auditing, accounting, advisory, and training. She was the lead IFRS trainer at KPMG. She has been conducting deep dive IFRS, Indian GAAP and US GAAP training sessions for multinational corporations such as Credit Suisse, Infosys, Genpact, KGS, WNS, Ernst & Young, AXA Business Services, Eaton, Cape Gemini, Fujitsu, Bridgestone, Syngenta, Mercedes Benz, HP, and many other large institutions. She regularly conducted Dip IFRS training sessions on complex topics.  She has trained over 1000 IFRS students and over 100 ACCA students, including candidates from KPMG (Romania) for their Audit skills. She has also handled several business development assignments for promoting international accountancy qualification from Uthe K, backed by strong domain experience in financial reporting, audit and taxation. She has also led a team of research associates and developed the study materials for international professional examinations like ACCA, CIMA and customized for corporate such as AXA, KPMG Global services.

Michael Bret Hood

He is an expert in the Anti-Money laundering regulations, risks, challenges and best practices adopted by organisations. After serving 25 years as a Special Agent in the FBI, Michael now shares his knowledge through learning & development programmes. During his tenure with the FBI, Bret worked on many complex financial crime, money laundering, corruption and major cases such as the 9/11 terrorist attack, the HealthSouth fraud, and the Maricopa Investments case. Bret is an ACFE faculty member and has published articles in both Fraud Magazine and ACAMS Today. Bret is also the author of the critically acclaimed books, Eat More Ice Cream: A Succinct Leadership Lesson for Each Week of the Year & amp; Get Off Your Horse! 52 Succinct Leadership Lessons from U.S. Presidents.

John Sitilides

John is a professional speaker on geopolitical strategy and the business impact of global risk and American politics. He is a Global Risk Analyst, a Washington DC government relations and international affairs specialist and speaker. Since 2006, he has been US State Department consultant advising on diplomacy issues in European and Middle Eastern diplomacy issues and affairs. John is also a former Chairman of a prestigious Washington DC international affairs institute. He is frequently interviewed by the US and international media such as CNN, FOX, OANN, China Global TV, RT America, i24News and Alhurra TV on global issues, national politics and Congressional affairs. Recently John presented a TED Talk event on “American Identity on the Global Stage,”. He also delivered recent keynote talks on “The Trump Presidency: Global Risks, Geopolitical Strategy and American Leadership 2020” at five major events including GAIM Ops Hedge Fund Compliance in London, the Midwest Small Business Alliance in Chicago, Super Return U.S. East Conference in Boston, the Global Future of Retirement Conference in New York, and the Risk Minds Americas Conference in Miami.

As a speaker, John is informative, provides value and engaging and talks about real-time strategic global issues and geopolitical risk concerns under the Trump Administration, challenging the traditional analyst and media consensus on global leaders, their decision-making processes, and the long-term political and economic ambitions and objectives that ultimately shape the international security agenda. His visual storytelling is delivered without any notes, communicating directly with the audience against the backdrop of a visually compelling slide deck of maps, graphs, and charts and zero text or bullet points.

Andrew Tenant

Andrew Tennant is a subject matter expert witness in the field of Money Laundering methodologies and typologies for the National Crime Agency, providing expert evidence in court cases. Providing guidance upon money laundering investigations, prosecutions and defence case preparation. He is also a member of the UKs and Eastern Caribbean’s advisory groups on crypto currency exploitation and regulation. Andrew has been in the law enforcement arena for over twenty-three years as a UK police officer, financial investigator, confiscatory and tutor. Andrew has worked through Europe in Greece, Poland, Albania and Bulgaria. In 2018 Andrew undertook to write the Eastern Caribbean’s Financial investigation programme and CPD, whilst based in Barbados. He has a successful track record in prosecutions around Money Laundering and fraud winning national awards in the field of criminal investigation, financial investigation and IP fraud. Presently working from Bermuda he offers specialist advice, guidance and training in respect of an international corruption and money laundering enquiry involving politically exposed persons. He also provides senior investigating officer support and guidance in respect of restraint, confiscation, investigation, disclosure and charge preparation. Andrew is a board member of both the Anti Money Laundering and Financial Crimes agency (AMLFC) based in Miami and the Institute of Financial Accountants based in the UK.

Feyzi Bagirov

Feyzi Bagirov is a Business Intelligence Analyst turned Data Scientist with over 12+ years of experience helping organizations use data and analytics for growth, transformation. He is currently a Data Science Advisor at Metadata.io, a B2B marketing automation start-up. Mr. Bagirov has also been teaching Analytics and Data Science in various graduate and undergraduate programs in the US and was a Founding Director of BS in Data Science at Becker College in Worcester, MA. He is a well-known speaker at various Analytical and Data Science Conferences and is a Top Writer on Quora on the topics of Data Science and Data Analytics. He holds an MBA from Babson College and is pursuing his doctoral studies in Data Sciences at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology.

Dr. Nicholas Gilmour

Dr. Gilmour is a former international law enforcement expert. Nicholas has worked as an advisor to the United Kingdom and Abu Dhabi Governments in relation to strategic planning, cross border criminal investigations, extradition, money laundering, and organised crime. Nicholas has experience as an analyst through to manager of analytical services within a National Intelligence Centre and has published on the topics of money laundering, terrorism financing, intelligence, and cross border investigations throughout various publications options, including peer-reviewed journals and books. The work completed in the New Zealand Financial Intelligence Unit as a senior advisor on Phase 2 improvements under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 provided a timely transition for Nicholas into the private sector. As an AML Consultant, Nicholas provides advisory services for AML compliance best practice.

Dr. Marinus de Pooter

Marinus has extensive international management, consulting and training experience in governance, risk management, compliance, control, audit and finance. In previous roles, he was Director of Finance at Ernst & Young Global Client Consulting, CFO of a business intelligence consulting firm and European Director Internal Audit at Office Depot. He also worked as Executive Director and ERM Solution Leader at EY Advisory. Marinus focuses on supporting entrepreneurs, directors and managers with keeping their organizations future-proof. He has developed an intuitive value management approach. It enables decision-makers to connect with experts for the sake of continuously creating and protecting what their core stakeholders’ value.