Speakers

Rory Stewart is a diplomat, author, explorer, academic, and politician – serving in successive Conservative governments as minister of state for international development, minister for environment, minister of state for Africa, and minister of state for prisons. He is a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where he teaches politics and international relations.

Stewart is an acclaimed author and co-host of the successful podcast, The Rest is Politics, alongside Alastair Campbell. He has been described by the New York Times as “living one of the most remarkable lives on record.”. Stewart was the first man to walk across Afghanistan after the US-UK invasion, and served as deputy governor of two Iraqi provinces at the age of 29. He advised the US President and British Prime Minister on their Afghanistan and Middle East policy. Stewart is proficient in 11 languages.

Tim is a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank and runs the bank’s AI Programme with a mandate to introduce scaled and safe AI across the bank. He also runs the Innovation Product with a focus on creating and realising new business opportunities with new technologies.

Marco Giovanni Crotti is a policy expert at the European Banking Authority (EBA). He is responsible for the implementation of the EBA FRTB roadmap and represents the EBA at the BCBS Market Risk Group. 

Crotti holds a MSc in mathematical engineering from Politecnico di Milano and an executive master in EU studies at the centre international de formation européenne.

Jeevan Perera is currently the risk manager for the Orion space vehicle. The Orion is NASA's new spacecraft which will replace the Space Shuttle, service the International Space Station, and then return astronauts to the moon and eventually mount expeditions to Mars.  Perera has been with NASA for 20 years. In his current capacity, he is responsible for risk management policies, processes and analytical tools that ensure the successful deployment and operations of this new spacecraft. Perera oversees both quantitative and qualitative risk analysis processes and provides technical direction to a team of risk analysts. Formerly as the International Space Station risk manager, he designed, developed, implemented and improved the program's risk management processes through a phased, systematic approach setting the standard for NASA’s risk practice. Prior to his work in risk management, Perera has worked in different technical fields in support of many NASA programs and projects. These duties have included management responsibility for versions of the primary and back-up flight software for the Space Shuttle and development responsibility for other software used aboard Space Shuttle and International Space Station missions. 

Perera has been a member of the board of trustees for a local homeowners association, has provided legal advice to the United Space School, a foundation for international space education that brings student from around the world for focused classes on space related disciplines. He often presents on space topics at schools, universities, public events and international conferences. Perera has both a Jurisprudence Doctorate (law) and a PhD in Industrial Engineering.

Daniel Mankowitz is a staff research scientist at Google Deepmind, working on solving the key challenges that will unlock reinforcement learning algorithms to work on real-world applications at scale. This includes a focus on reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) in the context of large language models (LLMs) such as Gemini. 

He has worked on: code optimization, code generation, chip design, video compression, recommender systems, and controlling physical systems such as heating ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC), with publications in Nature and Science. 
 

Chris Knight took the role of group chief risk officer in May 2021. For the previous three years he had been the chief executive of Legal and General’s retail retirement business, where he led the expansion of annuity propositions, developed one of the leading providers of lifetime mortgages and launched their financial advice and care businesses. Knight also serves as Legal and General’s customer champion, representing retail customers’ interests across the whole product range, a perspective he brings to his chief risk officer role. 

He has previously held positions at Legal and General of finance director of the international division, and chief financial officer of Legal & General Assurance Society. Knight has a first-class economics degree from King’s College, Cambridge and has worked on four continents in a career spanning more than three decades. He is a fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Victoria Collins' career spans over 25 years working in financial institutions, in trading, finance and risk roles, predominately in risk management. 

She has been with Nomura for ten years, focused on enterprise-wide risk management. Collins was appointed global head of climate risk & ESG three years ago. She is responsible for establishing and managing the global risk management framework for climate risk and ESG, and for ensuring risk management is aligned to the firm’s sustainability objectives, such as net zero.

Marina specializes in risk management and innovation with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and digital transformation. She has extensive experience in global capital markets non-financial risks with a focus on conduct risk, rogue trading, fraud, financial crime, trade and comms surveillance. She also has experience in risks and controls relating to Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models and Data Privacy.

Over the years, Marina has held positions as an executive committee and board member at various institutions and participated in Global Capital Market and Innovation forums.

Marina has extensive experience working with regulators globally. She acted as lead validator, at Top Tier banks, on regulatory conduct risk programmes sanctioned by the US Federal Reserve Bank and the US Department of Justice. Marina also acted as the Head of Global Markets Risk & Control Assessment at BNP Paribas. She was the Citigroup Head of Audit for a number of countries and received the Global recognition award for her performance. Previously, she worked in quantitative research as well as due diligence projects during M&A banking transactions and IPOs.

Marina is a qualified chartered accountant and member of the ICAEW. She completed a Technology Entrepreneurship course at Harvard as well as ‘AI Strategy & Governance’ and ‘ESG Risks & Opportunities’ courses at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania. She also studied FinTech at the University of Oxford Said Business School during which she developed a FinTech innovation idea aiming at fundraising for people impacted by natural disasters. Marina studied Investment Management at the London Business School and has an MSc in Economics & Finance from Warwick Business School.

Marina is very interested in technology. She focuses on digital transformation and driving innovation in risk management by using data analytics, LLMs and AI.  She is a member of the ICAEW Financial Services Faculty Board and ICAEW Digital Assets Steering Group. She is a founding member and vice-chair of the ExCo of the Hellenic Tech Network, participated in studies around the implementation of digital currencies, and reviewed the AI Governance of a leading FinTech academic centre in the UK.

Marina acts as guest lecturer at Executive MBA courses and speaker at conferences globally covering conduct risk, digital transformation, digital assets, Artificial Intelligence, FinTech and ESG. She is also a guest contributor on these topics writing in industry journals.

Jeff Simmons joined MUFG Bank in June 2014 as the head of enterprise risk, tasked with creating the function. He has been involved intensively with the enhancement of the risk management framework in MUFG Bank (Europe). This has involved him in the formation of an enterprise risk function in Amsterdam tasked with delivering the full range of regulatory submissions.  In April 2018, Simmons transitioned to MUFG Securities to become involved in the Brexit project. In this capacity he is the chief risk officer for MUFG Securities (Europe) N.V. the Dutch subsidiary of MUFG Securities (EMEA).

Prior to joining the bank, Simmons spent some 20 years specializing in best practice risk management including market risk, credit risk, risk model validation and regulatory risk consulting. As well as having line management responsibilities in various institutions he has also gained extensive experience in implementing risk management frameworks from both a technical and operating model-based perspective.

David Carlin is an acknowledged authority on climate change and its implications for the financial system. He is the founder of Cambium Global Solutions, an advisor to governments, corporates, and financial institutions on climate and ESG topics. Carlin has authored numerous reports that provide practical tools for financial actors looking to address climate change and has run capacity-building programs for financial institutions and supervisors around the world. 

He is the head of climate risk and task force on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD) for the UN Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). Over the past years, he has worked with over 100 global banks, investors, and insurers on climate scenarios, climate risk assessments, and climate governance. 

Carlin is an advisor to UNEP FI’s  task force on nature-related financial disclosures (TNFD) pilot program on nature and biodiversity related risks as well as the net-zero banking alliance (NZBA). He has also been a technical advisor to the Glasgow Financial Alliances for Net Zero (GFANZ), is a contributor to Forbes and a senior associate at Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).

He has worked as a principal in finance, risk, and public policy for Oliver Wyman and in model risk management for PNC Bank. Carlin's background is in quantitative modeling and decision science.

Rupanjana Borkataky is currently working as vice president in the traded risk modelling team at HSBC. She has over 13 years of experience with the bank in developing and monitoring models, mainly for market risk as part of first line of defence. Borkataky has been instrumental in setting up the monitoring function across different model types which helps in providing assurance to the regulators that the models used by the bank are fit for purpose. She holds an MBA in finance and is also a certified CQF and FRM.

David Semmens is Cadro's chief investment officer, overseeing the investment department and chairing all investment related committees. He is a non-executive director of RiskSave Technologies, a leading provider of technological and regulatory support to asset managers and leading fintechs. Semmens continues to sit on Wealthify's investment committee as an external advisor where he helped develop and oversee the firm’s ethical investment proposition. He also volunteers on the investment committee for one of Scotland's largest education charities and is an adjunct-lecturer delivering a postgraduate finance and investment course at Heriot Watt University. 

Since completing an MSc in economics at the University of Warwick, Semmens has worked in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, New York, and Paris, running the gauntlet in fintech, banking, insurance, and asset management for Wealthify (part of the Aviva Group), HSBC Asset Management, Euler Hermes, and Standard Chartered Bank. He is also a CFA Charterholder with an executive MBA from the University of Cambridge. In his spare time, Semmens enjoys playing cards, crime novels, and walking with his wife in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

Eduardo Epperlein has over 20 years experience in the financial industry and is currently managing director and global head of risk methodology at Nomura. He is responsible for credit, market and operational risk methodology, as well as stress testing analytics. Prior to joining Nomura, Epperlein held various roles in risk methodology at Citigroup, including model validation. He holds a PhD in plasma physics from Imperial College, London, and spent 10 years as a research scientist prior to joining the financial industry.

Kanwardeep Ahluwalia is co-head of global markets risk for Bank of America. He joined Bank of America from Swiss Re where he was the group head of financial risk management, which included the role of chief risk officer for asset management, as well as serving as the reinsurance chief risk officer for Emea. Prior to that, Ahluwalia worked at Bear Stearns where he had a number of positions leading to the roles of chief risk officer for Europe & Asia and global head of market risk. This was preceded by a period working in regulation for the UK’s former Securities & Futures Authority.

