Compliance Built In, Not Bolted On: Inside Zodia Custody's Institutional Playbook with Sophie Bowler

Ari Redbord (00:02):

I'm Ari Redbord and this is TRM Talks. I'm Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, we provide blockchain intelligence software to support law enforcement investigations and to help financial institutions and cryptocurrency businesses mitigate financial crime risk within the emerging digital asset economy. Prior to joining TRM spent 15 years in the US federal government, first as a prosecutor at the Department of Justice, and then as a Treasury Department official where I worked to safeguard the financial system against terrorist financiers, weapons of mass destruction proliferators, drug kingpins, and other rogue actors. On TRM Talks, I sit down with business leaders, policymakers, investigators, and friends from across the crypto ecosystem who are working to build a safer financial system.

(00:52):

On this TRM Talks, I sit down with Sophie Bowler of Zodia Custody. But first, inside the lab, where I share data-driven insights from our blockchain intelligence team. On today's Inside the Lab, we're addressing one of the most serious applications of blockchain intelligence, disrupting child sexual abuse material networks. These networks often rely on crypto subscription payments, recurring access fees, and private community monetization models. Financial flows can reveal recurring subscription behavior, consolidating wallets collecting proceeds, and distribution of revenue across operator clusters. Crypto becomes the connective layer in globally distributed networks, linking users, operators, and infrastructure across borders. While actors attempt anonymity, repeated payment patterns and liquidity touchpoints provide investigative leads for CSAM investigators. When those funds intersect with exchanges or service providers, enforcement gains leverage. The financial layer does not replace traditional investigative methods. It strengthens them. It creates a quantifiable record that supports attribution and prosecution.

(02:06):

In cases involving direct harm to the most vulnerable victims, financial traceability becomes a critical component of disruption. And now, Sophie Bowler. Today I am joined by the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Zodia Custody, Sophie Bowler. Sophie, thank you so much for joining GRM Talks.

Sophie Bowler (02:28):

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Really excited to be here.

Ari Redbord (02:30):

I'm just so thrilled to have you and have this conversation. I feel like when I look around this space, you are really one of those voices at that intersection of the building and compliance and I feel like that's the sweet spot of the people who are listening to the show. Tell me, how did you get started? Tell me a little bit about your journey. You've had a really, I feel like unique journey from the policymaking really through the business side and certainly with a focus always on compliance on mitigating risk.

Sophie Bowler (02:59):

Yeah, no, my whole career has been rooted in financial crime compliance, so particularly AML and sanctions. And as you said, I started off in politics. I got an internship working for a member of the European Parliament from the UK and I really went for him because he was working on organized crime related legislation. So I worked on organized crime related legislation. I actually really, really handily ... I ended up working on the fourth anti-money laundering directive, which was one of the key pieces of AML legislation across Europe. And that was the turning point in Europe. So it just captured me. And I think from then on it made me realize the money laundering, there is an ultimate crime underneath. I actually really saw the impact that that was having on society. So that captured me. I then carried that through working in second line functions.

(03:51):

Back in London, I moved back from Brussels to build out those compliance functions and then in consulting working for global banks and now at Zodia. But for me, it's always been linked to that greater cause, if you know what I mean, for what I'm doing because it is ultimately ... Money laundering is disguised in the origin of illicit activity. And I think in big organizations, it's really easy to lose sight of that. You get bogged down in policies and gap analyses and licenses or remediations. But for me, I always try to bring it back to that, remembering that greater course for what I'm doing. And then I think when I was introduced to digital asset six or seven years ago, it added a new dimension. So not only could I take what I'd learned from traditional finance and really try to do it right from the start in digital assets, but it was the chance to help that industry mature and legitimize itself.

(04:42):

And of course, blockchain technology, tokenize asset, stablecoins, they're shaping the future. So again, it's that bigger course for me.

Ari Redbord (04:51):

I love that. We do think about money laundering as moving the money. How do we stop that from happening? How do we follow? And at TRM, we talk about tracking and tracing illicit proceeds, but really those illicit proceeds are funds that are stolen from a victim. That's possibly someone's life savings. Maybe that's being used for a potential terrorist attack that's going to kill people. You take it back to the human element, it does feel a lot more real. And I love that. It's not just like, "Hey, we're checking these boxes of things we're supposed to do. " It's actually like we're stopping real bad guys who have done bad things to people.

