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• Martin Markiewicz is a serial entrepreneur who for the last 10 years has been wrestling to the ground some of the most daunting fincrime compliance challenges in the field, using AI to better divine illicit inclinations.
• But after creating two companies over two decades, he jumped headlong into the fincrime fray with Silent Eight, an innovation-focused regtech reviewing, retooling and refining a host of bank crimefighting programs, including fraud, sanctions and AML compliance.
• Markiewicz also pushes himself to be both mentally and physically agile. Along with being fluent in dozens of languages – programming languages that is – he has also in recent years studied mixed martial arts.

By Brian Monroe
bmonroe@acfcs.org
January 31, 2023

Martin Markiewicz is a serial entrepreneur who for the last 10 years has been wrestling to the ground some of the most daunting fincrime compliance challenges in the field, using AI to better divine illicit inclinations.

After creating two companies over two decades, he jumped headlong into the fincrime fray with Silent Eight, an innovation-focused regtech reviewing, retooling and refining a host of bank crimefighting programs, including fraud, sanctions and AML compliance.

These companies came into being despite herculean engineering, logistical and technological challenges, including harnessing the limitless energy potential of hydropower, networking the physical and digital worlds and currently countercrime compliance.

These companies came into being despite herculean engineering, logistical and technological challenges, including harnessing the limitless energy potential of hydropower, networking the physical and digital worlds and currently countercrime compliance.

Markiewicz also pushes himself to be both mentally and physically agile.

Along with being fluent in dozens of languages – programming languages that is – he has also in recent years studied mixed martial arts.

Even so, when asked who the individuals are who inspire him, they are not hulking sports figures or bulking body builders, but visionary inventors who have shown grit, commitment and tenacity in the face of economic adversity and negative publicity.

“There’s a quote from Elon Musk that I like: ‘When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds aren’t in your favour,’” Markiewicz said, a classic twist on the axiom, “fortune favours the bold.”

Historically, the journeys of many successful companies have hinged on “brave and smart pivots,” he said.

Instead of being stubborn, leaders at these firms have tended to review what the data was saying, poll the public, garner feedback from customers and “adjust their ideas accordingly,” Markiewicz said.  

But Musk’s strategy is the “complete opposite,” he said.

It’s more like: “‘This is the goal and no matter what anyone says, this where we’re heading.’ And decades later he turns out to be right. That’s unique and pretty insane.”

Like Markiewicz, Tesla CEO Musk – and many other top tech executives and inventors – have chosen to match their intensity of thought at work with competition of the corporeal variety in their downtime.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in his spare time likes to engage in hydrofoiling, surfing, and fencing, according to interviews, podcasts and published reports.

Last year, Zuckerberg showed off his mixed martial arts skills against a trained UFC fighter.

He is not alone.

Cisco cofounder Sandy Lerner likes to raise horses – and sometimes joust on them.

Musk, known the world over as an billionaire inventor and entrepreneur pushing the boundaries of what cars, rockets and people can do, said he has studied karate, judo, and Brazilian jiu jitsu his youth when his nose wasn’t buried in a book, according to Business Insider.

Elon Musk, because of his outcomes.

I find it really interesting that if you are lucky and don’t quit, you can be successful, even if the project doesn’t produce results quickly.

The journeys of many successful companies center on brave and smart pivots. Instead of being stubborn, people tend to look at what the data, public and customers are saying and adjust their ideas accordingly.

But Musk’s strategy is the complete opposite and more like: “This is the goal and no matter what anyone says, this where we’re heading.”

And decades later he turns out to be right. That’s unique and pretty insane.

I learned how to escape a stranglehold, Kata-Gatame, in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is a founding component of mixed martial arts (MMA). This hold is very hard to escape if applied correctly. Most people will either submit in a few seconds or lose consciousness.

Previously, I was anxious about being put in this position.

But recently, I was taught to adjust the position of my wrist and now I escape 30% to 40% of the time.

Probably that I’ve been studying MMA for the past seven years (laughs).

I’m CEO of Silent Eight, which is a tech company that helps to fight money laundering, terrorist payments and other financial crimes.

Most of my daily tasks fall into two main areas: the first involves designing products that make the crime-fighting process more effective and efficient.

Additionally, I consider how to increase our corporate footprint using the right tools and technology that will help me bring to market and popularise our unreleased products, and ensure they are useful to people in the real world.

It would be safe to say that I entered the industry pretty late in my career and as something of an outsider.

But now I have six years’ experience in financial crime compliance.

After studying math and writing small pieces of software, in 2006 I secured a position at one of Central and Eastern Europe’s leading IT companies, Wola Info. There, I met [Silent Eight co-founders] Julia [Markiewicz] and Michael [Wilkowski] who recruited me into his team as a software developer.

Around 2009, I convinced Michael and Julia that we should create our own enterprise.

