Who we are
Melina Dimitrakakis is a Swiss compliance professional with extensive experience in banks and asset managers. For 20 years, she has handled compliance, risk and legal matters for Swiss private banks and asset managers with activities and registrations in various jurisdictions including the United States.
Melina started her career as a Compliance Officer at a Swiss private bank in Geneva where she specialized in anti-money laundering regulations, with a particular focus on high risk clients such as politically exposed persons, diamond dealers and Russian HNWI.
She then moved on to the largest privately owned Swiss banking group, as a Compliance Manager for the asset management business where she gained expertise on institutional clients, collective investment vehicles, financial investments and products, trading, US securities and investment adviser rules as well as investments regulations.
She subsequently became Chief Compliance Officer for the US private clients unit, a SEC registered investment adviser where she was in charge of legal and compliance matters for the firm.
In 2016, she took a sabbatical year to travel around the world, before founding Swiss Compliance Services.
Throughout her 20 years career in compliance, including 10 years in US regulated environments, Melina has been able to gain deep knowledge of local and international regulation. Collaborating closely with US lawyers and attending seminars in the US, UK and Switzerland, she has been a trusted advisor to top management, managed all relations with auditors and maintained ongoing contacts with regulators. She has set up new risk and compliance policies and programs, trained staff and managers, advised on investment products, implemented new regulations internally, created structures for collective investments, registered entities with authorities and dealt with major events and incidents.
Melina also does legal work for various non-profit organizations, and acts as Board member for companies.
Her approach to compliance is pragmatic and business oriented. In today’s thick web of laws and regulations, the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle is more than ever important to obtain people’s adherence to the rules.
Melina holds a Masters in Law as well as a CAS Compliance in Financial Services from University of Geneva, Switzerland, and is fluent in French and English.
Alain Courvoisier is a Swiss compliance professional with a solid experience in the financial industry. For 20 years, he has worked for banks and independent financial advisers ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering, investments and corporate governance regulations.
Alain started his career at the credit department of an international private bank in Geneva, where he specifically monitored treasury and trading limits and developed IT monitoring tools.
After that he joined a Swiss financial intermediary providing family office services to HNWI where he assumed the roles of asset manager and compliance specialist. Alain was also in charge of the IT structure, setting up various monitoring and reporting systems, and of the training of new staff. His responsibilities involved close contacts with the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority – FINMA – as well as renowned Swiss professional associations such as SAAM (Swiss Association of Asset Managers) and SAIFA (Swiss Association of Independent Financial Advisors).
Alain has acted as board member for various Swiss and foreign entities.
Alain has handled “typical” compliance tasks such as AML/KYC, audit management, transactions and investments monitoring, cross border matters and policies implementation. In addition, he has a solid experience in corporate governance, company (re)structuring, legal proceedings coordination and financial investments.
Alain’s experience both at the front and the back office give him excellent risk management capabilities and knowledge of financial best practice. It also gives him a very business oriented and solution finding approach to compliance, with an intimate comprehension of operational constraints.
Alain holds a ‘Master of Science in Management’ from the University of Geneva and is IPMA certified for Project Management. He is fluent in French and English.