Sophie Bowler (05:23):

And I think that is the thing, you can quite easily, you get so busy, you can lose sight of that, but there is that greater cause and I think that's what's carried it through for me. And that started way back when in the Europe and Parliament. So yeah, it's been pretty critical as a defining part of my career, I'd say.

Ari Redbord (05:39):

So tell me if this is right. So you identified a member of the EU Parliament that you felt like had a background in a financial crime and an interest in going after organized crime. That's cool that you had the forethought and that was a number of years ago, you identified a very specific person who had a very specific interest. Talk me through that. Am I right? Is that how this went down?

Sophie Bowler (06:03):

Yeah, absolutely. So I was coincidentally working in Australia in politics then, moved back to the UK and I knew that I just wanted to keep working in politics and I was just researching all of the members of the European Parliament. And I found one that had the background in all of this and he was really focused on anti-organized crime. I actually went to see him speak and I just went up to him and started speaking to him and said I'd really love an internship and he was like, yeah, get in touch with me. And it just went from there. And then next thing you know, I'm probably a month later moving to Brussels. So he was great and that's how I got into it.

Ari Redbord (06:41):

I love that. Talk me through the journey to Zodia. Obviously you started to get this interest in digital assets, which I think is really consistent. It's a new way where bad actors are moving funds and how do we stop that? But how did you make your way to Zodia? What precipitated that move?

Sophie Bowler (06:56):

So I was working in EY at the time and I think it was back in 2020, anti-money laundering legislation was updated to bring crypto firms into the scope. So then from then on, we used to get a lot of crypto firms coming towards needing support to develop their financial crime control environments to get registrations. And then there were some of the big exchanges that were already struggling with regulatory action. So then they needed us to come and help and support, address the regulatory action, help them deal with the findings and recommendations. So it just captured me. It was something so different to banking. And then I started to research into it deeper and really started to get into it. And I saw that actually this is the future of our financial markets. This is actually the area that we need to be focused on. And I think particularly from a financial crime perspective, I could see with blockchain analytics the benefits that that brought.

(07:53):

So yeah, it just captured me. And then I think from there, I just thought I have to stay in digital assets. And I knew that I wanted my career to continue from then onwards.

Ari Redbord (08:02):

It's awesome. I joined JRM about, I don't know, five and a half years ago or so. We were seven people. The space was tiny. Certainly the institutional piece was just, there were a handful of teams out there, but Standard Charter, essentially the Zodia piece to it was one of those pieces. Even that long ago, I remember getting in this space and looking around, who should I talk to? Who are the banks that are doing this? And Standard Charter's one of those that was really leaning in. And I think that it's interesting, you tell me if this is right, but for me it was like there was this band of people out there at these different banks that were put ... I pictured them in the basement somewhere, some of the smartest people in the entire bank, but they were in the basement told to mess around with digital assets.

(08:43):

Do you feel like when ... Yeah. Okay. No,

Sophie Bowler (08:46):

It is. Because the founders of Zodiac Custody and Zodia Markets, they of course were all in Standard Chartered and they were the ones developing it. They were in a back room somewhere spending so many years building it and then they spun it out into the ventures and then they led those firms from then onwards. So no, it absolutely is. And I do think you're right in saying, I think Stand The Chartered was one of the early ones. And look, I guess Standard Charter has developed so much in that regards now and they're really in the forefront of it.

Ari Redbord (09:13):

That's why I think Zodia is sort of really interesting, right? Because I think really what we talk now about is institutions moving, looking to offer crypto assets, looking to custody, looking to bank crypto customer, whatever role banks are playing, but it's always like you've got your institutions, your financial institutions doing this with crypto and then you have DeFi projects, you have exchanges, you have others more crypto native. I do feel like Zodia really fits somewhere in the middle there, which is kind of an interesting place to play right now. It's fully crypto and yet has these sort of institutional roots. Is that a fair way to describe this?

