Staff
Ian Bolton, Founder and CEO
Chloe Giasemidis, Junior Associate - Compliance Policy
Lucy Bolton, Chief Operating Officer
Ian Bolton is the Founder and CEO of Sanctions SOS. It was his dream to create a sanctions consultancy that brings together sanctions expertise from across governments, industry and academia.
Ian was the Editor of FISC (Financial Institutions Sanctions Compliance) Journal, which was published by WorldECR. FISC provided sanctions knowledge and expertise for the financial sector, customers and advisors.
Prior to this Ian worked at HSBC-UK as a Sanctions Senior Manager, leading on regulatory reporting and advisory work for the retail bank. Before joining HSBC-UK, Ian was a British Diplomat for 11 years. As well as serving overseas, Ian focussed extensively on Counter-Proliferation policy, including the enforcement of sanctions and interdictions, and helped write the UK’s keynote sanctions legislation, the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act (2018).
Ian worked for King’s College London on strategic export controls and Counter-Proliferation sanctions, is a Visiting Sanctions Research Fellow at King’s, and a sanctions Panel Member and trainer for the International Compliance Association.
Lucy Bolton, Chief Operating Officer
Chloe Giasemidis, Junior Associate - Compliance Policy
Lucy Bolton, Chief Operating Officer
Lucy Bolton is the Chief Operating Officer of Sanctions SOS. Bringing her keen eye for detail, and extensive programme, gender, and policy experience to the role.
Lucy specialises in expertise around the unintended consequences of sanctions, and the disproportionate impact sanctions can have on women and children. She is a leading expert on gender and women, peace and security (WPS). She has been involved in the review of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, representing the UK Government in this process, she also helped write the current UK National Action Plan on WPS. Additionally, Lucy has extensive experience working on the flow of illegal migration and international policy to support this area, including possible sanctions responses. Lucy is fluent in three languages and also speaks a further three languages.
Lucy is a long serving British Diplomat having worked at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for over 14 years.
Currently Lucy's role is limited to the internal operations of Sanctions SOS, where she focuses on editorial control of work, and supporting the day-to-day running of the organisation. She plays no role in policy development of Sanctions SOS, Compliance related work, or training. Nor in any content creation by Sanctions SOS.
Chloe Giasemidis, Junior Associate - Compliance Policy
Chloe Giasemidis, Junior Associate - Compliance Policy
Chloe Giasemidis, Junior Associate - Compliance Policy
Chloe Giasemidis is a Junior Associate in Compliance and Policy at Sanctions SOS. Her work features a passion for Gender studies, Feminism and Peace and Conflict in the world of International Relations.
Chloe has an extensive background in International Relations, gaining a Distinction class MA from the University of Manchester in IR. Chloe’s MA dissertation focused on locating where the women are in peacebuilding negotiations in Cyprus and how this has developed over time. Her dissertation won the University’s Social Inclusion Award and is in the process of being published by the Political Perspectives journal. Chloe is fluent in Greek Cypriot. Prior to working with Sanctions SOS Chloe worked as a Recruitment Manger.
Chloe’s role within Sanctions SOS focuses on the Compliance and Policy side of our work. It involves research and analysis across a range of sanctions issues. The role also focuses on addressing client’s compliance needs, capacity building and training.
Freelance Staff
Juliana Fonseca, Junior Associate - Compliance and Policy
Rahul Dileep, Junior Associate - Marketing and Advertising
Rahul Dileep, Junior Associate - Marketing and Advertising
Juliana Fonseca is a freelance Junior Associate at Sanctions SOS, focussing on Policy and Compliance. Her work benefits from a passion for international relations, with a particular focus on Africa, and strong linguistic skills.
Juliana has an extensive background on International Relations, including as a Wilton Park Youth Ambassador. This provides insight into different factors that play into the world of economic sanctions. Juliana is a Portuguese speaker and is also fluent in two other languages.
Juliana completed a BSc Econ in International relations with Politics and Spanish at Cardiff University in 2023. She is continuing her studies at King's College London with an MA in Conflict, Security and Development . In particular Juliana has spent several years with a particular interest in Human rights, equality, poverty reduction, the post-effects of colonialism, and Sino-African relations.
Juliana’s role within Sanctions SOS involves research and analysis on sanctions, with a specific focus on African countries and how Sino-African relations effect sanctions. As well as curating and producing social media content related to sanctions.
Rahul Dileep, Junior Associate - Marketing and Advertising
Rahul Dileep, Junior Associate - Marketing and Advertising
Rahul Dileep, Junior Associate - Marketing and Advertising
Rahul Dileep is a freelance Junior Associate at Sanctions SOS, currently leading on the company's marketing efforts. His primary responsibility is to create and manage content that effectively conveys the brand message of the company, engages the target audience, and promotes customer acquisition and retention.
