Principal Consultant Biography
Vivian Velazquez is the Founder and Principal Consultant of V&V Consulting Group, LLC. She brings decades of experience in the securities industry, spanning both regulatory and private sectors. Ms. Velazquez has held senior compliance leadership roles at global and national financial institutions with billions in assets under management and operations across the United States and Latin America. Her expertise includes leading complex regulatory initiatives such as broker-dealer launches, major platform conversions, mergers, business restructurings, and large-scale anti-money laundering (AML) lookbacks and remediation efforts for prominent U.S. financial institutions.
Ms. Velazquez previously served as a Branch Chief in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Miami office, where she directed the examination program for broker-dealers and transfer agents across Florida, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and the Caribbean. In this role, she supervised examinations of dually registered broker-dealers and investment advisers, hedge funds, and maintained oversight of NASD (now FINRA) and NYSE examination programs within the region. She also collaborated with law enforcement on AML investigations and worked closely with the SEC’s Washington, D.C. office to launch and field-test the AML examination program. Additionally, she developed and delivered training programs for foreign regulators, SEC staff, and state examiners on AML, broker-dealer compliance, books and records, accounting, and sales practices. Earlier in her career, she served as a Senior Examiner and Field Supervisor with the NASD in both New York and Denver.
She previously managed the compliance function for a New York-based insurance and financial services organization, overseeing regulatory compliance across affiliated entities, including a broker-dealer, investment adviser, proprietary mutual funds, and variable insurance separate accounts. In this role, she directed the preparation and filing of regulatory reports for mutual funds and separate accounts. She began her career as a registered representative with national wirehouse firms.
Ms. Velazquez is a trained FINRA arbitrator and has provided expert witness testimony and litigation support in both regulatory and private matters, including depositions and hearings involving SEC and NASD enforcement actions. She is a graduate of the FINRA Institute at the Wharton School’s Certified Regulatory and Compliance Professional (CRCP) program and holds a B.B.A. in International Finance and Marketing from the University of Miami. She previously held FINRA Series 24, 7, and 63 licenses.
She is a member of several professional organizations, including the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS), Association of Certified Sanctions Specialists (ACSS), Florida International Bankers Association (FIBA), Financial Markets Association (FMA), Florida Securities Dealers Association (FSDA), National Society of Compliance Professionals (NSCP), and the Securities Expert Roundtable (SER). Ms. Velazquez is fluent in Spanish.