Taking on the World’s Money Laundering Capital with Chief Revenue Officer of First AML, Bion Behdin #40
With heightened scrutiny of the financial market, given recent Russian sanctions, such uncertainty makes the work of Bion Behdin’s First AML so much more indispensable.
Bion, Co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer of First AML, brings 7 years of experiencing difficult Anti-Money Laundering processes with several major banks to the forefront, having now launched in the UK.
In this week’s Extrology, we discover how First AML extended their international reach to London - the ‘money laundering capital of the world’, how the 3 Co-Founders complement each other’s skills, and advice on picking the right time to seek investment and take your venture to the next level.
Lee and BION discuss:
The power of Co-Founders over going it alone
Tips for obtaining investment, and when it’s the right time
Taking the opportunity to push back against money laundering’s prevalence in global financial capitals
Bion’s perception of success, and why you should focus on the problem you’re solving for customers
Links & references:
Lee Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leecooperrecruiter/
Bion Behdin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bion-behdin-691a6640/
First AML: https://www.linkedin.com/company/firstaml/
Get in touch: lee@extrology.com
Episode highlights:
“One of the things I said was, ‘You're gonna hire 10 people that did a degree in finance, probably their parents work at the bank as well. Don't you want some people that have a different way of thinking?’. They liked that comment, and I started on the ForEx desk.” - 6:30 - Bion Behdin
“90% of what we were doing was building relationships. You were tasked with finding new business and getting transactions over the line, and to be honest the financial side of it wasn't very hard to learn. That was the easy part.” - 9:15 - Bion Behdin
“That was the ‘Aha’ moment. If we can develop something and make something and do it for them, that was the ethos of the business. No one wanted to do AML, so we'd just do it for them - that was our whole ethos, and is still our ethos today.” - 13:55 - Bion Behdin
“I'd rather have a small piece of something special that we built in a short amount of time, than a large piece of something that's taken 15 to 20 years of my life. So that was my thought process in terms of raising cash, but again, everyone's journey is different on this sort of stuff.” - 24:00 - Bion Behdin
“The financial incentive has been so great and the regulatory oversight has been woeful. It's just not been up to scratch. That is definitely changing. From the engagement we've had with UK firms, people really see now is the time to step it up. If you deal with a sanctioned individual, it's a £1m fine instantly.” - 31:25 - Bion Behdin
“You can only make 12 to 15 good decisions a day. Well, with three Co-Founders you'd make 45 good decisions a day, if you empower each other to make those decisions. So I definitely think it's allowed us to scale a lot faster.” - 34:55 - Bion Behdin
“They estimate that Russian oligarchs own $25 billion of London property. I can tell you for free right now that it's way more than that. The problem is that the estimations of how much money is laundered globally, in my opinion, is woefully low.” - 41:05 - Bion Behdin
“Success for us is the people, if people within our organisation can grow and learn, and have an impact. Success for me is me being able to step away, and the business just carrying on like it's its own organism. I think that would be really, really special one day for that to happen.” - 46:00 - Bion Behdin
“Don't stress out about the little things. The things you care about actually don't matter at all. You only learn that I think as you get a little bit older, in terms of where you should actually focus your energy.” - 49:40 - Bion Behdin
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