Jack is a Partner in the EY Consulting business, leading the UK Operational Resilience solution. He previously led the Operational Resilience Strategy and Development team at the Bank of England, with over 15 years consulting experience prior to that. Jack has a background in risk management, business continuity, crisis management and 3^rd party resilience, and holds memberships and qualifications with MBCI, MIRM, ACII, ISO 22301 and CISM.

Alexander Sokol is the founder, Executive Chairman, and Head of Quant Research at CompatibL.

In 2022, he has been awarded the Fintech Person of the Year Award for his expertise and developments on a new class of machine learning risk models that can work with short pandemic-era historical time series. Alexander also won the Quant of the Year Award in 2018 together with Leif Andersen and Michael Pykhtin, for their joint work revealing the true scale of the settlement gap risk that remains even in the presence of initial margin.

Alexander’s other notable research contributions include systemic wrong-way risk (with Michael Pykhtin, Risk Magazine), joint measure models, and the local price of risk (with John Hull and Alan White, Risk Magazine), and mean reversion skew (Risk Books, 2014).

As CRO, Khilan is responsible for the Sales, Marketing, and Account Management functions at Likezero, leveraging his expertise in addressing global financial markets’ contractual data challenges.
Previously Khilan was a Senior Manager at PwC, where he most recently designed the firm’s LIBOR contracts solution that was sold and implemented across 3 continents. Khilan has spent his entire career analysing the challenges financial institutions have with their contracts and pioneering new solutions. Khilan graduated from the University of Warwick with a degree in MORSE.

Dr Andreas Ita is Managing Partner at Orbit36 Risk Finance Solutions AG, a management consulting boutique specialized in strategic planning, treasury, risk and capital management for financial institutions. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Leihkasse Stammheim AG, a retail bank in Switzerland.

Until 2019, Andreas was Head of Group Economic Performance and Capital Optimization at UBS. In this role, he was responsible for the group-wide capital allocation framework, risk-adjusted performance measurement, economic profit and the approach to determine the firm’s cost of equity. In addition, he advanced the internal and regulatory stress testing methodologies for the Group and key legal entities. Before, he worked for more than 10 years as an equity derivatives trader for UBS Investment Bank.

Andreas holds a PhD and a Master in Banking and Finance from the University of Zurich, as well as a Bachelor in Business Administration from the Kalaidos University of Applied Science.

After graduation with an B.Eng. (Hons) in Mechanical-Electronic Systems Engineering John spent the early part of his career as an energy management engineer before moving into physical commodity trading.

For the past 6 years John has managed the European Futures Clearing Sales team within the Commodities & Global Markets Division of Macquarie Bank. Previously roles included Head of Listed Commodities at Citigroup Global Markets and Head of Utilities and Freight at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures.

Kanwardeep Ahluwalia is co-head of global markets risk for Bank of America. He joined Bank of America from Swiss Re where he was the group head of financial risk management, which included the role of chief risk officer for asset management, as well as serving as the reinsurance chief risk officer for Emea. Prior to that, Ahluwalia worked at Bear Stearns where he had a number of positions leading to the roles of chief risk officer for Europe & Asia and global head of market risk. This was preceded by a period working in regulation for the UK’s former Securities & Futures Authority.

Chris Knight took the role of group chief risk officer in May 2021. For the previous three years he had been the chief executive of Legal and General’s retail retirement business, where he led the expansion of annuity propositions, developed one of the leading providers of lifetime mortgages and launched their financial advice and care businesses. Knight also serves as Legal and General’s customer champion, representing retail customers’ interests across the whole product range, a perspective he brings to his chief risk officer role. 

He has previously held positions at Legal and General of finance director of the international division, and chief financial officer of Legal & General Assurance Society. Knight has a first-class economics degree from King’s College, Cambridge and has worked on four continents in a career spanning more than three decades. He is a fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Jeff Simmons joined MUFG Bank in June 2014 as the head of enterprise risk, tasked with creating the function. He has been involved intensively with the enhancement of the risk management framework in MUFG Bank (Europe). This has involved him in the formation of an enterprise risk function in Amsterdam tasked with delivering the full range of regulatory submissions.  In April 2018, Simmons transitioned to MUFG Securities to become involved in the Brexit project. In this capacity he is the chief risk officer for MUFG Securities (Europe) N.V. the Dutch subsidiary of MUFG Securities (EMEA).

Prior to joining the bank, Simmons spent some 20 years specializing in best practice risk management including market risk, credit risk, risk model validation and regulatory risk consulting. As well as having line management responsibilities in various institutions he has also gained extensive experience in implementing risk management frameworks from both a technical and operating model-based perspective.

Eduardo Epperlein has 30 years experience in the financial industry and is currently managing director and global head of risk methodology at Nomura. He is responsible for credit, market and operational risk methodology, as well as stress testing analytics. 

Prior to joining Nomura, Epperlein held various roles in risk methodology at Citigroup, including model validation. He holds a PhD in plasma physics from Imperial College, London, and spent 10 years as a research scientist prior to joining the financial industry.

Søren Agergaard Andersen is a chief risk officer with a strong grasp of the risk-return relationship that links risk appetite and business strategy. He has extensive experience within asset management, banking, pension and financial services and a comprehensive knowledge of regulatory requirements, governance framework, risk management techniques and policies. Andersen has long experience interfacing with executive committees, board of directors, chief executive officers and regulatory authorities and a strong ability to communicate risk issues on all levels.

His specialties include: enterprise-wide risk management framework (ERM), operational risk, governance, quantitative analysis, investments, derivatives, framework implementation and strategy execution.

Biljana Vujović is cheif risk officer for Addiko Bank, supervising the bank's management team, ensuring effective decision making and adherence to ethical standards. Her role includes continuously evaluating the bank's risk appetite and ensuring that risk management strategies are implemented effectively, ensuring that bank consistently meets regulatory standards, monitoring for potential violations, and overseeing the establishment and effectiveness of internal controls, as well as supervising the internal and external audit to ensure they are robust and independent. 

Vujović also chars the risk committee of the supervisory board

After graduating from University of Pavia in 1997 with a degree in business and economics, Stefano Biondi started to work as a junior risk manager for JP Morgan, first in Milan and then in London. Soon afterward he joined ABN AMRO Bank and subsequently moved to Amsterdam as senior credit risk manager in charge of trading counterparty credit risk management. 

During his 5 years stint at ABN AMRO Bank, Biondi also worked on the implementation of a bank-wide credit risk portfolio modelling system as well as a risk reporting tool. Following that experience at ABN AMRO he came back to London to accept a role as head of credit risk analytics and portfolio reporting at Standard Bank of South Africa in charge, among other things, of implementing the internal model for the Basel 2 FIRB project. In January 2007 Biondi returned to Italy where he joined Banca Mediolanum as head of risk control with group-wide risk management responsibilities. In 2011 he undertook an executive master in business and banking administration at Bocconi University. In 2014 Biondi took, within risk management of Banca Mediolanum, the responsibility for quantitative modelling, reporting and group wide coordination. In April 2018 became head of risk management for Banca Mediolanum reporting to the group chief risk officer. In March 2020, Biondi became group chief risk officer for Banca Mediolanum. 

Tin Lau is currently the chief risk officer for Mirae Asset Securities UK, part of the largest investment banking and brokerage in South Korea. Previously, he has worked as the group head of risk at Bitvavo, Flow Traders and TP ICAP.  Lau has also worked at the FCA, where he was responsible for supervision of areas such as the review and evaluation of firms, model waivers, structured products, the UK regulated covered bond market and the UK securitisation market including STS.

He has also represented the UK at IOSCO and various ESAs. Lau's previous industry experience was from various roles on the buy and sell side including quantitative analysis, fund management and economic capital modelling. He holds a dual-honours masters in engineering from the University of Warwick, called to the Bar of England and Wales, fellow chartered management accountant, chartered MCSI, a member of the Institute of Operational Risk and of the Network of Operational Risk Modellers.

Duncan Wood is the London-based editor-in-chief of Risk.net. He was promoted to the role at the start of 2015, to lead the editorial reorganisation of the website and its print titles. Wood had been editor of Risk magazine since July 2011. He rejoined Risk as European editor in October 2009, having originally worked for Risk and Asia Risk in London and Hong Kong as a writer and researcher between 1998 and 2000.

In the intervening years, Wood was news editor for the Oliver Wyman-founded online start-up ERisk.com. He also worked freelance for six years while living in Germany, with his work featuring in Euromoney, Financial News, IFR, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as Risk magazine and its sister titles. Wood has written about derivatives and risk throughout his 17-year career in journalism. He is a Neal Awards finalist, and has won Incisive Media's journalist and editor of the year awards.

Jasper is director of G7 portfolio management within the EBRD Treasury. He oversees the central risk warehouse for all hard currency risks across the Bank’s balance sheet, and is also heavily involved with IBOR transition across various RFR working groups. 

Livingsmith joined the EBRD in 2011. Previously he worked as a macro trader, and was a market maker at ABN AMRO.

John Hoque is currently Managing Director, Global Treasury Chief Risk Officer (TCRO) at Standard Chartered Bank within the Group UK head office. He runs a global team across Asia, Middle East & Africa, Europe and Americas, with risk advisory and management across Capital, Liquidity and Market risk as well as Interest rate risk management. Previous roles include Group Treasurer at Resolution Life and Head of Treasury Markets and Investment Bank Treasurer for NatWest. He started his career at Bank of America in the FX and STIRT trading desk. John holds a Bachelors in Engineering from Imperial College London and an Executive MBA from London Business School.

Philip Alexander is the regulation desk editor for Risk.net, overseeing a team of journalists in the UK, US and Asia. He was previously senior editor at The Banker magazine, covering financial regulation, capital markets, derivatives and central and eastern Europe.

Prior to entering journalism, Alexander edited sovereign credit research for rating agency Standard & Poor’s in London. He was awarded a PhD in modern history by the University of Cambridge for a thesis on Britain and European integration.

