Michael Berclaz

Founding Partner / CEO

Head of Compliance & Risks

Michael, Swiss resident, father of 2, holder of a Master in Swiss Law (MLaws) & the CAS in Compliance Management, both delivered by Geneva University, holds both UK & Swiss citizenship (born 1978). He has more than 20 years experience in the Compliance industry.

Prior to setting up the company, he held Project Management & Senior Compliance functions to Major Bank Institutions in Switzerland, Monaco, Luxembourg, Portugal and France (Paris) such as Lloyds TSB, ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, Société Générale & EFG Bank. Aged 32 y.o., he successfully held the challenging position of Group Chief Compliance Officer of a Swiss Private bank with international branches for several years. He then focused on managing Compliance & Risk projects he is passionate about: Organisation, Audit Remediation, Sanctions, AML & Tax.

He has an excellent reputation in the market; speaks fluently English, French and German. Referrals available on request as well as some on LinkedIn.

“As entrepreneurs, we use Compliance as part of the business growth strategy bringing a competitive advantage on the acquisition of new opportunities”.

Let’s schedule a phone call or video conference : Here

Volha Sakalova

Director – Partner

Volha is a university graduate translator in RU / FR obtained with the Linguistic University of Minsk and is a certified business administration employee. She enjoys a solid professional experience in Accounting, Management, Regulatory Compliance, Legal affairs and Front-office acquired within various financial intermediaries in Switzerland, in particular within a Company & Service provider, a Multi-family office and as compliance officer within a major wealth management company. She now manages the company in its commercial development, structuring and in the optimisation of the work of consultants as well as in its accounting aspects.

Volha is fluent in English, French and Russian.

Ranjan Bhalla
Senior Risk Manager / Deputy Head of Risks

Sectors: Portfolio Management, Global commodity traders & Asset Management (CISA)

Ranjan is a Swiss resident and holds both Swiss & Canadian citizenship.  After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Brown University in the United States, he returned to Switzerland where he joined the commodities trading industry as a market risk analyst. He has 17 years of risk management experience acquired at leading global commodity trading companies based in Switzerland (Cargill, Koch and Bunge) where he held senior risk positions. He also dealt with compliance and regulatory issues and led a project to assess the impact of new EU & Swiss financial regulations, helping to raise awareness of the new rules within the company and update processes to ensure proper compliance.    

Ranjan is fluent in English and French and learning Spanish.

Anne Pouit
Senior Compliance Officer / Deputy Head of Compliance

Sectors: Banking, Wealth management

Anne, born in 1973, Swiss-French national, is responsible, for 20 years, for guaranteeing compliance with laws, regulations, jurisprudence and ethics rules within financial entities, mainly in Switzerland and Luxembourg, also in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and in Uruguay.

She is an expert in assessing the risks when client onboarding or client profiles reviewing.

She is knowledgable in Swiss laws and regulations applying to Finance in Switzerland and had the opportunity to learn and/or apply AML approaches in Anglo-Saxon and EMEA jurisdictions.

With her legal background, she obtained a CAS Compliance Management Certificate from UNIGE and a Compliance diploma from the International Compliance Association (ICA).

She is now working on more specific trainings relating to international Sanctions and Cryptocurrencies.

She is an active member of the Association of Certified Sanctions Specialist and of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (ACAMS).

Following a 5 years experience in the field of collective investment funds wirth DEXIA-BIL in Luxembourg, she then worked within Compliance department of renowned private Banks in Swizerland: BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, EFG Bank SA… She joints Berclaz & Associés as Senior Compliance officer with the key position as Deputy to the Head of Compliance.

She speaks fluently French and English

Joy Savoini
Risk & Compliance Officer

Sectors: Portfolio Management, Banks and Trustees

Marie-Françoise Assar
Senior Risk Officer – Consultant

Jean-Luc Roisin
Senior Tax & Compliance Officer – Consultant

Sectors: Banks, Trust / Fiduciaries, Wealth Managers

Swiss resident, Swiss-Belgian national, born in 1971, Jean-Luc is a highly qualified and experimented Compliance advisor with strong expertise in Anti Money Laundering, International sanctions, Tax Compliance (including FATCA/CRS), Cross-border as well as Market Compliance (MIFID, FINSA/FINIA…). After graduating in Finance as « Ingénieur Commercial » from Solvay Business School (Brussels) and getting additional Tax Law training at Leuven University, he started his career at Deloitte & Touch in Luxembourg before moving to Switzerland over 20 years ago. After completing the CAS Compliance Management at Geneva’s University and as an active member of the board of the GCO (Groupement des Compliance Officers Romands et du Tessin) during more than 10 years, Jean-Luc is well known and recognized as compliance professional for financial institutions in Geneva. Since 2004, he has been implementing most recent financial regulatory matters including supervisory rules for group’s entities in Monaco, Dubaï, Luxembourg, Hong-Kong or Tel-Aviv while having high responsibility compliance positions in various banks such as ING, HSBC, BNP Paribas, Safra Sarasin or BCGe.

He is fluent in English, French and Dutch.

 Selva Cigdem
Attorney-at-Law, Senior Legal Counsel, RGPD / GDPR – LPD- Consultant

Sectors: Banks, Family Offices, Trade companies

Born in Sierre (Valais), Selva graduated (with a doctorate mention) from the Law Faculty
of the University of Lausanne and was admitted to the Geneva Bar. She practised as a
lawyer at the Geneva Bar for several years.
She has worked for well-known multi-family offices and has extensive experience in
advising private and commercial clients, in particular in the field of commercial and
corporate law (drafting, reviewing and negotiating complex international contracts,
incorporation of companies, shareholders’ agreements).
For more than 15 years, she held various positions in renowned banks as Legal Counsel,
Compliance Officer, In-House Lawyer and Head of Legal.  She was the contact person
for FINMA in its various functions. She has worked for banks specialized in asset management and trading (CTF,Commodities/ Trade Finance). Active in compliance/due diligence, she is a member of the Groupement des Compliance Officers de Suisse Romande.
Selva has a background in European data protection law (RGPD/GDPR) and assists
companies in implementing the measures required by Swiss data protection law.

She is joining Berclaz & Associates as an independent consultant.

She is fluent in English, French and Turkish.

Younès Khalifa
Senior Sanctions Officer – Consultant

Sectors : Retail and Commercial Banking/ Trade Finance / Private Banking

Younès is a native from France and lives in Switzerland. He has been graduated in France, with a dual degree in M.Sc. International Affairs and Management (from the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis), coupled with a Master in Law Financial Security Lawyer (from the University of Strasbourg). Since 2010, his profesional background is anchored in the Banking industry, with a focus since 2013, in International Sanctions & Embargoes , either in France or Switzerland. Passionate about geopolitics, he has delt during his various and enriching experiences within Arab Bank, Natixis, HSBC and EFG Bank, with a wide scope of corporate issues linked to the International Sanctions & Embargoes, including in the Advisory, Operations, Project Management, Remediations and Governance scope.

His expertise includes also a thorough knowledge of the US, EU, Swiss, UN and UK regulatory frameworks in terms of International Sanctions & Embargoes.

Younès offers his services as independang consultant, either for the Banking or any other type of industry, willing to define or enhance/strenghten its ” Sanctions framework” , tackle complex and sensitive sanctions issues or instruct/ train and raise awareness to the dedicated stakeholders, towards these areas of expertise.

Fluent in French, English and Arabic, he has also gained a good command of the spanish language.