Accounting Banquet

2019 Annual Spring Banquet

March 26, 2019 

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Adriana Sanford

Dr. Sanford is a cyber-security expert, an international TV commentator and a multidimensional professional with experience and expertise in a variety of different domains. Following an abduction while on company business, international whistleblower Dr. Sanford has distinguished herself by educating executives, thousands of college students, and the public at large on global threats and the dangers of corporate corruption. She also appears regularly as an international television commentator to over 24 million viewers in the United States and Latin America.

As a former in-house counsel of a Fortune 50 company, Dr. Sanford warns that legal ethics rules are varied in foreign countries and sometimes conflict with domestic rules, which places U.S. companies, executives, and in-house counsel in the position of deciding which laws and ethical rules to follow and which to break. The absence of uniform global rules of legal ethics creates serious ramifications for U.S. attorneys with multijurisdictional practices. Her focus is on global threats and laws at the international level, where possible outcomes for a company's non-compliance creates serious criminal liability and poses physical danger for executives and their in-house counsel in foreign territories.

Dr. Sanford's extensive experience addressing international organized crime and linking it to corporate fraud, bribery clubs, and other forms of business malfeasance spans over a 20-year period, including an illegal scheme involving Russian loans that resulted in the arrest and 30-year imprisonment of her former employer's CEO. Over the past years, she handled several complex corruption and embezzlement cases in the United States and Latin America including, among others, trade based money laundering and phantom shipments. Although Dr. Sanford's most recent situation is over twelve years old, it is a textbook case of why whistleblower protection laws and regulations should protect attorneys. Her courage and endurance through trial and tribulations, along with two decades of practical legal knowledge in real-world settings, sets her apart from other academics in her field. As part of the Seaver Business team, Dr. Sanford teaches Business Law and Business Ethics; she also teaches Business Law and Cyber Security Law & Policy at Loyola Marymount University.

For more information about this event, please contact Dr. Farrell Gean.