Daniel Mankowitz is a staff research scientist at Google Deepmind, working on solving the key challenges that will unlock reinforcement learning algorithms to work on real-world applications at scale. This includes a focus on reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) in the context of large language models (LLMs) such as Gemini. 

He has worked on: code optimization, code generation, chip design, video compression, recommender systems, and controlling physical systems such as heating ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC), with publications in Nature and Science. 
 

In 2016 William Cooper became the head of risk for SEB Denmark with responsibility for protecting the banks financial results and reputation by preventing excessive risk taking and promoting a strong risk management culture. He has a key role in driving and contributing to risk related projects including the banks FRTB program. 

Cooper has worked in the past for both buy and sell side firms, in roles ranging from trading at a large hedge fund to working as a quantitative analyst at a tier 1 investment bank, always with a focus on improving financial modelling and analytics to maximize risk management and market awareness. He holds a BSc in mathematics and economics from the LSE and a MSc in mathematics from the University of Copenhagen.

As a market risk manager at Intesa Sanpaolo, Fabio Lania leads the development and implementation of market risk methodologies that comply with both current and upcoming regulatory requirements, such as Basel 2.5, FRTB, and ICAAP. With over 10 years of experience in the banking industry, he has a strong background in financial risk management, banking balance sheet optimization, analytical skills and team leadership

Lania also supports Intesa Sanpaolo with quantitative and qualitative reporting for RWA optimization, addressing the impact of the new regulatory landscape on business models. Additionally, he actively participates in industry meetings and advocates on behalf of the bank for FRTB implementation. Lania's mission is to drive market risk innovation and optimization at Intesa Sanpaolo, one of the leading European banking groups.

Rupanjana Borkataky is currently working as vice president in the traded risk modelling team at HSBC. She has over 13 years of experience with the bank in developing and monitoring models, mainly for market risk as part of first line of defence. Borkataky has been instrumental in setting up the monitoring function across different model types which helps in providing assurance to the regulators that the models used by the bank are fit for purpose. She holds an MBA in finance and is also a certified CQF and FRM.

Julien Cuisinier joined Artemis in November 2019 to build their investment risk capabilities from the ground up including market risk, credit risk, liquidity risk & ESG risk oversight across all the mandates managed on behalf of clients. Prior to Artemis, he headed the front office investment risk team at Janus Henderson covering the Emea mandates across asset classes. Cuisinier's responsibilities covered market risk advisory and oversight, liquidity risk management and support into the front office governance framework including best execution and product governance support. He graduated from Brussels Free University in 2004 in applied economics and has completed the certificate for quantitative finance and the CFA program.

Jason Sechrist is the head of product solutions, Emea at AuditBoard where he works with various teams to help automate the administrative tasks of audit, risk and compliance activities. Sechrist was previously the global head of internal audit at Rackspace Managed Cloud Company where his responsibilities included developing and executing on a risk-based audit plan for the company's global footprint of data centers and office locations across the Americas, Europe and Asia. He started his auditing career with PwC in Silicon Valley, working primarily with software and cloud service providers where he advised chief technical officers, chief information security officers, compliance managers, and system engineers. Prior to becoming an auditor, Sechrist led user testing and development for global aviation weather visualization software as a service while serving on active duty for the United States Air Force. He remains active in the industry, volunteering as audit committee chair for the University of Texas San Antonio, and regularly speaks on topics relevant to technology risks at national and international IIA and ISACA events.

Katherine Wolicki is the global head of engagement and outreach for GARP Benchmarking Initiative (GBI). GBI plays a key role in supporting evidence-based policymaking through the provision of industry benchmarking studies. Prior to this she was with HSBC for 12 years where she led the global financial and model risk regulatory policy and engagement team for risk. The team was responsible for the external regulatory interface for the traded risk, treasury risk management and global risk analytics function. This included the provision of guidance on regulatory risk matters, regulatory policy interpretation and industry engagement. Prior to this, Wolicki was based in Brussels as a public affairs consultant specialising in financial services regulation. She has an MA in international economic relations from American University and a maîtrise in European and international law from the University of La Reunion. Wolicki is a fluent French speaker and an avid hiker and mountaineer.  

With near 40 years' experience, including UK government, senior legal private practice, corporate board level and academic roles, Mark Lewis is one of the UK's leading specialist technology lawyers. He advises customers and providers in the acquisition and deployment of mission-critical technology products, systems, and IT-enabled services in several sectors, with a focus on regulated financial services and essential national infrastructure.

After 27 years as a partner in leading City of London and international law firms, including as a practice head, and as co-founder and chair of law firms associated with PwC and EY, Mark has re-joined Stephenson Harwood LLP (after a 26-year break) as a senior consultant in the technology practice, based in their London office.  

Since 2019, Lewis has been a visiting professor in practice in the law school of the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he has lectured on AI and machine learning, cybersecurity and resilience, cloud computing and related computing business models and relationships. He has also been a guest lecturer on technology, outsourcing and offshoring at Warwick Business School and the Warwick Manufacturing Group.

Lewis has served as chair of Morgan Chambers plc, one of Europe's leading sourcing and outsourcing advisory firms (since acquired by KPMG), as an independent non-executive director of Delt Shared Services Limited (a public sector-owned provider of IT, cyber and business process shared services to regional government, the NHS and other public services bodies), as well as a non-executive director of CoSector (a provider of, among others, computing services to the University of London and other major UK universities).

He has contributed chapters to various books and leading texts on information technology and outsourcing, as well as co-authoring white papers on ethical investment in AI and the ethical and legal deployment of AI in human capital management. Lewis has had articles published in, among others, the Journal of Securities Operations & Custody, Practical Law (PLC), Practical Law Magazine, and was general editor and UK chapter author in Getting The Deal Through – Outsourcing (2014-16) and Getting The Deal Through – Cloud Computing (2018-20) ".

He was called to Bar (England and Wales) by Lincoln's Inn in 1982. He has practised as a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales since requalifying in 1991

James Egginton is a regional sales director for Emea analytics at FactSet. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing FactSet’s risk products across the Emea region. Eggington's primary focus is on ensuring the product meets clients’ regulatory and business needs. Prior to this position, he served as a portfolio analytics specialist and consultant. He holds a degree in chemistry from the University of York.

Lidia Treiber is a Senior Director, Asset Management and Buy-Side Solutions, at Moody’s, with over 18 years of accomplishments within the asset management industry. She brings a wealth of experience, investment knowledge, integrity, and commitment to understanding investors’ needs. As quoted in the Financial Times, Reuters, CNBC, Milano Finanza, and publications across Europe, Lidia provides a deeper understanding of global investment markets’ evolving dynamics and has a keen sense of how technological innovation can better support the buy-side community’s ever-changing demands.

At Moody’s, Lidia’s focus is leading the marketing strategy of a vast suite of solutions for clients on the buy-side, leveraging our capabilities to help investment professionals gain insights to solve their most significant challenges.

Before joining Moody’s, Lidia held leadership positions at leading asset management firms. She started her career as a fixed-income credit analyst delivering investment recommendations to portfolio managers at BlackRock. From there, she went on to hold various leadership roles as a fixed-income expert providing investment market insights to institutional and retail investors in Latin America, North America, EMEA, and the UK for nearly 17 years.

Lidia is a CFA charterholder, holds a certificate in ESG investing and green bonds from CFA Institute, and most recently completed the Disruptive Strategy curriculum with Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School.

Xavier Bellouard is a 30-year software entrepreneur and executive specializing in data analytics for financial services. He is co-founder of ActiveViam, a data analytics platform and business solutions provider to the financial services industry. At ActiveViam, Bellouard has covered all aspects of software design, build and distribution, and is the company’s chief strategy officer. He was a leader of the deal team that organized the February 27, 2024 majority investment of ActiveViam by Nordic Capital. Bellouard remains in a strategic leadership role focused on strategy and new business. He also is an advisor to the ActiveViam board of directors. 

Bellouard has accumulated over three decades’ experience in building and distributing software products across the financial services sector. Prior to co-founding ActiveViam in 2005, he had co-founded Summit Systems, a software vendor of applications for front-office operations and trading desks in 1997. Based in London, Bellouard has directly managed ActiveViam’s UK operations and overseen the commercial efforts of the company across Emea and Asia/Pacific, including the opening of offices in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney. He has brought many prestigious clients to ActiveViam and was instrumental in launching the ActiveViam suite of business solutions, built on its flagship Atoti platform. This product group started with the FRTB Standardized Approach (SA) and Internal Model Approach (IMA) solutions that became best sellers across many jurisdictions and won two Risk.net Awards. Atoti Business Solutions has expanded since to cover many of the front office, margining and market, credit and liquidity risk functions. Bellouard holds an MSc from Ecole Centrale Lille, a renowned engineering university. He also is an active investor with Mer Angels to help startups dedicated to the oceans and the seas.

Aiman El-Ramly, MBA, CMC, Chief Business Officer, ZEMA Global Data Corporation (formally ZE PowerGroup Inc.) has been an active member of the energy and commodities industries for 30 years. Aiman has significant understanding of what is needed for corporations to trade and manage risks effectively in complex global markets. ZEMA Global Data Corporation is the developer of the ZEMA™ enterprise software for data management. Aiman is a frequent presenter, and market expert, in data and data analytics. He holds an MBA from Royal Roads University and a BA in Psychology from the University of British Columbia.

Alexander Sokol is the founder, Executive Chairman, and Head of Quant Research at CompatibL, a trading and risk technology company. He is also the co-founder of Numerix, where he served as CTO from 1996 to 2003, and the co-founder of Duality Group, where he served as CTO from 2017 to 2020.

