The Costs of Financial Exploitation & Tips to Prevent It – Part 2

Tricia Sandiego, Senior Advisor for AARP’s Caregiving & Health team, is a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) experienced in health communication and promotion and public health research and practice. Her current work focuses on strategy for educating the 50+ and their families on caregiving and healthcare through programs, online tools and resources. Prior to joining AARP, she held positions working at the National Cancer Institute and on Federal contracts for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She has a background in health disparities and behavioral health. She holds an MHS from Johns Hopkins University, and a BA from McGill University.

Armed with a passion for social work and nearly two decades of experience in public policy and elder law, Jilenne Gunther is on a mission to solve policy problems and implement solutions to protect the finances of older Americans and their families. As the national director of AARP’s BankSafe Initiative, Jilenne is following in the footsteps of a three-generation banking family. She is leveraging her expertise to focus on the intersection between financial exploitation, dementia, caregiving and the accessibility of the banking environment for older adults. Core to that effort is her work leading the development of a game-changing financial exploitation prevention training program that is empowering the frontlines of financial institutions nationwide to curb exploitation. She’s spent the last 15 years developing programs and conducting groundbreaking research that have advanced financial exploitation prevention across the country, including the creation of the nation’s first banking account feature to help family and caregivers prevent exploitation. Her efforts in creating and building programs from the ground up have protected more than five million older adults across the nation from financial exploitation. In addition, her pioneering work in identifying legal needs to better target services to consumers in Utah resulted in nearly five times the amount of legal service funds and in-kind donations being made in the state. Inspired by her success, more than 40 states have implemented programs replicating her work. Jilenne has authored two books on consumer rights and elder law, and has written a pioneering analysis on the economic cost of financial exploitation. Her work has been cited in Senate hearings, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau advisories and U.S. Government Accountability Office reports, and she has been widely quoted in Forbes, Money Magazine, The Associated Press, American Banker and other media outlets. As a result of her commitment to making a difference in the lives of older adults, Jilenne has received 15 awards and counting, including the State of Utah’s Woman of the Year Achievement Award. She holds a Masters in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Utah.

Laura Richardson serves as a Section Chief and Supervisory Analyst in FinCEN the Intelligence Division. Her analysts address a wide range of issues, from consumer protection and health care fraud, to money laundering and national security. She and her analysts work closely with federal law enforcement and regulators on using FinCEN data for their trade, investment, money laundering, and fraud related investigations. She also works with FinCEN’s Public Affairs team to communicate appropriate information to the public, media, and non-financial industries. Laura joined FinCEN in 2009, after 12 years as a FINRA-licensed and award winning Wall Street stock analyst covering the consumer/retail sector. She was widely quoted in print and electronic media as an expert on companies such as Martha Stewart Living, Nordstrom, and Starbucks. Prior to that, Laura was a consulting manager with PriceWaterhouse and a spin-off firm for six years, also specializing in the retailing industry. She has an MBA from the University of Michigan and a BS from Tufts University.