Ahmar Azam President

Ahmar Azam is one of the founding Partners of Hanagrove. He is a Chartered Accountant from the U.K. In 1994, he started his professional career at Horwath Clark Whitehill Chartered Accountants U.K. Subsequently he spent a few years with Deloitte, New York, specializing in auditing the banking sector. Later, he served in various publicly held companies as Corporate Financial Controller, Head of Internal Audit and Sarbanes-Oxley expert. Before launching Hanagrove, Ahmar worked as an EVP at National Bank of Pakistan where he served as General Manager of the New York Branch and as the Head of Enterprise-wide Risk Management, Americas Region. He has also served as a member of the Legal & Regulatory Committee of the Institute of International Bankers, USA (IIB) and several other risk management and auditing organizations. Ahmar graduated from the London School of Economics & Political Science, U.K., and is a member of the ICAEW.

John Palmer Managing Director

John Palmer is a Chartered Accountant and a CPA. He brings over 30 years of professional experience in the United States and internationally. Over the last 15 years, John has been a leader providing consulting in compliance, risk management and internal controls to the financial services industry. In addition John had over 15 years of experience with Deloitte, including working in the Office of the General Counsel providing technical accounting and auditing advice to in-house and outside counsel. He also served four years as General Auditor for a $5 billion publicly traded bank.

Henry M. Applegate, III CFO

Hank is a founder and the CFO of Hanagrove. He has forty years of financial and general management experience. A graduate of Drexel University, he spent the first ten years of his career as a CPA with Coopers & Lybrand (now PWC). Then he spent nearly two decades as a senior financial and management executive with publicly-held gaming resort companies in both New Jersey and Nevada. Returning to the East Coast in the late 90’s, he was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Accume Partners, a very successful provider of outsourced internal audit and risk management services. During his tenure there, the company grew six-fold drawing the attention of, and eventually being acquired by, a private equity firm. Currently he is also the CFO of Integrated Compliance Solutions.

Mike Pappolla Director - Business Development

Mike Pappolla is a Business Development and Marketing professional with more than 10 years of experience. Throughout his career, Mike has demonstrated strong, proven leadership ability and managerial experience. He has a results-oriented and client-focused approach that consistently exceeds client expectations. Prior to joining Hanagrove, Mike was the National Director of business development for RSM McGladrey. Prior to that, he worked with Robert Half and Accume Partners.

John C. Soffronoff Senior Advisor

John is the President of Integrated Compliance Solutions which has become one of the leading providers of compliance services with over 400 financial institutions throughout the U.S. The expertise of ICS expands across a variety of compliance disciplines, including anti-money laundering, consumer compliance, wealth management, fair lending, and privacy. John has 20 years of compliance experience, including ten years as a regulator with the FDIC.