Alexander won the Quant of the Year Award in 2018 together with Leif Andersen and Michael Pykhtin, for their joint work revealing the true scale of the settlement gap risk that remains even in the presence of initial margin. Alexander’s other notable research contributions include systemic wrong-way risk (with Michael Pykhtin, Risk Magazine), joint measure models, and the local price of risk (with John Hull and Alan White, Risk Magazine), and mean reversion skew (Risk Books, 2014).

Alexander earned his BA from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology at the age of 18, and a PhD from the L. D. Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics at the age of 22. He was the winner of the USSR Academy of Sciences Medal for Best Student Research of the Year in 1988.

As CRO, Khilan is responsible for the Sales, Marketing, and Account Management functions at Likezero, leveraging his expertise in addressing global financial markets’ contractual data challenges.
Previously Khilan was a Senior Manager at PwC, where he most recently designed the firm’s LIBOR contracts solution that was sold and implemented across 3 continents. Khilan has spent his entire career analysing the challenges financial institutions have with their contracts and pioneering new solutions. Khilan graduated from the University of Warwick with a degree in MORSE.

Stephane Rio is the founder and chief executive officer of Opensee, an award-winning fintech company specialised in providing financial institutions with real-time, self-service data management and analytics solutions.

With a background in technology (Ecole Polytechnique, ENSAE) and finance (masters in stochastic models applied to finance) he is passionate about innovation, particularly when it is applied to deliver competitive hedging capabilities and operational efficiencies to the very demanding, regulated, and cost-sensitive world of financial institutions. 

Rio's career in finance began in 1996, when he became global head of interest rate swaps at Commerzbank. This experience led him to found Swapstream, a fintech company acquired in 2006 by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He went on to join the restructuring team of Depfa Bank in 2008 as an executive board member responsible for treasury, trading, and asset management. Prior to founding Opensee in 2018, he worked in various senior roles in strategic consulting, private equity, and brokerage firms.

Ilja Faerman serves as the SVP Product Strategy at Numerix, where he spearheads product management initiatives tailored to meet the sophisticated demands of Quants, Traders and Risk Managers. His work spans across a global client portfolio that includes both the buy and sell side. Faerman’s extensive expertise encompasses the pricing of complex derivatives across multiple asset classes, XVA desk support in building calculation infrastructure, and collaboration with structured product issuers on a wide array of processes, ranging from solutions for trade ideation to building platforms for comprehensive risk management of large portfolios.

Before joining Numerix, Faerman gained valuable experience as a Financial Engineer and Model Validation Analyst at Thomson Reuters. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business and Computer Science, as well as a Master of Science degree in Finance from the renowned Frankfurt School of Finance.

Sarthak Shreya serves as a Product Manager at Numerix, where he is currently spearheading the expansion of market data management capabilities for Numerix's Trading and Risk applications, keeping the company's top-tier analytics at the core. Before taking on his current role, Sarthak focused on leading client communications, where he excelled in translating intricate business requirements into actionable solution architecture artifacts.

Sarthak's academic foundation is in Statistics and Quantitative Finance, with a BS from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, and a MS from Singapore Management University and Bayes Business School, London. He is an AWS Certified Solutions Architect and has also earned a certification in Developing Emerging Leaders from INSEAD, affirming his commitment to leadership in a complex, evolving technological landscape.

Gianfranco is the head of Banks ALM in J.P.Morgan's Global Structuring and Solutions team. Gianfranco focused on the Banks sector for the last 16 years covering a wide variety of topics ranging from regulatory capital, asset-liability management strategies and financial resources management in a cross-asset capacity. Gianfranco holds an Engineering Degree from Politecnico di Torino and Diplome de Grande Ecole from ESCP Paris. Previous working experience includes Blackrock Financial Markets Advisory – a team that advises financial institutions, regulators and government entities on their most critical and complex financial issues – and EMEA rates structuring at Bank of America.

Claire has worked in a heavily regulated financial industry for over 25 years, delivering business transformation using the power of orchestration tooling and data models. She now works at EY, specialising in ServiceNow focussing on risk, resilience and cyber.  Claire is an expert in driving collaboration to connect and surface accurate data across organisations, enabling a holistic consumable capability for Risk and Security officers supporting effective decisions and actions confidently at pace.  

Bio: Abhijeet Gaikwad is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of a Quantitative Multi-Strategy fund at ADG Capital Management. The London-based firm primarily relies on quantitative strategies trading globally across asset classes and investment styles. With over a decade of experience managing quantitative strategies at renowned multi-managers, Mr. Gaikwad brings a wealth of expertise to his role. He is responsible for portfolio and research management, risk management, and overall business development. His leadership is distinguished by his commitment to a multi-strategy approach, harnessing technology and diverse investment themes to generate superior returns for investors while maintaining strict adherence to robust risk management principles.

Adrian Cox is a strategist on Deutsche Bank’s Thematic Research team, focused on the implications of Artificial Intelligence for investors, enterprises and society. He joined Deutsche Bank in 2009 and held senior leadership roles in Communications in London and Sydney before joining DB Research. He previously spent a decade covering finance and economics as an award-winning journalist and editor at Bloomberg News and the Financial Times in London, Brussels and New York. He is a graduate of Cambridge University and has an MBA from City University in London.

Jon Lahraoui joined Man Group in December 2023 as a Director in the Credit Team.

His role is to develop Man Group’s Credit Platform globally and act as a client-facing spokesperson for the investment team. Prior to joining Man Group, Jon held a similar role at M&G Investments for 9 years where he focused on public credit markets and structured credit. Before this, Jon was a market risk analyst at M&G for 4 years.

Jon studied Mathematics with Financial Mathematics at the University of Manchester. He is also a CFA charterholder and has completed the CFA Certificate in ESG investing as well as the Professional Risk Manager Designation (PRM).

With over two decades in London's dynamic financial landscape, Fyona has carved out an exciting career in Risk Management. She trained as a Credit Risk Analyst at Moody's Analytics, before moving on to roles at ICE Clear Europe, Koch Supply & Trading, and Aviva Investors. For the past four years, she has been a Senior Credit Risk Manager at a large global investment bank in London. Her professional experience has included global corporates, banks, non-bank financial institutions, and derivative & counterparty credit risk.

As a founding member of the Guild of Investment Managers, Fyona currently serves as the Middle Warden, actively promoting the rise of women to senior positions within the Livery world and the investment management industry.

With a unique combination of capital markets risk management experience, IT expertise and passionate leadership my goal is to understand all the elements of the domain in order to "connect the dots" and deliver a unique platform to navigate the regulatory maelstrom whilst meeting the needs of risk professionals and the front office.
These characteristics have been demonstrated throughout my career by seizing opportunities to combine silos to create significant added value.
Strong communication skills have enabled me to gain senior management support for my initiatives and an evangelical streak is in evidence through regular internal and external presentations.

Specialties: Capital markets risk systems design balancing rapid response development with robust, long-term solutions.
In depth knowledge of capital market products and market and counterparty risk.
Multi-location, multi-cultural team management.
 

Marina specializes in risk management and innovation with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and digital transformation. She has extensive experience in global capital markets non-financial risks with a focus on conduct risk, rogue trading, fraud, financial crime, trade and comms surveillance. She also has experience in risks and controls relating to Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models and Data Privacy.

Over the years, Marina has held positions as an executive committee and board member at various institutions and participated in Global Capital Market and Innovation forums.

Marina has extensive experience working with regulators globally. She acted as lead validator, at Top Tier banks, on regulatory conduct risk programmes sanctioned by the US Federal Reserve Bank and the US Department of Justice. Marina also acted as the Head of Global Markets Risk & Control Assessment at BNP Paribas. She was the Citigroup Head of Audit for a number of countries and received the Global recognition award for her performance. Previously, she worked in quantitative research as well as due diligence projects during M&A banking transactions and IPOs.

Marina is a qualified chartered accountant and member of the ICAEW. She completed a Technology Entrepreneurship course at Harvard as well as ‘AI Strategy & Governance’ and ‘ESG Risks & Opportunities’ courses at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania. She also studied FinTech at the University of Oxford Said Business School during which she developed a FinTech innovation idea aiming at fundraising for people impacted by natural disasters. Marina studied Investment Management at the London Business School and has an MSc in Economics & Finance from Warwick Business School.

Marina is very interested in technology. She focuses on digital transformation and driving innovation in risk management by using data analytics, LLMs and AI.  She is a member of the ICAEW Financial Services Faculty Board and ICAEW Digital Assets Steering Group. She is a founding member and vice-chair of the ExCo of the Hellenic Tech Network, participated in studies around the implementation of digital currencies, and reviewed the AI Governance of a leading FinTech academic centre in the UK.

Marina acts as guest lecturer at Executive MBA courses and speaker at conferences globally covering conduct risk, digital transformation, digital assets, Artificial Intelligence, FinTech and ESG. She is also a guest contributor on these topics writing in industry journals.

Frank De Jonghe – EY EMEIA Financial Services Quantitative & Analytics Services Leader

Frank is the EMEIA Responsible AI Leader. He has been working in Advisory for 25 years, focusing on risk management in financial institutions, and quantitative modelling.

Frank holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics and is visiting Professor at the Universities of Antwerp and Ghent, lecturing on risk management, finance and finance technology.

Jack is a Partner in the EY Consulting business, leading the UK Operational Resilience solution. He previously led the Operational Resilience Strategy and Development team at the Bank of England, with over 15 years consulting experience prior to that. Jack has a background in risk management, business continuity, crisis management and 3^rd party resilience, and holds memberships and qualifications with MBCI, MIRM, ACII, ISO 22301 and CISM.

