Our Professionals

Monica Morales serves as a Senior Compliance Professional of the Global Outsourcing team at Chartwell Compliance. She brings 19 years of private and public sector experience to the company, having worked in financial institutions of all sizes, a state government agency, and at a multi-national energy company. In 2003, Monica began her work life journey in banking and has spent the last 11 years in roles involving financial crime investigations, compliance, and risk management related to the Bank Secrecy Act, Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Anti-Bribery and Corruption, fraud, KYC and CDD due diligence, sanctions, as well as banking operations.

Monica has extensive knowledge and a strong understanding and expertise of preventing, deterring, and detecting money laundering, fraud, and other illicit activities while working at BP Energy, the Office of the Harris County District Attorney, and JP Morgan Chase. She has conducted numerous investigations throughout the course of her career, ranging from alert-clearing to full-scale criminal investigations involving money laundering, terrorist financing, organized crime activity such as illegal gambling rings, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, suspected bulk cash smuggling and fraud. In addition to investigations, Monica’s private sector experience covers compliance and risk management, including sanctions, consumer compliance, banking operations, and KYC and CDD due diligence that covered PEPs, private equity, and investment fund ownership. She has also focused on high-risk businesses such as MSBs, precious metals dealers, third-party payment processors, and cash-intensive businesses.

Monica’s expertise in KYC and CDD within banking and non-banking institutions ranges from in-depth reviews with transactional analysis to onboarding. She has also managed teams that conducted complex due diligence reviews, high-risk customer onboarding, and remediation projects and also served as an AML SME for the KYC Business Banking division of JP Morgan Chase and took the lead on urgent sanctions matters while working at a non-bank financial institution. Monica’s experience working with global companies led her to interact with teams and customers within the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, U.K., Hungary, Angola, Asia, and parts of the Middle East. And her extensive banking experience allowed her to enhance, implement, and improve compliance controls, processes, and procedures for community banks within the areas of deposit operations, customer onboarding, transaction monitoring, and compliance while working with regulators and auditors during regulatory examinations. Monica has also carried out QC/QA checks, consumer and business customer record audits, assisted in the modification of policies and risk assessments, and implemented disaster recovery and security processes.

In addition to engaging in a variety of program development projects, Monica is also knowledgeable in cannabis compliance.

Monica holds CAMS, CFE, and CAIC certifications and a B.S. in Behavioral Sciences from the University of Houston – Clearlake.

She was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and lives in the area with her husband and two active, adventurous kids obsessed with superheroes and princesses. Monica is active and loves to travel, play soccer, practice yoga and kickboxing, and keeps busy with family and friends. She relaxes with art, reading, and spending time in nature.