Sophie Bowler (09:50):

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think we are diversifying quickly and we can move at scale, but we've really got that institutional DNA built throughout us. And that's as a result, as you said, is because of our Standard Chartered ownership. And I think that's a key thing that's been really important to me actually personally, because it means my prior experience in traditional finance didn't stop when I moved into digital assets. It's very much carried forward. And I do see that DNA is clear throughout the whole of the business, how we approach things, how we develop things and anyone starting new in Zodi will know straight away that we have that DNA and that's the thing that defines us. So no, absolutely being able to leverage that DNA framework, tailor it to digital assets and then enable us to scale and move quick and develop the products and innovate, I think it's just the best of both worlds ultimately.

(10:42):

So yeah, we've really got that.

Ari Redbord (10:44):

I do feel like you guys sit in a really unique space within the ecosystem. Chief risk and compliance officer, what is that role? Talk me through your day-to-day. What are you doing at Zodia today?

Sophie Bowler (10:55):

Yeah, so I started off as a chief compliance officer in the UK LRO, and then I moved them up to expand into risk. Some people would say, "Oh my gosh, why have you done that? " So I think a lot of my day, as you can imagine, we are entering the regulatory regimes across all different jurisdictions now. So there's a lot of focus on licensing. So supporting all the compliance leads in the various jurisdictions around the licensing and building the frameworks, because it is quite a big step up ultimately. For example, standard, that's really something that's really critical and has been a big focus for ours. So I think a lot of the enhancements to the risk management frameworks to resilience frameworks and the compliance framework, so supporting all of the different compliance officers and the risk officers there. And then I think we're working really closely with the product and the technology teams to further innovate and develop, because a key thing that we all know in the compliance field is that compliance has to be bought in early and we want to innovate really quickly.

(11:56):

We want to be developing our product pipeline. So I would say I spend a lot of the time working with the product and technology teams on that par, trying to deliberate and assess what new products may look like and whether we can get those to market or not so that compliance is brought in right at the start. So it sort of pulls me in lots of different directions doing both compliance and risk and with all the licensing, but I guess I wouldn't have it any other way. It's interesting to say the least. It's busy, but it's interesting.

Ari Redbord (12:25):

Amazing. You mentioned MiCA, obviously a huge focus and I imagine a focus for your job over the last couple of years probably. You now have a MiCA license in Luxembourg. Talk to me a little bit about that process and how it ended up playing out.

Sophie Bowler (12:38):

Oh my gosh. Yeah. So after a couple of years-

Ari Redbord (12:41):

In a category of things that have kept you up at night over the last couple of years. Yeah.

Sophie Bowler (12:45):

I mean, at one stage that was right at the forefront because we have registrations in both Luxembourg and Ireland. And of course we had to make a decision, where do we get our MiCA license? Realistically, you only really want to get it in one place. We decided on Luxembourg and it was, I guess, a really extensive process. I think it's just taught me so much. I mean, it goes without saying, but it isn't just policies, MiCA stress tests, governance, accountability, operational reality and of course not forgetting that DORA is inherently linked to MiCA and that introduces extensive requirements around operational resilience. And of course, that's not just a crypto piece of legislation, that is a broader legislation for traditional finance. So it just forced us to be really precise about who controls what in the business, where decisions are made, where the ownership is, and how risks are identified because of course our Europe entities one of six.

(13:41):

And like many other firms you'll have outsourcing within the firm, technology may be provided from one element, there may be other services provided from elsewhere. So what it really resulted in is it required us to reorganize that and make sure that our EU entity that's obtaining the license is the one that is ultimately the custodian. So it was a big shift. I saw it in the organization as well. We, of course, in compliance, you know what the situation is. We've had that experience before, but moving from a money launching registered firm to a licensed firm, it was quite a shift in the organization, but we've done it. I mean, we got it in December when we're really pleased with that. And that's actually given us a great foundation as well for our the license application.

Ari Redbord (14:26):

Amazing. I think almost all of our listeners will know MiCA. It's the marketing crypto assets legislation. It's really the market structure. It's the licensing regime for 37 member states across Europe. It's one of the most important crypto policies, regulations, legislation in the world. DORA may be less so. So would you just give your two minutes on DORA and how that played into that proces for you guys?