Werner leads Credit Benchmark’s commercial efforts across all client types and is a member of the Executive Committee. Werner joined from J.P. Morgan and brings with him over a decade of experience at leading global financial institutions, and has held a number of positions across Product Development, Risk Management and Sales. In particular, Werner spent a large part of his career specializing in Counterparty Credit Risk, covering Asset Managers, Pension Funds and Hedge Funds across the Corporate and Investment Bank at J.P. Morgan. He holds a First Class (Cum Laude) degree from Stellenbosch University, a Post Graduate Degree in Financial Analysis and Portfolio Management from the University of Cape Town.

Elena Pykhova is an expert in risk and resilience matters and author of a best-selling book, Operational Risk Management in Financial Services: A Practical Guide to Establishing Effective Solutions. 

Based in London, she is a renowned educator, who for many years has run public and in-house training courses in the UK and internationally for world-leading organisations including the London Stock Exchange Group Academy, The Moller Center, Cambridge University and Risk.net. Elena is also a thought leader, influencer and founder of a prominent industry think tank, the Best Practice Operational Risk Forum. She is a former Director for Education at the Institute of Operational Risk and chair of the Operational Risk Expert Panel for the Association of Foreign Banks. Elena founded her training and consulting practice, The OpRisk Company Ltd, after 20 years of experience in senior roles at Fortune 500 companies, such as Citigroup, American Express, Deutsche Bank and Banco Santander.

She is a frequent speaker at conferences and writes articles for Thompson Reuters, Advantage Talent Inc, Risk & Compliance Platform Europe and other publications. 

Jack joined Quantifi in 2018. Jack is responsible for Professional Services and oversees all client related activity including implementations, product customizations and pre and post sales support. After graduating from economics at Cambridge, Jack started work for Henderson Global Investors as an Investment Analyst after which he moved to Rail-Pen as an Investment Manager. Jack then transitioned to Imagine Software where he was Head of Consulting (EMEA) and specialized in quantitative implementations. Jack holds numerous financial qualifications including a master’s degree in quantitative finance from CASS business school.

Sebastian joined Quantifi in 2019 and is responsible for Global Sales. Prior to joining Quantifi, Sebastian worked at BNP Paribas structuring FX and Commodity derivatives. He holds two MSc degrees from The London School of Economics and Political Science spanning the fields of finance, economics, mathematics and philosophy. 

Michele Tilio joined the DWS Group in March 2024 as a Director in the Investment Risk team focusing on Private Equity Infrastructure.

His role is to develop a consistent and robust risk framework for DWS’ Private Equity Infrastructure Investments. Prior to joining the DWS Group, he was responsible for the Investment Risk framework for both Private Equity and Real Assets investments at Abrdn for almost five years. Before this, Michele was a Senior Portfolio Risk Manager at British Business Bank and, before this, he worked in Risk Management at M&G for 10 years.

Michele studied a double degree programme in International Business Europe at the University of Westminster (London) and ESCE (Paris) and holds an MA in European Studies from “Sciences Po” Paris and the University of Bath.

Ram Meenakshisundaram, MSCS, MBA, CQF, CAIA, MCSI is the Senior Vice President of Quantitative Services at KWA Analytics where he manages the development of analytical and quantitative solutions. He has over three decades of client experience working on financial projects in various industries and asset classes including energy, commodity, fixed income, FX, and equity.

Before joining KWA, Ram was the Principal Architect/Director at ION Group/OpenLink where he managed the Endur/Findur product development in Power and Capital Market sectors. Prior to joining OpenLink, Ram has worked at various investment firms and banks including BlackRock, SBC Warbug Dillion Reade, and Deutsche Bank on government securities, repurchase agreements, FX and equity derivatives.

Ram is on the advisory board of Hofstra University Zarb School of Business in Finance and is an Associate Professor in Finance at Hofstra University. He received a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science with honors from Pace University and NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Ram earned his MBA in Finance from Hofstra University and the Certified Quantitative Finance designation from Fitch Learning. He is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) charter-holder and a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment.

Claus Murmann has extensive experience in various roles within the financial and technology sectors. Currently serving as the Head of Partnership Solutions Engineering at Beacon Platform, Claus previously held positions such as Chief Executive Officer at alrt.ai, Head of Risk Analytics Systems at Standard Chartered Bank, and Executive Director at J.P. Morgan. With a background in Aerospace engineering from the University of Bristol, Claus has demonstrated a strong ability to lead and innovate in the industry.

Nadia Bouzebra is the head of model risk management in Close Brothers, a UK merchant banking group who provides lending, deposit taking, wealth management services and securities trading. Within her current role, she is responsible for providing oversight and challenge to the models used in the Bank. The team ensures models are compliant with internal policy and governance, and with external regulations. They are also responsible for Close Brothers’ understanding and monitoring of the model risk through independent model validation and governance.

Bouzebra has a quantitative background - master’s degree in econometrics and a postgraduate in economics - with over 15 years of experience in risk management in the financial sector. She has worked in several significant engagements in France and UK, with a particular focus on model development, validation, risk governance, stress testing.

Victoria Collins' career spans over 25 years working in financial institutions, in trading, finance and risk roles, predominately in risk management. 

She has been with Nomura for ten years, focused on enterprise-wide risk management. Collins was appointed global head of climate risk & ESG three years ago. She is responsible for establishing and managing the global risk management framework for climate risk and ESG, and for ensuring risk management is aligned to the firm’s sustainability objectives, such as net zero.

Stella Farrington has been writing about energy markets for over 20 years, working at Futures World News and Dow Jones Newswires before moving to Energy Risk in 2004. She spent eight years as the editor of Energy Risk and six as a writer, before moving into her current role as Energy Risk’s head of content and a commercial editor with Infopro Digital’s Ignite team.

Jan-Carl Plagge is head of ESG research, a role in which he focuses on the implications of the various forms of ESG investing for investor outcomes. Prior to assuming his current role, he was head of active-passive portfolio research looking after index and active investing. Plagge has published in peer-reviewed journals and has presented his work at various practitioner and academic conferences.

He has over 18 years of experience in the financial industry. Prior to joining Vanguard, Plagge was head of research and co-head of product at STOXX, working in Frankfurt, New York and London. He also held product development roles with Deutsche Börse AG where he was responsible for the development of international equity and strategy indices.

Plagge earned a PhD in finance from the EBS - Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht, Wiesbaden, Germany and a MSc in business management from the University of Münster, Germany.

David Carlin is an acknowledged authority on climate change and its implications for the financial system. He is the founder of Cambium Global Solutions, an advisor to governments, corporates, and financial institutions on climate and ESG topics. Carlin has authored numerous reports that provide practical tools for financial actors looking to address climate change and has run capacity-building programs for financial institutions and supervisors around the world. 

He is the head of climate risk and task force on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD) for the UN Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). Over the past years, he has worked with over 100 global banks, investors, and insurers on climate scenarios, climate risk assessments, and climate governance. 

Carlin is an advisor to UNEP FI’s  task force on nature-related financial disclosures (TNFD) pilot program on nature and biodiversity related risks as well as the net-zero banking alliance (NZBA). He has also been a technical advisor to the Glasgow Financial Alliances for Net Zero (GFANZ), is a contributor to Forbes and a senior associate at Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).

He has worked as a principal in finance, risk, and public policy for Oliver Wyman and in model risk management for PNC Bank. Carlin's background is in quantitative modeling and decision science.

Aurore has over 20 years of experience with global insurers and investment banks and has deep technical, market, and commercial knowledge of the insurance and savings industry. She left her role as Chief Risk Officer of Direct Line Group in December 23 having led the Risk and Compliance function through a significant transformation during a period of significant internal and regulatory change and scrutiny, bleak economic outlook, and volatile markets. Before DLG, she held several Risk roles at M&G / Prudential including Chief Risk and Compliance Officer of Prudential International Assurance, Transformation Risk Director, and Financial Risk Director of the UK insurance business. Aurore was Head of Asset Liability Management at Old Mutual plc and worked in investment banking at Credit Suisse and Société Générale. She holds a Business Sustainability Management certificate from Cambridge, a Masters's in Stochastic Mathematics and Financial Engineering from Princeton University and the University of Paris VI and is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale Superieure of Economics and Statistics in France.

Tara Sabre Collier is a global strategist, advisor, impact investor and speaker. 
She is the Climate Lead and Director of Impact Investing at Chemonics UK, where she supports governments and DFIs in designing, deploying and supporting climate and impact capital. She is a Visiting Fellow at Said Business School, Oxford University (focusing on impact investment), as well as strategic advisor to impact funds, endowments and development finance institutions.
She has over 15 years of international experience across impact investment, international development and management consulting industries. She has worked for the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the United Nations, Ernst & Young, Shell Foundation and GroFin Capital, among others. She has significant venture building experience in developed and emerging markets, as well as immense first-hand experience of running private sector development and enterprise development programs in emerging markets, having worked with government, investors, entrepreneurs and local businesses on the ground in USA, UK, South Africa, Brazil, Kenya, Nigeria, Peru, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Ghana, Angola, Mozambique, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and others. She enjoys writing and public speaking and her articles and commentary on impact investment and inclusive economic development have been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Elle, Yahoo Finance, TechCrunch and other publications.
She earned her MBA at Oxford University, as a Skoll Scholar. She earned her MPA in International Public/ Non-Profit Management & Policy from New York University and her BA in Spanish and International Affairs from Spelman College. She speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese fluently and has a working knowledge of French.

