Risk Live North America

Kris Devasabai is the New York-based editor-in-chief of Risk.net. Previously, he was bureau chief and US editor of Risk magazine. He manages the editorial team. Prior to joining Risk, Kris covered hedge funds, asset management, cross-border investing and law for several publications.

Kris holds a bachelor’s degree in law and government from the University of Manchester, and he completed his legal training at the Inns of Court School of Law in London. He was called to the bar of England and Wales in 2003.

Kristen has 25+ years of experience in risk management and analytics at large buy- and sell-side firms.  She has been the Chief Operating Officer of BlackRock's Risk and Quantitative Analysis (RQA) Group since 2012. Kristen reports to the firm's Chief Risk Officer (CRO) and is a member of RQA's EXCO. Her current responsibilities include ensuring RQA effectively manages market, counterparty credit, liquidity and operational risk on behalf of BlackRock and fiduciary clients.  She is also responsible for RQA’s strategic technology, analytics and reporting initiatives partnering with BlackRock’s financial modeling and application development teams.  Kristen has been a member of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Market Risk Advisory Committee since 2014 and works closely with BlackRock’s Vice Chairman / Head of Government Relations on risk-related regulatory issues. 
Kristen previously worked for BlackRock’s CRO when he was co-heading BlackRock Solutions and focused on developing analytics for fixed income bonds and derivatives as well as portfolio risk analytics, such as VaR and stress testing.  She also worked with BlackRock’s Institutional Client Business and Sovereign Wealth clients on risk measurement for AUM managed by BlackRock. 
Kristen has also held senior positions in risk management at Goldman Sachs, PIMCO and Barclays Capital. Many of her risk roles have also involved addressing regulatory issues pertaining to risk management, including managing the Federal Reserve's initial stress testing exercise for Goldman Sachs during 2009. She has also done significant work developing analytics for market, credit and liquidity risk across cash and derivatives markets. 
Kristen started her career in Supervision and Regulation at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and holds a MBA from Babson College and an undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Nick Silitch is senior vice president, chief risk officer of Prudential Financial, Inc. In this role, Silitch oversees Prudential’s risk management infrastructure and risk profile across all business lines and risk types. Under his direction, his team develops models, metrics, frameworks and governance to manage risk, and works with internal corporate partners and business groups to identify, assess and prioritize risk across the company. He is chairman of the organization’s Enterprise Risk Committee that evaluates current and emerging risks relevant to the company, and is a member of Prudential’s Senior Management Council.

Silitch also works with external stakeholder groups to forward industry interests. He is head of the International Affairs Committee for the North American Chief Risk Officers’ Council, and is a member of the Advisory Council for the International Association of Credit Portfolio Managers.

Silitch joined Prudential in 2010 as chief credit officer and head of investment risk management, overseeing Prudential’s general account and other proprietary investment risks globally, as well as maintaining and approving Delegations of Authority and Investment Policy Statements.

Prior to joining Prudential, Silitch held the position of chief risk officer of the Alternative Investment Services, Broker Dealer Services and Pershing businesses within Bank of New York Mellon. He also served on the Pershing Executive Committee.

Silitch joined Bank of New York Mellon in 1983 as a credit trainee. Throughout his career at the bank, he held senior positions in client management, investor relations, risk management, loan restructuring, credit portfolio management and Basel compliance.

He received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Colby College.

Judith joined DWS (formerly known as Deutsche Asset Management) in 2005 following 8 years with JPMorgan Chase. Prior to her current role as the Chief Risk Officer for DWS Americas, she served as the Regional Control Officer for DWS Americas. Before that, she was the Global Chief Operating Officer for the DWS Alternatives and Fund Solutions business based in London.

Judith holds an MBA in Financial Management from Pace University, New York.

Agus Sudjianto is an executive vice president and head of Corporate Model Risk for Wells Fargo, where he leads a highly technical team to manage model risk across the enterprise. Prior to his current position, Agus was the modeling and analytics director and chief model risk officer at Lloyds Banking Group in the United Kingdom,where he was responsible for the enterprise development and oversight of all risk management models (retail and wholesale credits, market, regulatory capital, stress testing, asset liability management, and insurance).