Sophie Bowler (14:49):

Yeah, so it's just a linked piece of legislation. So it's the Digital Operational Resilience Act and it just requires firms across all different facets to have controls in place to ensure they ultimately have resilience. The regulators want to see that firms can be resilient and continue to provide the services to their clients under lots of different circumstances. So on example where there's lots of requirements that DORA introduces is around vendors. So it requires you to really have a robust risk management process around vendors. So embedding criticality assessments, how critical are they to your business, implementing controls that are relevant to the risk that you've identified, having exit plans, updating the contracts, all these types of things because ultimately in crypto as well, there is a lot of outsourcing, but to vendors, Zodia itself, although we've developed our own proprietary custody platform, of course we need vendors.

(15:50):

We don't develop our own hardware security modules. So the real focus is to ensure that if something happens, you can continue to provide services to your clients. So it's the full breadth of operational resilience and it's very chunky, I must say. It's not to be underestimated for sure.

Ari Redbord (16:07):

Absolutely. It's interesting. I mean, at that point, you're doing multiple roles. You're working with a regulator on a license. Do we have what we need in place? Yet you're also trying to do your job, which is to make sure that risk is off of your platform. I imagine that was probably a lot and it kind of speaks to where I was going to go with this and that is I've heard you say that your favorite thing about this space is how fast it's moving and how innovation and compliance is keeping up with the pace of financial flows at internet speed. Talk to me about that. How do you see risk and compliance when you think about crypto and just and the speed of this thing? I mean, every day all I do is think about how fast this stuff is moving.

Sophie Bowler (16:46):

Yeah, no, it is. And I think one thing that I still hear that's criticized about crypto is around its lack of transparency, but it is the transparency on the blockchain that gives you so many more data points as a compliance officer than you would ever have in the traditional finance space. And I think it's that. It's that blockchain, and as you said, the speed that's enabled us to leap forward and innovate in this space and just make much more informed decisions, I would say, as a compliance officer around financial crime risk mitigation because you just have so much more meaningful information.

(17:20):

And a key one for me would be, as you said, typologies are evolving really quickly, whether it's sanctions of Asian mixers, even social engineering and phishing attempts. There's lots of financial crime exploits in the digital asset space, but our ability as an industry to detect and respond so quickly I think is amazing. And you just don't see that in traditional finance, especially the blockchain analysis providers actually having that, that ability and that speed is so essential and that's what's enabled myself and my compliance teams to, I guess, move much quicker and just make more informed decisions ultimately on financial crime risk mitigation.

Ari Redbord (17:59):

It's awesome. You hear this crypto anonymous thing that every time I hear, "I think I just am terrible at my job because I've been trying to explain this for five years or more." But I loved your explanation, especially someone who has been in traditional finance to come out and say, "Hey, look, I'm a compliance officer. I'm a practitioner and the visibility, the traceability, the trackability of public blockchains allow me to do my job much better."

Sophie Bowler (18:23):

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think as well more generally we speak about how criminals are much further ahead than us. They're ahead of governments, they're ahead of the regulation, they're head of industry, but I do think because of the nature of the blockchain and the capabilities we have and we're building around that, I think we're much more in a position in crypto to keep pace with what criminals are doing and actually act fast. And I think of course, Zodia is a member of the Beacon Network, that was a big example for me as to how we can just really act fast. And I just don't think you have that traditional finance. So I think crypto is really ahead in that regard.

Ari Redbord (19:00):

Amazing. So TRM started Beacon because bad actors were frankly just supercharging their operations. And it was, I think, really two main things. One, just the pace of scams and these sort of really sophisticated transnational criminal networks that were deploying scams on people all over the world and two, the ByBit hack. We saw North Korea essentially launder 1.5 billion from Ethereum to Bitcoin within a few days and we realized just like bad guys are moving faster than ever before and they're scaling. How can we move faster? And one of our first calls was to Zodia and I think you personally to say, "Hey, we're putting together the Avengers. Would you guys join us with Binance and Coinbase and OKX and Ripple and Kraken and all these others?" Talk to me about why you jumped at that opportunity and how you see that type of real-time information sharing within the crypto ecosystem.