Dr Maha Hosain Aziz is a professor and author in global risk and future trends based at NYU’s MA International Relations Program, leading the annual global risk prediction project with Wikistrat, the world’s first geopolitical crowdsourced consultancy; she is a risk expert on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Complex Risk, a senior fellow with think tank Digital Economist and speaks to audiences globally on her research, including climate risk and shocks which she shared at COP27 and COP28. She has written a trilogy of books including seven-time award-winning bestseller Future World Order (2020) plus sequels Global Spring (2024) and 10 Shock Events By 2030 (2024). She also created ten-time award-winning VR/AR political comic book The Global Kid (2021) with edtech partner Musemio, drew the seven-time award-winning original (2016) and is working on Evolution (2024) – a comic book about global extremism partly created by generative AI. Dr Aziz has donated a % of all of her book and comic profits to important causes, including vaccine equality via the WHO, Pakistani flood relief via The Citizens Foundation and the Abid Aziz Fund for Syrian refugee youth via charity Peace & Sport. She is a global citizen with strong Pakistani Muslim roots who grew up in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe and the US, studying at Brown (BA), Columbia (MA) and the London School of Economics (MSc, PhD).

Daniel Ung is the head of quantitative research and analysis, ETF model portfolio solutions at one of the world's largest global asset managers, where he is responsible for research on asset allocation using ETFs. Previously, he was a senior smart beta strategist and in charge of conducting product research and analysis of ETFs, with a particular focus on smart beta. Before joining his current employer, Daniel was a director of global research and design at S&P Dow Jones Indices, and worked in the Structured Products Group at Barclays Wealth and Investment Management and the Commodities Investor Derivatives Group at BNP Paribas Fortis Bank. He has published extensively in journals, is an associate editor of the Journal of Beta Investment Strategies and has co-authored books on ESG and smart beta investing. In addition, Daniel is also active in academia, and was a guest lecturer at the Imperial College Business School and an examiner of the Chartered Alternative Investment Association (CAIA) exams. He holds a masters from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris and is a CFA, CAIA and FRM charterholder.

Martina is an (advisory) board member, academic lecturer, writer and public speaker in sustainable investing. She has co-authored a range of ESG and Fintech books, including “The AI Book” (Wiley, 2020), the “Handbook on Species Extinction Accounting and Biodiversity” (Routledge, 2022), the text book on “ESG in Portfolio Analysis” (RiskBooks, 2022), the hand book on “Protecting Natural Capital and Biodiversity in the Agri-Food Sector” (Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing, 2024) and the handbook on “Sustainability Reporting (Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming, September 2024).

She has formed part of a range of leading industry associations and initiatives and sits on the board of the Future of Sustainable Data Alliance (FoSDA), the industry’s leading body for the ESG data, ratings and index industry, and is FoSDA’s co-chair of the Policy and Regulations working group. Moreover, she is a member of the All-Parties-Parliamentary-Group (APPG) on ESG at Houses of Parliament UK, and a member of the European Law Institute’s Sustainability Regulations Advisory Group. She sits on the Advisory Group of SG Analytics, a leading global technology company.

Martina has an MBA certificate in finance and business from London School of Business and Finance in the UK, and a M.A. in Law and Human Sciences from University of Frankfurt in Germany. She is a fellow member of the Institute for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (ICRS) UK, a honorary doctoral fellow of the Institute for Certified Risk Management Professionals (ICRMP) UK, and an alumnus of the German National Academic Foundation (“Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”). She is currently undertaking a part-time PhD at University of Cardiff, UK, in sustainable accounting and finance.

Merlin Linehan is a risk manager at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). He is also a regular commentator and speaker on geopolitical and climate topics.

Chris Knight took the role of group chief risk officer in May 2021. For the previous three years he had been the chief executive of Legal and General’s retail retirement business, where he led the expansion of annuity propositions, developed one of the leading providers of lifetime mortgages and launched their financial advice and care businesses. Knight also serves as Legal and General’s customer champion, representing retail customers’ interests across the whole product range, a perspective he brings to his chief risk officer role. 

He has previously held positions at Legal and General of finance director of the international division, and chief financial officer of Legal & General Assurance Society. Knight has a first-class economics degree from King’s College, Cambridge and has worked on four continents in a career spanning more than three decades. He is a fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Prior to joining Risk, he reported on the futures and foreign exchange industries for Dow Jones' Financial News and the Euromoney group of publications. Osborn holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Warwick.

Andrew Dillin is a seasoned security intelligence lead in the field of cyber security, with over a decade of experience in safeguarding digital environments from evolving threats. With a background in computer science and a passion for staying ahead of emerging cyber risks, he has dedicated his career to protecting organisations against cyber-attacks and security threats.

Throughout his career, Dillin has spearheaded numerous initiatives to enhance security postures, leveraging his expertise in threat intelligence, incident response, and vulnerability management. His insights have been instrumental in fortifying the defenses of a number of finance sector companies.

Andrew Morkot is a UK-based lead consultant for Riskonnect. He has worked in the resilience sector for over 25 years and specialises in the development and testing of highly effective, simple, meaningful, and flexible business continuity and incident management systems and solutions, tailored to align perfectly with operational resilience, organisational strategy, and meeting customer requirements.

Michael Grimwade is managing director, operational risk, at ICBC Standard Bank and has previously held senior op risk management roles at MUFG Securities, RBS and Lloyds. Prior to this, he held management consultant positions at PwC and Deloitte Consulting. Grimwade has been a director of the Institute of Operational Risk (IOR) and is currently the chair of the Association of Foreign Banks' Operational Risk Expert Panel. He has authored a number of articles on setting appetite for op risk; scenario analysis techniques; climate change; quantifying emerging risks; and modelling op risk capital. He received an award in 2014 from the IOR for his contribution to the profession. His second book, Ten laws of operational risk, was published in December 2021.

Vasiliki Basiou has more than seven years experience in operational risk capital modelling at Credit Suisse. Currently, she is working on climate risk assessments for operational risk through analytics at UBS. Basiou is skilled in quantitative analysis and risk management, with a master's degree in financial risk management from University College London (UCL). She acquired a certificate in ESG investing from CFA in 2021 due to a high interest in climate risk management and the overall ESG realm.

Jeff Simmons joined MUFG Bank in June 2014 as the head of enterprise risk, tasked with creating the function. He has been involved intensively with the enhancement of the risk management framework in MUFG Bank (Europe). This has involved him in the formation of an enterprise risk function in Amsterdam tasked with delivering the full range of regulatory submissions.  In April 2018, Simmons transitioned to MUFG Securities to become involved in the Brexit project. In this capacity he is the chief risk officer for MUFG Securities (Europe) N.V. the Dutch subsidiary of MUFG Securities (EMEA).

Prior to joining the bank, Simmons spent some 20 years specializing in best practice risk management including market risk, credit risk, risk model validation and regulatory risk consulting. As well as having line management responsibilities in various institutions he has also gained extensive experience in implementing risk management frameworks from both a technical and operating model-based perspective.

Justin McCarthy has worked in risk, complinace and leadership roles in many firms, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, PwC, Ulster Bank (RBS/NatWest) and with the Irish financial regulator at the Central Bank of Ireland. This work has allowed him to see the changes in risk management and compliance since through and beyond the recent global financial crisis. His work on the PRISM risk-based supervision framework with the Irish regulator included exposure to banking, funds and insurance risk practices as well as the quantitative work done on the related impact models and the challenge in feeding valid financial data to these models.

McCarthy is chief executive officer of the Professional Risk Managers' International Association (PRMIA). This is a global risk management professional body and education organization for risk managers based in the United States with a network of over 45,000 in over 60 chapters around the world. Previous to this, he spent several years as a senior volunteer for PRMIA, serving on many committees and ultimately chairing the global board.

He has a BSc in computer science from University College Cork and an MBA from the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business at University College Dublin. He has a corporate director certificate from Harvard Business School.

Bob Barclay has over 41 years financial services experience gained in both domestic and international environments.

During his 17 years of operational risk and 19 years of internal audit experience he has specialised in consumer products, fiduciary, asset management, private banking, securities servicing, stockbroking and commercial banking with firms including RBS, Citibank (that included two years in Australia as Internal Audit Manager), BNY Mellon and Société Générale. Barclay currently holds the position of UK operations process manager at ABN AMRO Bank N.V., UK Branch and is a member of the bank’s conduct and ethics committee. He has also been involved in the implementation and embedment of risk management frameworks during periods of major regulatory change and has held senior risk management roles that has required dealing with external stakeholders including clients, regulators and external auditors.

Barclay is a member of the London Institute of Banking and Finance, the CISI Risk Forum Committee and the Association of Foreign Banks Operational Risk Committee

Maria Lombardo heads the global ESG advisory team at Standard Chartered Bank, supporting the bank clients in their sustainability and transition strategies. She spent more than 25 years in investment banking as managing director, heading emerging market equities sales at Lazard, UBS, Sberbank and Unicredit. 

Lombardo moved into sustainability in 2016 when she joined the non-profit CDP as head of their financial investor members. She then headed the ESG client strategies and climate change strategies at Invesco Global Asset Management in Emea, leading the growth of sustainability investment solutions and the set-up of the global asset manager’s climate strategy. Authors of ESG thought leadership whitepapers, mentor, and contributor to industry initiatives in sustainable financing. Lombardo holds a CFA ESG, a diploma at Cambridge University Sustainability Leadership Institute, along with a CEMS Master and a bachelor’s degree in financial intermediaries at Bocconi University. She is a member of the CFA UK Climate and Investing committee, and is a mentor of the acceleration programme at the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership.

Dimitris is a managing director of non-financial risk management at Credit Suisse, where he is focused on the advancement of the non-financial risk principle primarily through the development of analytical methods & tools. He has global responsibility for capital and stress testing, risk appetite and NFR analytics, and is the 2021 winner of Innovation in Risk Management award from Risk.net.

Dimitris is also a member of the board of directors of ORX, the largest industry association with membership extending to 100+ international banks & insurers. He is the chairman of the ORX Board Audit, Risk & Quality Assurance subcommittee and works closely with ORX management on the association’s strategy.

Prior to joining Credit Suisse in 2010, he held multiple roles within group risk analytics at Lloyds Bank. Dimitris is mathematician and holds an MSc in Risk & Financial Mathematics from Brunel University.

