Unmask corporate offenders by learning to detect Machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic personality traits before financial devastation occurs.
Fraud rarely begins with the numbers—it often begins with behaviour. Before financial anomalies appear in reports, underlying personality traits and organisational dynamics can already be shaping the conditions that allow misconduct to occur. Dark Triad traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy—are increasingly recognised as behavioural risk indicators that influence decision-making, manipulation, and ethical boundaries within organisations.
This session explores fraud risk through a behavioural finance and forensic perspective, focusing on how personality, incentives, and workplace culture interact to create environments where fraud can emerge and persist. Participants will gain insight into how leadership behaviour, interpersonal dynamics, and organisational pressures influence governance quality, whistleblowing, and early fraud detection—providing a deeper lens for identifying risk before it becomes financial loss.
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2 activities • 1 videos • duration: 1h 10m
Consultant, Sagespring Associates LLC
Cynthia Harrington is a finance and behavioral science professional with extensive experience across investment management, behavioral finance research, financial journalism, and capital markets analysis. She is a CFA charterholder and Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), with a career focused on understanding how behavioral factors influence financial decision-making and market outcomes. She has worked in investment management and financial advisory roles supporting institutional and high-net-worth clients, with a focus on integrating behavioral insights into investment strategy, risk assessment, and performance evaluation. Cynthia is also an accomplished writer and researcher, with publications spanning behavioral finance, fraud detection, investment decision-making, and financial regulation across leading industry journals and media outlets, including American Banker and CFA Institute platforms. Her work centers on improving financial decision-making through a combination of behavioral science, market expertise, and applied research in capital markets and financial systems.
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