From fraud to forensics: career insights from Liesel Annible

08 March 2025

This International Women’s Day, we are celebrating Liesel Annible, partner at Opus Forensic Accounting, a seasoned expert with decades of experience investigating fraud and financial crime. In a recent R3 webinar, Liesel shared valuable insights from her career, touching on the importance of curiosity, integrity and embracing new opportunities. In this blog, we highlight four key lessons from her journey.

Variety is the spice of life

Like many in the insolvency and restructuring profession, Liesel’s career began by chance. After reluctantly deciding to pursue chartered accountancy, she found herself thrown into insolvency and fraud investigations from day one on the job and soon became one of the few accountants to qualify outside of tax or auditing. She quickly discovered that the investigative nature of insolvency and forensic accounting, combining analytical skills with investigative instincts, was her passion.

Liesel was initially drawn to a career in archaeology and though she chose a different path, the parallels to forensic accounting are clear, both involve digging beneath the surface to uncover hidden truths. She sums up her career in one word, ‘variety’, spanning high-stakes investigations, trademark infringements for a major champagne producer, and complex fraud cases involving everything from brothels to organised crime and corporate corruption. You only have to look at her role in high-profile investigations like the Chernobyl containment dome project, to see how forensic accounting can place you at the heart of living history.

Turning a blind eye is the curse of professionals

A recurring theme in Liesel's career is the role that professionals can play, whether knowingly or unknowingly, in enabling financial crime. Many organised criminals would not have the assets, wealth or success they do without the involvement of accountants, solicitors, financial advisors, estate agents and other professionals.

Liesel warned that compliance checks should be a genuine effort to understand the origins of a client’s wealth, rather than a mere box-ticking exercise. How well do you really know your client? Does their wealth make sense in context? Are there gaps or inconsistencies in the information?

She encouraged professionals to stay curious and dig deeper than the basics of compliance. A good rule of thumb, Liesel suggests, is to ask at least ten more questions than you think you need to. An inquisitive mindset and thorough due diligence are essential for spotting suspicious activity and preventing professionals from unknowingly becoming complicit in financial crime.

Liesel also highlighted the importance of submitting SARs when concerns arise – even if they did not lead to immediate action, SARs can play a critical role in helping law enforcement building a bigger picture of criminal activity over time.

Communication is key

The working landscape has shifted dramatically since the pandemic, with hybrid and remote working likely here to stay. As more people work from home, it becomes harder for those just starting out in their careers to grow and learn from others. Communication and knowledge-sharing in this environment are more important than ever to ensure that expertise is not lost as seasoned generations move on and new ones step up.

Liesel highlighted the importance of bringing junior staff into meetings, giving them hands-on experience, and teaching them crucial skills, like building trust with the police, to ensure they did not miss out on valuable learning opportunities.

Setting office days where all staff can come together and making an extra effort to use video calling on remote days are just a few other ways Liesel stays connected to her colleagues, ensuring continuous learning and development for the next generation of forensic accountants.

Embrace opportunities and overcome self-doubt

Reflecting on her career, Liesel shared that the one thing she would change is her tendency to turn down opportunities because she felt unqualified or inexperienced – a hesitation she noticed many of her male colleagues did not share. In her experience, self-doubt can often hold women back from pursuing new challenges, even when they have the skills and potential to succeed.

Liesel encouraged women to trust in their abilities and embrace the unknown. By saying yes to opportunities, even when they don't feel 100% ready, women can gain new experiences - in areas that may become a professional specialism for life.