James has been a consumer campaigner and financial journalist for over 20 years. In 2014, James launched Fairer Finance, the independent consumer group, consultancy, and ratings provider whose mission is to help create a financial services market that is fair for consumers as well as the companies that serve them. Prior to this, he worked for the consumer group, Which?, where he campaigned for a better deal for customers of banks and insurers in the wake of the financial crisis.  James is a member of the CII’s professional standards committee and the ABI’s Consumer Advisory Group and he is also frequently interviewed on national television and radio, where he has appeared on shows such as Watchdog, Rip-off Britain, Dispatches and Moneybox.

Julien Cuisinier joined Artemis in November 2019 to build their investment risk capabilities from the ground up including market risk, credit risk, liquidity risk & ESG risk oversight across all the mandates managed on behalf of clients. Prior to Artemis, he headed the front office investment risk team at Janus Henderson covering the Emea mandates across asset classes. Cuisinier's responsibilities covered market risk advisory and oversight, liquidity risk management and support into the front office governance framework including best execution and product governance support. He graduated from Brussels Free University in 2004 in applied economics and has completed the certificate for quantitative finance and the CFA program.

Lidia Treiber is a Senior Director, Asset Management and Buy-Side Solutions, at Moody’s, with over 18 years of accomplishments within the asset management industry. She brings a wealth of experience, investment knowledge, integrity, and commitment to understanding investors’ needs. As quoted in the Financial Times, Reuters, CNBC, Milano Finanza, and publications across Europe, Lidia provides a deeper understanding of global investment markets’ evolving dynamics and has a keen sense of how technological innovation can better support the buy-side community’s ever-changing demands.

At Moody’s, Lidia’s focus is leading the marketing strategy of a vast suite of solutions for clients on the buy-side, leveraging our capabilities to help investment professionals gain insights to solve their most significant challenges.

Before joining Moody’s, Lidia held leadership positions at leading asset management firms. She started her career as a fixed-income credit analyst delivering investment recommendations to portfolio managers at BlackRock. From there, she went on to hold various leadership roles as a fixed-income expert providing investment market insights to institutional and retail investors in Latin America, North America, EMEA, and the UK for nearly 17 years.

Lidia is a CFA charterholder, holds a certificate in ESG investing and green bonds from CFA Institute, and most recently completed the Disruptive Strategy curriculum with Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School.

James Egginton is a regional sales director for Emea analytics at FactSet. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing FactSet’s risk products across the Emea region. Eggington's primary focus is on ensuring the product meets clients’ regulatory and business needs. Prior to this position, he served as a portfolio analytics specialist and consultant. He holds a degree in chemistry from the University of York.

Rob Mannix is the desk editor for investment, covering systematic investment strategies from quant funds to factor investing. He was previously responsible for Risk.net’s insurance coverage.

Based in the London office, Rob is interested in developments in the use of new types of data, the application of machine learning in investment, and research into systematic sources of return in markets. 

Rob joined Infopro Digital (then Incisive Media) in 2008, having previously worked at Euromoney Institutional Investor, covering legal and regulatory issues affecting capital markets.

Farhan Kalsheker is head of Pictet Asset Management’s London equity risk team which covers long only, hedge fund and event driven portfolios investing across developed and emerging markets. Prior to this he risk managed fixed income and special sits absolute and total return portfolios at Pictet. He has over 15 years of industry experience including risk management of fixed income, credit, convertible, special sits and event driven portfolios at MAN Group’s Discretionary Unit (GLG Partners) prior to Pictet. Farhan holds an MSc in Financial Mathematics and a degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Cape Town.

Duncan is a Partner and Head of Credit Research for Cheyne’s Corporate Credit and Risk-Transfer team, having joined Cheyne as a senior analyst in 2003. Duncan has overall responsibility for Cheyne’s credit research efforts and sits on Cheyne’s ESG Forum and its Diversity and Inclusion Committee. He regularly presents Cheyne’s view on industry issues in thought-leadership articles for financial publications.

Duncan has 37 years of experience in credit, including running sell-side research at Nomura and Greenwich NatWest, prior to which he was a senior analyst for Moody’s Investors’ Service in London and New York; he began his career with Morgan Guaranty.

Duncan graduated from St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he was awarded an MA in Medieval and Modern Languages. Duncan also has an MSc in Corporate Governance and Ethics from Birkbeck, University of London, where, having subsequently become a governor, he now chairs the Investment Committee and is a member of the Audit Committee.  Duncan was a member of the London Centre for Corporate Governance and Ethics and formerly sat on the Education and Examinations Committee of CFA UK.  He co-authored “Opening Credit: A Practitioner’s Guide to Credit Investment.”

Adrian Cox is a strategist on Deutsche Bank’s Thematic Research team, focused on the implications of Artificial Intelligence for investors, enterprises and society. He joined Deutsche Bank in 2009 and held senior leadership roles in Communications in London and Sydney before joining DB Research. He previously spent a decade covering finance and economics as an award-winning journalist and editor at Bloomberg News and the Financial Times in London, Brussels and New York. He is a graduate of Cambridge University and has an MBA from City University in London.

With near 40 years' experience, including UK government, senior legal private practice, corporate board level and academic roles, Mark Lewis is one of the UK's leading specialist technology lawyers. He advises customers and providers in the acquisition and deployment of mission-critical technology products, systems, and IT-enabled services in several sectors, with a focus on regulated financial services and essential national infrastructure.

After 27 years as a partner in leading City of London and international law firms, including as a practice head, and as co-founder and chair of law firms associated with PwC and EY, Mark has re-joined Stephenson Harwood LLP (after a 26-year break) as a senior consultant in the technology practice, based in their London office.  

Since 2019, Lewis has been a visiting professor in practice in the law school of the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he has lectured on AI and machine learning, cybersecurity and resilience, cloud computing and related computing business models and relationships. He has also been a guest lecturer on technology, outsourcing and offshoring at Warwick Business School and the Warwick Manufacturing Group.

Lewis has served as chair of Morgan Chambers plc, one of Europe's leading sourcing and outsourcing advisory firms (since acquired by KPMG), as an independent non-executive director of Delt Shared Services Limited (a public sector-owned provider of IT, cyber and business process shared services to regional government, the NHS and other public services bodies), as well as a non-executive director of CoSector (a provider of, among others, computing services to the University of London and other major UK universities).

He has contributed chapters to various books and leading texts on information technology and outsourcing, as well as co-authoring white papers on ethical investment in AI and the ethical and legal deployment of AI in human capital management. Lewis has had articles published in, among others, the Journal of Securities Operations & Custody, Practical Law (PLC), Practical Law Magazine, and was general editor and UK chapter author in Getting The Deal Through – Outsourcing (2014-16) and Getting The Deal Through – Cloud Computing (2018-20) ".

He was called to Bar (England and Wales) by Lincoln's Inn in 1982. He has practised as a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales since requalifying in 1991

Biljana Vujović is cheif risk officer for Addiko Bank, supervising the bank's management team, ensuring effective decision making and adherence to ethical standards. Her role includes continuously evaluating the bank's risk appetite and ensuring that risk management strategies are implemented effectively, ensuring that bank consistently meets regulatory standards, monitoring for potential violations, and overseeing the establishment and effectiveness of internal controls, as well as supervising the internal and external audit to ensure they are robust and independent. 

Vujović also chars the risk committee of the supervisory board

Alexander Sokol is the founder, Executive Chairman, and Head of Quant Research at CompatibL.

In 2022, he has been awarded the Fintech Person of the Year Award for his expertise and developments on a new class of machine learning risk models that can work with short pandemic-era historical time series. Alexander also won the Quant of the Year Award in 2018 together with Leif Andersen and Michael Pykhtin, for their joint work revealing the true scale of the settlement gap risk that remains even in the presence of initial margin.

Alexander’s other notable research contributions include systemic wrong-way risk (with Michael Pykhtin, Risk Magazine), joint measure models, and the local price of risk (with John Hull and Alan White, Risk Magazine), and mean reversion skew (Risk Books, 2014).

Daniel Mankowitz is a staff research scientist at Google Deepmind, working on solving the key challenges that will unlock reinforcement learning algorithms to work on real-world applications at scale. This includes a focus on reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) in the context of large language models (LLMs) such as Gemini. 

He has worked on: code optimization, code generation, chip design, video compression, recommender systems, and controlling physical systems such as heating ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC), with publications in Nature and Science. 
 

As CRO, Khilan is responsible for the Sales, Marketing, and Account Management functions at Likezero, leveraging his expertise in addressing global financial markets’ contractual data challenges.
Previously Khilan was a Senior Manager at PwC, where he most recently designed the firm’s LIBOR contracts solution that was sold and implemented across 3 continents. Khilan has spent his entire career analysing the challenges financial institutions have with their contracts and pioneering new solutions. Khilan graduated from the University of Warwick with a degree in MORSE.

Lucy is a qualified actuary with over a decade of experience in risk management roles. She began her career in pensions consulting, followed by 7 years at the Pension Protection Fund where she held a variety of roles spanning areas ranging from developing UK and EU legislation to capital modelling. Prior to Hiscox, she was the Group Financial Risk Director at Bupa, a designated IAIG  (among the largest and most geographically diverse insurance groups regulated by the PRA). Her current role spans both financial and operational risk across Hiscox’s international specialist insurance portfolios. Lucy has broad experience of considering how risk functions can support their 1^st line as AI is adopted into BAU.

Ronald Lukassen serves as the Director Actuarial Risk and Actuarial Function Holder at Athora Netherlands, a prominent Pension and Life insurer in the Netherlands and part of Athora Group.

Being part of this financially strong European group, Athora Netherlands can make use of unique investment expertise that helps to achieve a healthy, sustainable and safe return for its clients.

