We’ve officially crossed 425 subscribers 📢 —after only two editions (October and November). The momentum is real, and it’s growing because of the stories women like Denise and Sunny are willing to share. December brings two leaders whose paths into fraud are very different, but whose impact on the field is unmistakable.
Denise Owens never planned a career in fraud—it found her.
Before Denise Owens ever sat across from a fraud suspect, she was simply the
person in the back-office department who understood how the money moved. That was her world—ledgers, processes, operational guardrails. She didn’t see herself as an investigator. At the time, almost no one who looked like her did.
Three decades ago, bank fraud teams were powered almost entirely by men from law enforcement—former police, former federal agents, former detectives who carried their careers into the private sector. When an internal theft case surfaced at Denise’s institution, those investigators needed someone to translate the banking side of the puzzle. Denise was the bridge: steady, sharp, methodical.
At some point, after enough late conversations and “Can you walk us through that again?” moments, the investigators made her an offer: It would be easier for us to teach you how to interview than for you to teach us how banking works.
It wasn’t a promotion she had sought. But it was a pivot that reshaped her entire professional life.
Denise stepped into a world that didn’t quite know what to make of her. She was one of two women in the investigative department, and everything—absolutely everything—was uphill.
She remembers fielding calls from outside agencies and hearing: “Sweetie, why don’t you have your boss call me?”
She remembers being dismissed, underestimated, spoken over. She also remembers the early years when check fraud rings began shifting from opportunistic to organized—when white-collar crime became the funding mechanism for darker, more violent operations. It was a turning point in the industry, and she lived it from inside the storm.
And then came the case that would define her early career.
The case started small—just a pattern, a few bad checks—but it escalated quickly. Soon it was clear that hundreds of account holders across several institutions were participating in the same fraud ring. Banks didn’t share information then. They didn’t merge cases. Collaboration across institutions simply wasn’t done.
But Denise and two other women did it anyway.
They mapped accounts. Boxed evidence. Carved through contradictions. For a full year, they worked the same case, together, across institutional lines—three women pushing through a problem no one had attempted at that scale.
The FBI took notice. Eventually, the collaboration led to prosecution and an award from the Bureau. It wasn’t just a win for the case. It was a crack in the wall.
Decades later, Denise carries that experience into how she leads. She talks openly about the difference it makes to have both an operational and investigative background—how rare that blend has become, and how essential it is.
Her team knows they don’t have to break through the barriers she did. The ceiling has been raised, if not fully removed. But credibility is still earned, not handed over. She models that balance—authority without ego, detail without rigidity, toughness without losing the ability to tear up at a Hallmark commercial.
And when law enforcement sits across the table now, no one asks for “her boss.”
Friends are always surprised to hear what Denise does for a living. People see the woman who quilts, who cries at commercials, who loves comfort movies. They don’t see the part of her brain that notices everything—the subtle tells, the off-beat details, the pattern that doesn’t belong.
During COVID, locked inside like the rest of the world, she taught herself to quilt from YouTube. She wanted to make her children something they could keep forever. One quilt became many. Blankets became jackets. And eventually, she started a small side business—quiet, creative work that steadies her. More recently, she picked up woodworking too. Her mind needs motion, even when her body is resting.
When Denise talks about risk today, there’s no dramatics, just clarity. Her institution brings fraud into product and technology discussions from the start—not after decisions are made. That early seat at the table shapes how she evaluates every new tool, every channel, every customer expectation.
She looks at it through two lenses: the risk of doing business and the risk that exceeds it.
It’s a simple distinction, but it guides everything.
She doesn’t have a title ready. But she knows this much: her friends refuse to watch suspense films with her because she spots many of the twist, before they even happen. She calls it just an instinct. They call it annoying. Either way, it’s the same skill that turned a banker into someone who could sit face-to-face with people trying very hard not to tell the truth—and hold her own every time.
If there’s a through-line in her story, it’s this: she built a career by stepping into a space that wasn’t built for her, then quietly rewired it so that future women wouldn’t have to fight the same fight.
Sunny Banerjee never set out to build a career in fraud—yet it became the place where everything clicked.
With a degree in Computer Science Engineering and an MBA in Finance, she started in compliance roles that gradually pulled her into the world of fraud prevention. When she joined Silicon Valley Bank in 2016, everything clicked.
“It comes naturally,” she says. “I love dissecting products, simulating rules, and figuring out how to make tools work for my business—not just because everyone else uses them.”
Her proudest career moment came leading an enterprise fraud platform rollout across multiple regions, including the U.S., U.K., and Canada. The challenge? Dozens of teams, competing priorities, and one unified goal. “You’re sewing together expectations from different stakeholders,” she says, “and it still has to make sense end-to-end.”
Sunny’s passion lies in the human side of fraud—understanding both the fraudsters and the fraud fighters. She calls Business Email Compromise the “dinosaur of fraud,” a timeless threat made stronger by our comfort with technology. “It’s the paradox,” she explains. “Tech makes us both comfortable and vulnerable.”
Her advice for women in fraud is simple but powerful: be proactive and stay determined. “Don’t wait to be taught. Explore, test, and learn. Determination always takes precedence over timing.”
Her leadership mantra reflects her team-first mindset: “No one knows it all. The best teams cover each other’s gaps. Team spirit compounds value more than individual brilliance.”
At home, Sunny recharges with her two kids—her “tiny monkeys”—who keep her grounded and laughing. Her career motto?
Thank you for being part of this growing community and for helping elevate the voices of women who’ve been shaping fraud prevention long before the industry knew to look for them.
If you know someone who deserves to be featured in a future edition, reach out to Laura Hollaway at lhollaway@validadvantage.com or call/text 201-247-1638. Together, we’ll keep celebrating the women who make the fraud industry stronger, smarter, and more connected than ever.