Sophie Bowler (19:57):

I think it really captured me because it was just a true example. We speak a lot about public-private partnerships. In the financial crime compliance space, I was like, okay, this is actually it. Is actually the true example of an effective PPP. So I just thought we have to be a part of this is something that can actually make a real difference. And I could see the immediate benefits to us in Zodia and my teams to utilize that information to really make informed risk decisions around financial crime. And I think no matter how sophisticated the firm is or how well capitalized you are, you do need the information from all different firms. You need connectivity. So it's just very aligned to what I and the rest of the team wanted to be part of and it compliments our controls day-to-day. So there's often information that we get we would never have thought that something was happening. So I think it's just really beneficial day-to-day and we can just act much more rapidly and it informs our own control. And

Ari Redbord (20:59):

It is this only in crypto story, whether it's the traceability, trackability or this real-time alerting as funds are literally moving that you can send an alert and hopefully interdict those funds. That's an only in crypto kind of story, right?

Sophie Bowler (21:13):

No, absolutely. I just can't think it just doesn't work like that in traditional finance. It's very much after the fact, often funds can have gone ultimately. So to see something that's so real time and you can actually genuinely stop the funds and make a difference again is what brings it back to me of actually that broader reason that I'm here and actually seeing the benefits. So yeah, it's not something I think that could be seen in traditional finance. It's a crypto thing.

Ari Redbord (21:43):

Similarly, when you're a chief compliance officer, you're thinking about people, you're thinking about tools. How do you think about building out a compliance team, whether it's the use of technology like TRM, whether it's having the right people, executive buy-in? How did you think about building the capability at Zodia?

Sophie Bowler (22:03):

I think the buy-in was very key to start off with because we know and hear those things tone from the top. I think one of the key things that I focused on when I got straight in there is to speak to Standard Charter speak to the executives, speak to my CEO to really try and understand what the aims were, where they wanted to come from, and to ensure that there was that buy-in from the start and then to build my compliance team around. And as you said, people's absolutely essential controls, processes, the technology is absolutely critical. And I think one thing that was really great with Zodia from the start is that the way we've built our custody platform, the technology infrastructure is that the compliance controls are inbuilt already. So I guess there's a lot less reliance on manual effort. So the actual product and the technology was built with that in mind from the start.

(22:56):

And I think that said a lot to me about what Standard Charted, what they wanted to achieve. They felt that compliance was something to be at the forefront. And as a result of that, we've continued that throughout. So it's been really key for me to build that in from the start with respect to the products and the technology. And I feel like we've got a good thing going at Zodia. The compliance culture is embedded and I do see it much more than I've seen in other firms, to be honest.

Ari Redbord (23:22):

And similarly, we definitely a big group of listeners to TRM talks or compliance professionals, some of the digital asset industry, many trying to break into this space. What types of things, if you are building a compliance program today or you're a compliance professional within the crypto space, what types of things would you prioritize?

Sophie Bowler (23:41):

So I mean, I think obviously in crypto compliance, a key thing is the blockchain analytics because for me, it's not just something that you embed into different parts of the lifecycle. I actually use it as almost like a live operating manual, a constant reference point. It's the first thing I open the day, I've got to open throughout, I utilize it to inform decisions, build my knowledge, design my controls, test theories and thoughts even in the product development. So I think that would be absolutely essential, I think really just get abreast of the blockchain analytics. I think a second one would be very much the people and the team. I would say spending a lot of time on recruitment and making sure that you're really clear about the type of person, the type of roles that you want to fill. I think there's so much great talent out there, but it can be quite challenging to find the right people.

(24:35):

I do think don't underestimate the importance of the recruitment process and really making sure that you find the right person there because the team and the culture that you've got within your team is just absolutely so critically essential and that's what enables the compliance and the risk functions to ultimately thrive. So really focusing so much on the people because just the final thing I'll say is really there's so much going on in crypto firms. It's really easy to forget and move. You've got a licensee, you've got a remediation there, all these types of things, but actually focusing in on your people is really, really essential.