In this role, Ronald is, amongst others, tasked with establishing risk policies, conducting risk assessments and performing validations for all existing and developing models, encompassing AI-related data, assumptions, models, results, and processes. With a background in econometrics, membership in the Dutch Actuarial Society, and extensive leadership training, Ronald has held significant second-line positions. Before joining Athora, he gained experience at The Dutch Central Bank (De Nederlandsche Bank) in the Solvency II policy team, as well as serving as an investment manager at Aegon Asset Management. Aged 49, Ronald is married with two children and is recognized for his ongoing commitment to professional development.

Jeff Simmons joined MUFG Bank in June 2014 as the head of enterprise risk, tasked with creating the function. He has been involved intensively with the enhancement of the risk management framework in MUFG Bank (Europe). This has involved him in the formation of an enterprise risk function in Amsterdam tasked with delivering the full range of regulatory submissions.  In April 2018, Simmons transitioned to MUFG Securities to become involved in the Brexit project. In this capacity he is the chief risk officer for MUFG Securities (Europe) N.V. the Dutch subsidiary of MUFG Securities (EMEA).

Prior to joining the bank, Simmons spent some 20 years specializing in best practice risk management including market risk, credit risk, risk model validation and regulatory risk consulting. As well as having line management responsibilities in various institutions he has also gained extensive experience in implementing risk management frameworks from both a technical and operating model-based perspective.

Kanwardeep Ahluwalia is co-head of global markets risk for Bank of America. He joined Bank of America from Swiss Re where he was the group head of financial risk management, which included the role of chief risk officer for asset management, as well as serving as the reinsurance chief risk officer for Emea. Prior to that, Ahluwalia worked at Bear Stearns where he had a number of positions leading to the roles of chief risk officer for Europe & Asia and global head of market risk. This was preceded by a period working in regulation for the UK’s former Securities & Futures Authority.

Juan Jose Salcedo is assistant vice president of the risk governance and strategic analysis team at BNP Paribas UK office. He oversees the risk appetite metric computation and management information for the global banking UK portfolio. Salcedo has a background in economics and statistics holding a master degree in economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a career that expands banking, consultancy, and economic research in three countries. More recently he’s been certified in sustainability and climate risk. Salcedo is passionate about integrating market events into business decisions and over the lockdown periods picked up birdwatching a banana bread baking as hobbies.

Victoria Collins' career spans over 25 years working in financial institutions, in trading, finance and risk roles, predominately in risk management. 

She has been with Nomura for ten years, focused on enterprise-wide risk management. Collins was appointed global head of climate risk & ESG three years ago. She is responsible for establishing and managing the global risk management framework for climate risk and ESG, and for ensuring risk management is aligned to the firm’s sustainability objectives, such as net zero.

Chris Knight is currently the director of Market Partners Pty Ltd and is assisting the cross-asset electronic liquidity provider XTX Markets in its distribution push in Asia-Pacific. He was previously head of e-trading (East) FXRC at Standard Chartered where he was responsible for executing the banks electronic trading strategy across rates, FX and credit trading. Knight is a seasoned foreign exchange practitioner with over 25 years of foreign exchange trading experience. He returned to Australia a year ago after spending the 17 years of his career in Asia with senior roles in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. Knight is a member of the Global ACI FX Committee and is also a member of the Australian FX Committee which operates under the sponsorship of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Hanna Sarraf is a senior risk management executive, with over twenty five years’ experience in developing and implementing risk and regulatory management frameworks that deliver effective results in the financial services industry. He was most recently the chief risk strategy officer at Starling Bank and was previously the group chief risk officer at Bankmed, a regional corporate, retail and private banking organisation with operations across the Emea region. Prior to joining Bankmed, Sarraf was the group executive, head of risk strategy at Bank of Ireland and previously held senior risk and regulatory management consulting roles at Ernst & Young, KPMG and Accenture in the UK and globally.

His international industry and client consulting experience spans a wide range of risk and regulatory management roles both at the strategic and execution levels gained with leading financial services organisations across all major industry segments in a wide number of geographic markets.

Sarraf holds a specialised master’s degree in financial engineering from the École Supérieure des Sciences Économiques et Commerciales (ESSEC) and an MSc in finance from Dauphine University in France. He has authored many articles on financial risk management and is a frequent speaker at leading UK and international conferences.

Antonello Russo is a director within BlackRock's risk and quantitative analysis group. He is responsible for the investment risk management of index strategies across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, spanning segregated mandates, commingled funds and the iShares exchange-traded fund range. Before joining BlackRock, Russo was head of risk for the investment management arm of Beazley, a Lloyds of London insurer. Prior to this, he worked for Deutsche Bank, where he was a director on the collateralised equity financing and prime brokerage sales desk, and before that a risk manager for fixed income. He holds an honour degree from Bocconi University in Milan, where he graduated in 1995 in monetary and financial economics.

Michael Grimwade is managing director, operational risk, at ICBC Standard Bank and has previously held senior op risk management roles at MUFG Securities, RBS and Lloyds. Prior to this, he held management consultant positions at PwC and Deloitte Consulting. Grimwade has been a director of the Institute of Operational Risk (IOR) and is currently the chair of the Association of Foreign Banks' Operational Risk Expert Panel. He has authored a number of articles on setting appetite for op risk; scenario analysis techniques; climate change; quantifying emerging risks; and modelling op risk capital. He received an award in 2014 from the IOR for his contribution to the profession. His second book, Ten laws of operational risk, was published in December 2021.

Fazal Mohammed is the head of operational risk management – asset management at Phoenix Group. He has 15 years of financial services industry experience working across investment banking and insurance domains covering global businesses i.e., public and private markets. Focused on supporting first line functions in making sound business decisions on a risk adjusted basis is a key motivation for success.

In his spare time, Mohammed enjoys football, movies and the company of a good book.

Stefana Brown is chief risk officer, UK protection and fintech, and director, IT and data protection risk, at Legal & General Retail. She spent 10 years at Lloyds Banking Group and four at M&G Investments before joining Legal & General Retail.

Sophie Dupre‑Echeverria is the chief risk and compliance officer of Gulf International Bank (UK) Limited. She is responsible for driving an effective risk culture throughout the company, designing the risk and compliance frameworks and overseeing risk management and regulatory compliance practices. Dupre‑Echeverria joined GIB (UK) with extensive experience in the field, having previously served as executive director for compliance and operational risk control at UBS Asset Management. Before this, she was the global head of operational organisational risk at Barings and non-executive director of the Baring-Coller Secondaries Fund. Dupre‑Echeverria was also an operational risk manager and the group head of investment risk framework at Schroders.

She graduated from Université Lumière Lyon 2 with a master’s degree in economics and finance. Dupre‑Echeverria is a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment, a fellow of the Climate Safe Lending Network and a trustee of First Light South West, a charity supporting people affected by sexual violence and domestic abuse.

Amit Lakhani is a thorough IT risk and information security leader with a proven track record of leading, developing, designing and delivering wide variety of programs over the span of last 15+ years. He has a particular interest in raising information risks at board level and enabling business through mitigation or avoidance of IT risks through industry-accepted and sometimes cutting-edge solutions.

Lakhani has presented and published a number of research papers, articles and chapters in the information security field. His key focus has always been keeping the balance between business, technological and operational issues. In Lakhani's most recent position at BNP Paribas, he leads the IT risks and third party risk management practices globally for the corporate and institutional banking business. Lakhani has developed and implemented robust methodologies for effective IT risk management and is embedding a strong framework for internal and external vendor risk management.

Danny Frost joined Legal and General in 2023 and currently serves as global head of operational risk. 

Before joining Legal and General, Frost joined AIG in June 2015 and served as chief risk officer and regional head of operational risk for Emea and Apac. Before joining AIG, he held roles in investment banking, managing derivative operations, the middle office and prime brokerage functions. Frost spent 19 years at Credit Suisse and most recently held the positions of global head of operational risk for collateral, clearing, valuations and liquidity, and global head of new business and new product approval.

Praveen Singh heads up the IT risk and cybersecurity at ICBC Standard Bank. He has spent over 20 years in the financial services sector, including 10 years in management consultancy.  Singh likes to speak about technology, risk, regulation, cybersecurity and transformation. He is also a fan of Formula 1 and cricket.

Hasintha Gunawickrema is an experienced leader in the financial services industry, having led numerous large-scale business, digital, and culture transformational programs across UK, Europe, and Asia. Throughout her career, she has been instrumental in delivering better outcomes for both customers and colleagues. Gunawickrema's focus on improving operational excellence has also led to significant improvements in enterprise-wide risk management and Business growth.

With nearly two decades of experience in the financial services industry, she has held various roles across Europe, UK, and Asia. These roles have included chief operating officer, chief control officer, chief administration officer, head of business performance, and finance business partnering. Gunawickrema's last role was with HSBC as the chief control officer for wealth and personal banking in the UK.

As the Chief Control Officer, she was responsible for overseeing the risk and control framework across the bank’s risk taxonomy, ensuring that it is effective and aligned with regulatory requirements. Gunawickrema's role also involves monitoring the bank's risk management practices, identifying potential risks, and implementing appropriate controls to mitigate them.

In addition to her extensive experience, she is an alumnus of the prestigious Harvard Business School and an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) - UK. Gunawickrema's background and education have undoubtedly contributed to her success in the financial services industry.

With her extensive experience across risk, digital, transformation, cost management and business growth, she is well-positioned to help organizations navigate these challenges and achieve their strategic objectives. Gunawickrema's dedication to delivering results and fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration make her an invaluable asset to any team.

Linkedin Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hasintha-gunawickrema-b013671a/

Merlin Linehan is a risk manager at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). He is also a regular commentator and speaker on geopolitical and climate topics.