We set up a successful hydropower plant company that we took public and sold before returning to the technology industry in 2013.

The hydropower company was a great experience that helped us to discover that building software for businesses is way easier than building power plants.

It was around this time that I began to consider how math and engineering could be used to transform financial crime compliance to a much larger extent than currently.

We agreed to search for the optimal location to create a global company and looked at New York, London, Dubai and Hong Kong, before eventually settling on Singapore.

While Michael and I were still mulling over the decision, Julia booked airline tickets and instructed us to come up with a business name, website and business cards because she’d be moving to Singapore the following Monday.

We all moved to Singapore and worked with several enterprises before coming across Standard Chartered bank and the financial compliance space.

There’s a quote from Elon Musk that I like: “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds aren’t in your favour.”

Probably all of that stuff about trying to maintain a work-life balance by working three hours a week, or some other nonsense (laughs).

I tried this approach during the period we were selling the hydropower plant company, but I found it very unhealthy because of my setup and character.

Paul Santos, managing director at Wavemaker Partners, one of our seed investors, once told me something that I’ve never forgotten.

Wavemaker has invested in more than 400 start-ups, so I asked if he’d noticed any patterns that made a company successful. He said all the start-ups that enjoyed consistent growth shared one key attribute: they just never quit.

But being persistent and maintaining authenticity every day while dealing with the obstacles that come with trying to build something new isn’t easy.

You go to sleep tired and worried and wake up feeling the same because you can’t work out how to solve half of your problems, which have doubled by lunchtime.

I think it’s probably a good idea to do something that you find important and genuinely believe in.

That way, even when things get really tough, you’re less likely to give up because your commitment is long-term.

Looking solely at investigations, I think a lot has changed.

Previously, this process was largely manual, but now it’s heavily supported by technology.

It really gives me personal satisfaction to know that a lot of these changes are because of the hard work we’re putting in and the willingness of financial institutions, regulators and others to adopt technology.

This is an environment where you have to be very careful because the risks are so high.

So it requires people to agree that they want to use technology in a way that would improve everything – without breaking anything.

We understood that using Facebook’s “Let’s move fast and break things” strategy would be inappropriate.

In FCC, it’s more suitable to say: “Let’s ensure that we’re improving and accelerating existing procedures without introducing any new risks.”

The ability to apply technology and innovation.

In this space, the more tools you have to build solutions, the more expertise is required. The more areas you have to learn, the harder the overall task becomes.

Around 10 years ago, you had to be a subject matter expert to be a good sanctions enforcer.

Over time, you would’ve started using more technology as the role became a mixture of software engineering and sanctions expertise.

Now, with the introduction of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence, you’re working with software developers and have mathematicians telling you about ML models and model risk management.

And you must understand all of these conversations about the technology being designed because you’re going to be responsible for the outcomes.

Technology gives you more power to do awesome things, but it also makes designing cutting-edge solutions harder.

The key challenge is staying on top of all these different elements simultaneously. I don’t think there were as many things to worry about 10 to 20 years ago.

To be honest, when we entered and started to understand the industry, we were shocked by how badly some things were being done.

Almost immediately, we identified how to improve many things and all agreed this was something worth dedicating half of our lives to [because I can see that we’re making a difference].

Although my job title remains the same, the scope of my role is completely different when I look back at what I’ve achieved at the end of each year.

It’s surprising, but also something that makes the role pretty cool. I think this experience is similar for a lot of people in our team.

We’re continually growing, doing more and building expertise in areas that we weren’t thinking about two or three years ago.

My first role in the field was actually as founder and CEO of Silent Eight, which is not your typical entry point.

I’m not sure I can offer much advice outside of what I would normally give and that is to find a role that you enjoy and keeps you satisfied. Establish the difference between your current skills and the capabilities the role requires and fill those gaps.

Probably the progress we’re making.

From the perspective of a product manager thinking about the ML, sales, design, mathematical, FCC knowledge and software development angles, the most rewarding thing is seeing our products being successfully introduced and used in more places with increasing frequency.

When I think about our software making decisions on sanctions and money laundering cases, and how these numbers increase each week as our products improve because they’re being deployed more often, it really makes me happy because I can see that we’re making a difference.

Although it doesn’t always feel like that on a daily basis, it’s pretty amazing when you sit back and look at the data. It’s hard not to feel proud when you dedicate a huge part of your life to building something, trying to achieve a goal, and then you actually see it taking shape.

I don’t think I’d feel the same way if I were working at a company producing alcohol or tobacco.

Maybe I’d be successful, but I know I’d miss that sense of purpose.

Focus on the profile of the role you want. Try to imagine yourself doing that role today.

What would you excel at and what parts would you struggle with?

Hone the positives and address the negatives so that in an interview setting, you can easily demonstrate an alignment between your capabilities and the requirements of the role.

To reach ACFCS’s amazing members and play my part in enhancing the financial crime-fighting community.