Prior to joining Sanctions SOS, Rahul Dileep worked as a marketer for an ed-tech company, where he was primarily responsible for developing content and creating a marketing strategy to reach the company's target audience.
He is also responsible for conducting market research, developing business strategies, cultivating client relationships, and increasing the organization's sales revenue.
Visiting Expert Cadre
What is the Cadre?
Sanctions SOS operates a cadre of visiting experts, which we routinely call upon for input in our research and academic output. The visiting cadre also regular works with us providing specific expertise and skills assisting with training, projects, and research. These experts work under the banner of Sanctions SOS bringing their unique experience and skills to broaden and deepen our own.
Ross Savage, Senior Expert
Following military service with the British Army, Ross joined the Metropolitan Police in 2002. In 2007, he became an Accredited Financial Investigator, focusing on conducting money laundering investigations and stripping the assets of criminals. In 2009, Ross joined the National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit (NTFIU). Working closely with key government and industry partners, he led the UK's national and International Terrorist Finance (TF) and financial intelligence operations. Ross was part of a small team of counter-terrorism officers working with the FCDO that delivered bespoke, tailored, training in Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) to overseas partners in the middle east.
From 2013 until 2015 Ross was seconded to the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) to provide specialist CFT and AML Investigative expertise to cross-government initiatives targeting the funding networks relied upon by the Taliban and other extremist and terrorist organisations - travelling to Afghanistan, the United States and across Europe. From 2015 until 2021, operating as Grata Opus Ltd, Ross designed and delivered bespoke CFT, AML, Sanctions, Anti-Fraud and Financial Crime Prevention (FCP) training and consultancy services to a wide range of government and private sector clients across the globe.
In 2021, Ross became a full-time Course Director and Global Lead for Sanctions Compliance Training at the International Compliance Association (ICA). Throughout 2021 to mid 2022, he was privileged to manage the delivery of, and develop extensive training content for, the first new Diploma qualification the ICA had launched in ten years; the International Diploma in Managing Sanctions Risk. In July 2022 Ross left the ICA moving back into private consultancy and training delivery as Grata Opus Ltd.
Dr. Daniel Salisbury, Senior Expert
Dr Daniel Salisbury is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Science and Security Studies (CSSS) within the Department of War Studies. He is currently undertaking a three-year research project on arms embargos as part of a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship. Daniel is also an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). He previously held positions at the Stimson Center, the Belfer Center, the James Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies, CSSS and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Daniel is the author of Secrecy, Public Relations and the British Nuclear Debate: How the UK Government Learned to Talk about the Bomb, 1970-1983 (Routledge Cold War History series, 2020), the co-editor of books on UNSCR 1540 and open source intelligence, and has published over 20 journal articles and book chapters.
Daniel has acted as a Subject Matter Expert at over 30 export control, proliferation finance and nuclear security capacity building workshops in nearly 20 jurisdictions around the world since 2012. He holds a PhD in War Studies, MA in Science and Security and BA in War Studies from King's College London. He sits on the editorial board of the Strategic Trade Review.
Adrian Wilkinson MBE, Senior Expert
Adrian has served as the Arms Expert on the United Nations Sanctions Committees Panels of Experts for Sudan (2013 to 2015), Yemen (2016 to 2017) and Libya (2019 to 2023), making him one of the longest serving and experienced Panel experts in the investigation of sanctions violations.
His previous counter-proliferation and sanctions experience includes serving as the Head of the UN Disarmament initiative (SEESAC) in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. He was also a member of the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs’ (ODA) Group of Government Experts (GGE) on Small Arms and Light Weapons and Technical Advisor to the UN GGE on Conventional Ammunition. He is the co-author of, the then definitive work, Guns, Planes and Ships: Techniques of Clandestine Arms Deliveries.
Adrian is also widely experienced in the investigation of maritime attacks, including the case of the faked attack for insurance fraud on the MV Brillante Virtuoso, and the attacks in the Gulf on the Merchant Tankers A. Michel, Abqaiq, Al Marzoqah, Amjad, Andrea Victory, Androussa, Arsan, Galacia Spirit, HSV Swift, Ince Inebola and Muskie.
Adrian served for 20 years in the British Army as a Senior Ammunition Technical Officer (ATO). He is a Chartered Engineer and holds an MA in International Conflict Analysis (ICA) from the University of Kent and an MSc in Explosive Ordnance Engineering (EOE) from Cranfield University.