Rama Chirayathumadom is Chief Model Risk Officer of GS Bank and global head of model validation for consumer, credit risk and compliance models at Goldman Sachs. Over the last five years as Chief Model Risk Officer of GS Bank, Rama has overseen the model risk management of the bank’s retail expansion through notable product launches including Marcus loans and Apple Card.

Over his 16-year career at the firm, Rama has held roles in model development and validation across Global Markets, Controllers and Risk divisions.

Rama holds an MS in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

As Chief Risk Officer, Rodney leads the Risk Management, Compliance and Ethics, and Assurance and Advisory functions for OMERS. Under his leadership, these functions work closely with the businesses units across OMERS to fulfil their mandate, and to provide ongoing monitoring and reporting to senior management, the OMERS Board of Directors and its various committees.

Prior to joining OMERS in 2011, Rodney worked as a Partner at an international accounting firm, where he specialized in auditing complex public and private companies. During this time, he also held several leadership roles with the firm.

A graduate from the University of Kent at Canterbury, with an Honours Degree in Accounting with Computing (Honours), Rodney is an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ACA-UK).

He is also a Chartered Professional Accountant (CA, CPA) in Canada. Originally from Ireland, Rodney is passionate about giving back through involvement with community. Rodney also serves on the Financial Committee for Crescent School. He lives in Toronto with his family.

Heli Khandelia is head of international change management at Apollo Global Management. She is responsible for managing and delivering a  of changes across various business areas in Europe. Khandelia has delivered a range of large-scale, cross-functional business change and regulatory programmes. Her expertise covers multiple asset classes, building and managing high-performing teams and leading multi-disciplined projects from inception to delivery. Khandelia has worked for global banks and consulting firms such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds and KPMG. She is skilled in programme and project management, governance, regulatory risk and compliance, business change, operations and technology. Khandelia holds a master's degree in applied computing technologies from Northumbria University.

Murad Nayal is head of risk architecture and informatics at Millennium. Before joining Millennium, he was global head of the risk informatics group at Goldman Sachs and global head of market risk analytics and reporting, and market risk core technology, responsible for calculating and reporting firm-wide market risk and capital metrics. In previous roles at Goldman Sachs, Nayal managed the market risk modelling team in the Americas, driving the development of market risk, the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review, and capital models. He also managed the corporate treasury modelling team developing models of liquidity risk. Having joined Goldman Sachs in 2005 as an associate in market risk technology, Nayal was named managing director in 2017.

Previously, he has worked as a research scientist in computational biology at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Columbia University in New York, where he used physical and statistical models, and machine learning techniques to predict the function of proteins and the manner in which they interact with drugs.

Murad holds a doctor of medicine degree from Damascus University, a PhD in biophysics from Washington University in St. Louis and a masters degree in mathematical finance from the Courant Institute, NYU.

Stacy Swann (Founder & CEO) the CEO and Founding Partner of Climate Finance Advisors, a benefit LLC based in Washington, DC with expertise in banking, development finance, and climate change. During her career, Ms. Swann has held senior positions with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), as well as with the US Department of Treasury, Enron Corporation, and other organizations. For more than twenty-five years she has worked with investors, financial institutions, and policymakers on mainstreaming climate considerations across both investment and policy and has expertise in blended finance, climate finance, climate-smart fiscal policies, and approaches to identify, assess, and manage climate risk.

In addition to leading Climate Finance Advisors, Ms. Swann is the Chair of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) Council on Climate and sits on the Board for the Montgomery County Green Bank the United States’ first county-level green bank and is Chair of its Investment Committee. She is also a member of the Steering Committee/Board of the Global Water Partnership, a global action network of more than 3,000 Partner bodies in 179 countries focused on building sustainable water systems globally.