Ari Redbord (25:11):

That's awesome. I'd say the other piece to that that we're thinking about all the time at TRM right now is AI and what role it's going to potentially play in compliance workflows. Have you thought, I mean, I'm sure you've thought about that. It becomes hard for larger financial institutions from a regulatory perspective, I think right now is the pushback that we hear, whereas we think more crypto native firms maybe lean in more. Where are you personally maybe as a compliance professional and then from a Zodia perspective, where are you in the AI conversation right now?

Sophie Bowler (25:44):

Yeah, so I'll take the Zoni perspective at first. So we've now developed our AI framework. I think what's really been critical for us also knowing that the EU AI Act is implemented, there's parts of that that become live in August. So we have to make sure that what we're enabling now is compliant with that. So it's been a real priority of ours to make sure that we've got that adequate framework in place. So we've developed that, we've implemented that now and anything that we are looking to enable goes through that. So that's been a big priority. And then we've already started to look at how we're enabling our technology functions, development of code, how we are enabling our compliance functions, because if you don't get ahead of it, you're going to be left behind and it really can save a lot of time and be so added value, but of course it's not to replace human judgment, it is just to supplement it and enable it.

(26:37):

So where we are now as well with the compliance function, because I absolutely think we need to be using it, we need to be ahead and there's so many benefits for that. So we're just implementing that into our compliance teams now to utilize. Of course, we've all been using Copilots and various for a while, but actually having proper models implemented is a big priority of ours. And I think we've got to get on the train because if you don't, you'll be left behind.

Ari Redbord (27:05):

It's incredible. I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime to include the internet and crypto, quite frankly, and other amazing technological advancements. This is absolutely extraordinary. It's going to change everything.

Sophie Bowler (27:18):

And it's just happened so quickly. I'm in the process with one of my colleagues of writing the MLRO report this year and I remember using a bit of AI last year and we were just reflecting on the past year and our recommendations around the use of AI and we just thought, oh my gosh, the changes in one year is absolutely monumental.

Ari Redbord (27:35):

It's like if you looked back, it would almost be a sitcom. I remember people, I was at a CFTC hearing and commissioners were about AI and commissioners would read this speech and they say, "And you won't believe this. I used AI and it's already did not age well." It's so crazy. Yeah, I've never seen anything move this quickly.

Sophie Bowler (27:57):

It is. And I guess on the more negative side of it, we are seeing so much use of AI now in social engineering, phishing attacks. People have been targeted in the organization from all different angles. So we've really had to get hot on that pretty quickly, to be fair, train people, get a lot of information out there because the criminals are watching us. They're watching our activity on LinkedIn and we're really seeing that. And so yeah, we just have to be careful on that side as well and just make sure that we're not only progressing it forward in our own organizations, but clued up from a financial crime perspective because it's been used.

Ari Redbord (28:33):

100%. I testified in Congress on AI crime several months ago and testified recently on transnational criminal groups that are using this stuff, we saw about a 500% increase in the use of AI and fraud and scams over the last year. I mean, but that's kind of always the deal. Bad guys are always early adopters of new technology and then we figure out ways to use it to go after them. And I just want to make sure we're leveraging this stuff. Going to end on a fun personal note, you and I finally got to run together bucket list for me to get to run with you in Australia, which was amazing. What else do you do for fun when you are not stopping bad actors from engaging with the financial system?

Sophie Bowler (29:15):

So I've been a horse rider my whole life and when I was in London, it's quite challenging to consistently do that in London. Obviously big place, quite hard to do it. But since I moved to Australia, I've completely got back into it. I'm able to do it much more regularly now. I started jumping again. I went on a trail ride the other day and it's just beautiful woodland, I'm just going to be doing that much more as I can. And to be honest with you, my ideal where I want to go, I do want to get my own horse and I want to start competing again. I don't know how that would fit in around my crypto work, but that's my aim.

Ari Redbord (29:50):

That's so cool. Walk me through, do you live in a place where you have easy access to horses? Do you have horses? How does this all work? Well,

Sophie Bowler (29:59):

I had I was growing up, but where I live now, I actually live really close to, I think it's the biggest park in Sydney, so it's Centennial Park and there's actually three riding stables on that park. So it's about a 15-minute walk from where I live now, so it's absolutely ideal. So that's there. And then to be honest, you can just drive out really easily and there's lots of riding stables just outside of Sydney. I mean, obviously I live in the center of Sydney now, so I'm probably not going to be able to get my own horse, but my aim is eventually to move out. I need land.

