Sara Rose Ahonen

Sara Rose Ahonen is a manager in the risk advisory practice at Kaufman Rossin where she brings over 20 years of experience. Currently, she focuses on Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and fraud risk management specializing in model implementation, calibration and validation.

Her expertise includes recent and direct experience in various BSA, compliance, and fraud-related roles. She provides a combination of business/banking experience and regulatory knowledge, as well as expertise across various functions within transaction monitoring and core systems.

Prior to joining the team, Sara Rose served as the Head of Client Relations and Model Validation for Verafin where she assisted her clients with implementing and testing the Verafin FRAML model. Prior to Verafin, she was a BSA manager at a large national bank where she was responsible for ensuring the effectiveness of the bank’s BSA Investigations, Alert and Report Monitoring, OFAC, 314a, 314b, and CDD/EDD programs. She collaborated with shared services business partners, directors, executive team, and examiners to ensure alignment with governing policies and regulations.

Sara Rose earned her Bachelor of Arts in Business Management and a Master of Science in Business Administration from National University. She is also a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist and has been a frequent speaker at industry events and panels.