Welcome to our first issue of the Women In Fraud newsletter, written by Laura Hollaway, Director, Partnership Management at VALID Systems.
Financial Crimes Division, NorthOne Bank
Curiosity, compassion, and courage guide Namra Qarni’s path in fraud prevention.
Namra grew up in a family of bankers. Around the dinner table, she heard talk about money, compliance, and fraud.
She was also hooked on shows like Catch Me If You Can and true-crime stories. By the time she studied criminology in college,
she knew this field was her calling.
Her first banking job showed her the real impact of fraud. She remembers watching small business owners panic over a bounced check.
“It broke my heart,” she says. That moment pushed her toward a career in compliance and fraud prevention—work that protects people’s dreams.
Of course, the job comes with challenges. Fraudsters never stop trying. Namra laughs at fake checks printed on plain paper,
but she knows others are much more clever. “Fraudsters work hard, but we have to work smarter,” she says.
Her biggest lesson? Stay vigilant, but keep perspective. She warns that it’s easy to see red flags everywhere,
even when accounts are clean. Balance is key.
Looking forward, Namra sees AI and machine learning making fraud tools faster and sharper. But she believes people will always be needed.
“Fraud fighting takes intuition,” she says. “Technology can help, but humans add the context.”
Outside the office, Namra loves to bake with her daughter and try new creative hobbies—most recently, crocheting.
If her career were a movie title? She’d call it: “Fishing the Bad.”
“Stay vigilant, but keep perspective.” — Namra Qarni
Data Scientist / Sr. Fraud Consultant
Kavita didn’t plan to work in fraud. She started out as an engineer who loved math, then earned a master’s in economics.
Her career began at one of the largest credit bureaus in the U.S., working with data and models.
But everything changed when she joined one of the biggest consulting firms in the world and took on a project for a tax authority.
At first, she was nervous. The job? Build a system to catch fraud in tax filings. Kavita and her team worked from scratch, learning fast.
The result: a solution that blocked about 40% of fraud losses. That success lit a fire in her.
Fraud was not just numbers—it was protecting real people and money.
Her path wasn’t all smooth. Later, while helping a digital payments company, Kavita’s team built a model that worked beautifully…
except it took three hours to run. Not exactly “real-time”! With only weeks left, the team pivoted,
moving the model onto big data tech. The new system worked in seconds.
Lesson learned: fraud fighters have to adapt, think fast, and never give up.
Today, Kavita leads projects around the world. She believes the key to fraud work is curiosity and courage—
asking “what if?” and thinking like the fraudsters themselves.
“Fraud is a crime. Solving it means protecting both money and trust.”
Outside of work, Kavita finds peace in the kitchen, experimenting with recipes from across India.
Her career, she says, could be summed up in one book title: “Math is the Solution to World Problems.”
Find her on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kavitadwivedi
If you are a woman in fraud that is interested in being featured in this newsletter, please reach out at lhollaway@validadvantage.com. Thank you for reading!