Ari Redbord (30:31):

Totally. When you talk about getting back to competing, that means you were competing at one point.

Sophie Bowler (30:36):

Yeah, it was in my teens. It was really only just on a local level. Myself and one of my friends, we went to show jumping shows most weekends. We were just really focused on show jumping and it's just so super fun. And I think here they have them as well, so I'm going to try my best to get back into them and then you can just go from there.

Ari Redbord (30:58):

That's amazing. Any great stories, your favorite stories from riding?

Sophie Bowler (31:03):

Well, my horse was pretty crazy. I mean, many of my crazy stories linked to falling off him quite spectacularly. So heading for a jump, you go forward, he decides at the last second he's going to stop and you go smash bang into the jump. But miraculously, I never really learned myself. I mean, when you're younger, you just don't, you just get back straight on. So I don't know what it'd be like now. But yeah, I think it's just ... I mean, we had an amazing time doing all of that stuff, but just some monumental force.

Ari Redbord (31:38):

Yeah. ... falling off horses is a scary thing. It just strikes me. So I ask this question to pretty much everyone who comes on GRM talks, what do you do for hobbies and interests? And we've done 10, I don't know, 30 of these. Inevitably, it ends up as a ... Whatever that person does, they do it competitively. It's not just like I do this thing. It's I'm a jiu-jitsu champion, or I swam the English channel. It's not like I just swam. Seriously, but I think that speaks to probably people who are crazy enough to get into this space or something like that. Yeah. I mean,

Sophie Bowler (32:16):

I think there is something ... That's the thing I do. I want to ride, but the competing is just ... There's just another feeling around it. So yeah, I think it must just be people in this space. It just tells you a lot. 

Ari Redbord (32:27):

People in this space, just incredible roles, trying to build something meaningful and substantial, and you're competing in a way against yourself, against old systems. It's awesome. You are such a pleasure. Thank you so much for being on and really just so grateful for the friendship and the partnership, and looking forward to doing lots more together.

Sophie Bowler (32:45):

Yeah, no, me too. No, so I'm so glad to have been able to do this in the end. Yeah, no, it's just been great to chat.

Ari Redbord (32:51):

We will talk soon, and thanks for joining TRM Talks.

Sophie Bowler (32:53):

Great. Thank you.

Ari Redbord (32:59):

I've been trying to get Sophie on for a while and really, I think in large part, it's because Zodia does sit at that really interesting intersection. We're in that moment between institutional, financial, large financial institutions that are getting in the space and these crypto native firms. And Zodia really spun off from Standard Charter, a truly large global financial institution, but really still has that crypto native ethos. And someone who's deep on crypto compliance coming from TradFi is really the perfect person for a TRM Talks right now in this moment. And a couple things that really struck me, one, I loved how she described her journey to financial crime, that money laundering is really just an issue that arises in every type of crime. Those laundered funds aren't just laundered funds. They're stolen from real victims. They are used potentially in a terrorist attack where people die.

(33:48):

And for Sophie, I think to get into this space because of that, because she saw the harm done in the world and wanted to stop it, that really struck me. And then the other piece is really I think her focus on, wow, we could potentially do this better today than we've ever done compliance. Whether that means blockchain analytics, whether that means the Beacon Network, which super proud to have Zodia as really one of the founding members and AI and how she really kind of explored those things. So look, I think we're moving to this world where you're seeing the intersection of traditional finance and crypto. Sophie's really just the perfect chief compliance officer for that moment. On the next TRM Talks, I sit down with Brynly Llyr, deputy commissioner for digital assets at the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. If you love the show, leave a review wherever you're listening to it and follow us on LinkedIn to get the latest news on crypto regulation, compliance and investigations.

TRM Labs (34:49):

TRM Talks is brought to you by TRM Labs, the leading provider of blockchain intelligence and anti-money laundering software. This episode was produced in partnership with Voltage Productions. The music for this show was provided by iKOLIKS.

Ari Redbord (35:06):

Now let's get back to building.