For as long as there has been finance, there has been financial crime. As the speed of finance has reached “Flash Boys” level, with more or less instantaneous transactions, scammers have matched legitimate commerce’s velocity with their own. Now, companies are fighting back using AI, and Peter Reynolds, Chief Executive Officer of cybersecurity company ThetaRay, is helping to lead the charge.
Reynolds took over as CEO in 2023, succeeding Mark Gazit. Previously, Reynolds served as Chief Revenue Officer and brings more than two decades of industry experience from roles at Fundtech, Earnix, and AimBrain. Reynolds and Gazit ran the company’s go-to-market strategy from 2021 to 2023 to great effect, growing annual recurring revenue by a factor of 5 and adding more than 50 new customers around the world.
Now, as CEO, Reynolds is overseeing a company that is leveraging AI to find threats that previously might have gone unnoticed, as he said in a recent interview. Noting that the company was founded by “two brilliant mathematicians” looking to get to the root of the question, he asked, “Can we detect suspicious activity related to money laundering and financing of terrorism with AI?”
The answer is a resounding yes. Reynolds said that he saw first-hand how ThetaRay’s AI had helped Santander Bank “to identify transactions and clients linked to human trafficking, allowing them to present timely reports to authorities and thwart a modern slavery network,” he said. “At that moment, I felt truly humbled.”
Reynolds recently brought Brian Gilman on board as Chief Marketing Officer, a position he previously held at IntelePeer, to help with this vital work. He also helped publish an industry report on how cognitive AI was helping to catch fraud; in compliance and safety, a rising tide lifts all boats, and a safer financial system makes everyone’s lives easier. Reynolds and ThetaRay aren’t just in it for themselves; they’re in it for all of us. They’re the good guys.
