I realize that some of you actually have no idea who I am. I’m Eric A. Sohn, formerly CAMS and CGSS-certified, formerly a frequent author for industry publications and an occasional presenter to conferences and customer groups. I also helped design the initial certification exam for ACAMS’ CGSS (Certified Global Sanctions Specialist) cert. These days, I am now a member of ACSS, since it’s more solidly focused on sanctions.

I currently manage some sanctions analysts for a firm which supports the securities industry. Before that, I did some stints in VendorWorld for Accuity (as a professional services consultant) and Dow Jones (authoring a weekly sanctions newsletter, doing a vendor selection for name matching software, and being the pre-sales SME).

In my spare time, I am a rabid Philadelphia Eagles fan, and spend lots of time walking and playing with my 6-year old rescue dog (Pug/Shih Tzu/Pekingese mix – we refer to him as a “putz”). The family: wife of 32+ years, and two adult offspring.

And some of you may remember my old site, Mr. Watchlist…

A confession: when I stopped posting there (my job at Dow Jones evolved away from being their sanctions SME, so…), I didn’t hold onto the domain name and, as is typically the case, someone swooped in and is holding it hostage.

But, perhaps more importantly, MrWatchlist.com was a little too broad. Sanctions has always been my first love, so it only makes sense that, when I recently decided I wanted to blog again, it was only natural to cut out that which did not spark joy. So, goodbye to AML stuff, anti-bribery and corruption stuff, unauthorized firm stuff…

This will definitely evolve over time. My AI tools, frankly, make this whole shebang possible – a one-man operation couldn’t do this amount of research and analysis while still working a 9-to-5. I’m with Einstein, who is believed to have said something on the lines of “Never memorize something that you can look up“. And, from time to time, I will ask these tools to look at the site itself and navel-gaze for me – it’s why I’m writing this paragraph, to be frank.

Thanks for your patience as we take this learning journey together.