Annee Spijkervet

Jeroen: Annee Spijkervet, thank you very much for taking the time to speak to Leaders in Finance in the lead-up to the Leaders in Finance AML Netherlands event on October 3rd.

Annee: You’re welcome. I’m looking forward to it.

Jeroen: To start, I’d love to hear a bit more about you—your background, your role at Lepaya, and anything else you’d like to share.

Annee: Twenty years ago, I began my career in the financial industry, starting with a general traineeship at one of the banks in the Netherlands. After that, I spent almost 14 years at Google, taking on various leadership roles in sales and operations. It was during my time at Google that I became even more passionate about learning and development. One of the key lessons I learned there is the importance of continuous self-development. After 14 years, I decided to join Lepaya to make L&D an even more central part of my career. At Lepaya, I serve as VP, responsible for the financial services and tech industries.
So you can say that it’s a full circle now—starting in finance and now focusing on L&D within the same field. I’m truly passionate about this area because I believe you’re never truly finished developing, meaning that continuous learning is essential, especially when it comes to soft skills.
At Lepaya, we specialize in training soft skills rather than technical skills, which are becoming increasingly important in today’s world. As we face advancements in automation and AI, human intelligence will determine how much value we create for businesses.

Jeroen: For those who may not be familiar with Lepaya—though that’s probably not the case—could you share a few key numbers? For example, how many countries are you active in, how many people work there, or any other statistics you’re willing to share?

Annee: Of course. We have offices in five different countries, with our headquarters in Amsterdam. A total of 300 people work at Lepaya. We collaborate with a community of around 400 trainers & actors and we trained over 40.000 people already this year – globally!
For example, one of our largest clients in the professional services industry trusts us to train their employees in every country imaginable. Our scalability has been made possible by the acquisition of  Krauthammer, a well-known training company with a 50-year history, enabling us to train employees from entry-level positions to executives.
We use a blended training approach, combining the best aspects of digital learning with traditional classroom instruction. This allows us to leverage technology for learning, practicing, and applying skills at scale. One key element that sets us apart from other training companies is our ability to demonstrate the impact of our training programs on the business objectives.

Jeroen: What would you say is the major driver behind the fast growth of Lepaya?

Annee: The main driver is that today’s employees really need training in soft skills, and our approach resonates with companies. We don’t offer traditional three-day training sessions. Instead, we offer short classroom sessions of max 3 hours, enhanced with interactive digital learning before- and online guided application of the skill afterwards.
This approach generates more impact in less time and ensures that participants come prepared for the classroom sessions, which significantly shortens the learning interventions.
This training efficiency is why we are growing so quickly. There is a clear demand, which also connects to AML, where we see a similar need. Many people are being hired and require upskilling to become productive and efficient as quickly as possible—there’s no time to waste. Our training method is designed to meet this demand.

Jeroen: From your perspective, given your expertise in education and how to upskill people, do you see that as one of the largest challenges in the AML field?

Annee: Yes. With so many people being onboarded, there’s an urgency to increase their time to productivity, especially within AML. We need to prepare these individuals as fast as possible due to the complexity of the material they need to cover, which requires effective knowledge transition.
This combination creates a strong sense of urgency, and we see that upskilling is very much needed. Technology allows us to upskill professionals much more efficiently, no longer requiring multiple days.
One trend we see in this area is that while a lot of investment has been made in technical expertise, regulators also expect talent in the AML space to develop a holistic skill set – soft and hard – for complex client cases.
Let me share an example; for a financial company we trained a group of FEC analysts, facing a duality between handling files in a qualitative and a quantitative manner, which requires strong analytical thinking and decision making skills. As part of the decision making process, it’s needed to have storytelling skills to interview customers without causing reputation damage.

Jeroen: There are currently 13,000 people within the banks focused on financial economic crime. I was just wondering, do you use technology for soft skill development, or is it purely human-to-human interaction?

Annee: Technology is quite an important element. It enables us to enhance personalized and contextualized learning at scale, with more than double the engagement.

For example, employees can use AI coaches and AI learning bites to prepare before entering the classroom and while practicing. Take an AML employee who needs to prepare for a challenging conversation with a client. They can use a virtual AI coach to train, receive personalized feedback and practice for real-life conversations.

I believe technology significantly boosts productivity, efficiency, and learning opportunities for employees to practice and apply what they’ve learned. Another example is that it also, as I mentioned before, reduces the training time. Traditionally an AML specialist might spend a full day in training learning various models for collaboration with colleagues. However, with technology, we can prepare these individuals beforehand. When they are in the classroom, they can utilize that time to practice with actors or role-play real scenarios.

Jeroen: One last question from my side, as this is ultimately a pre-event interview. We will learn much more about everything you do with Lepaya during the event itself. However, do you have any tips for young people or newcomers in the AML space?

Annee: If I look back on my career, change has been a constant, and that will continue to be true for the future. With all the developments happening—whether in automation, AML, or the broader financial industry—I firmly believe that you need to invest in your human intelligence. This is something I have focused on throughout my career, and it has helped me not only to be successful but also to thrive in different situations.

No matter how big the change was I was always able to adapt, thanks to the people skills I developed. There have been challenging times in my career, such as laying off employees or transitioning a team. The collaboration, communication, and leadership skills I’ve acquired have been pivotal in being successful. So this is a strong plea for the importance of human and emotional intelligence in our day-to-day work.

Jeroen: Thanks a lot, Annee Spijkervet. We’re very much looking forward to the 3rd of October at the Leaders in Finance AML event.

Annee: You’re welcome!