Hervé Duteil created the position of Chief Sustainability Officer for BNP Paribas in the Americas in 2014.  In this role, he leads the Bank’s regional strategy for Sustainable Finance, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Company Engagement, bringing in particular a strong focus on promoting client dialogue around sustainability topics and the development of tailored financing solutions or responsible investment products.  In 2018, Euromoney selected him as one of the 10 “champions of global impact banking”.

Prior to this, Hervé spent most of his career trading derivatives and managing capital market activities.  More recently, he led BNP Paribas’ efforts to close its first Social Impact Bonds.

Hervé holds a Master in Business Administration with distinction from the Harvard Business School, a Master of Science from the University of Cambridge, and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics & Physics from the University of Paris.  He serves as a member on CFTC’s Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee of the Market Risk Advisory Committee, Canada Standards Association’s Technical Committee for the Development of a National Standard for “Transition & Sustainable Finance”, and the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance Advisory Board.

Christian Kjær is Senior Vice President and ATP’s Head of Liquid Markets, an in-house risk-balanced multi-asset investment team with overall responsibility for the liquid part of ATP’s investment portfolio. He is a member of the investment committee, the committee for social responsibility and the corporate governance forum within ATP. Christian has previously held responsibility for global equities, inflation and volatility in ATP which he joined in 2015 as Portfolio Manager.

Prior to joining ATP Christian was Head of Inflation Trading in Nordea Markets. Before that he held positions in the Insurance and Pension Solutions Group at Credit Suisse, the Institutional Solutions group at Nordea Markets and Mckinsey & Company

Christian holds a M.Sc in Economics and a Ph.D in Economics (Game Theory) from the University of Aarhus, Denmark

In his spare time, Christian enjoys hanging out with his family and loves taking his race bike for a spin in the countryside

Since joining SG in 2009, he has held a range of positions.  Currently, he is the Chief Data Officer, SG Americas, with responsibility for data management and governance within the Region.  This function is responsible for implementing the requirements of BCBS 239, establishing sound data governance framework that meets Group needs and local supervisory expectations, and creating a solid platform for the data to be leveraged for strategic business decisions. Prior to that, he headed up the Project Management Office for the SG US Transformation project.  SG roles before that included Deputy CFO of the Americas Region of their Corporate & Investment Bank and Head of Finance Offshoring in SG Bangalore. 

Prior to joining SG, Bala was with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) for fourteen years in a range of positions in Toronto and New York.  As Senior Vice President of the Wholesale North America Finance, he headed up the controllership function for CIBC’s World Markets and Treasury & Risk Management Strategic Business Units within North America. With a global team across Toronto and New York, he was responsible for establishing a SOX-compliant industry-leading Finance control environment as well as supporting the efficient execution of business initiatives and managing the Finance related US regulatory relationships during a very demanding period. Prior to that, he also had stints as the business-line controller for the Bank's US origination businesses (Corporate Lending, Investment Banking, Merchant Banking, Structured Finance, and High Yield), as well as the 2/ic to the Chief Accountant, with responsibility for consolidated financial, management and regulatory reporting at the corporate level.

Born and brought up in Mumbai India, Bala has a degree in mathematics from the University of Mumbai and holds professional accounting qualifications from both India and the United States.  He lives in Montclair, New Jersey is married with two children, and enjoys long-distance running.

Nasreen Kasenally is the global chief risk officer and head of sustainability risk at UBS Asset Management. She is a senior risk professional with over 20 years of experience mostly at UBS covering investment banking, asset and wealth management. In her role as chief risk officer, Kasenally is responsible for all financial risks within UBS Asset Management globally and in all the business divisions of UBS Group in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Within sustainability, she has the oversight of the risks across the group and leads the engagement and positioning to deliver the firm’s purpose and values with regards to sustainability.

David Jessop is the Head of Investment Risk in EMEA for Columbia Threadneedle Investments. Prior to this he spent 17 years at UBS as the Global Head of Quantitative Research. Before joining UBS he spent time at Citigroup acting as the Head of Quantitative Marketing. He started his career at Morgan Grenfell; initially as a derivative analyst, and then as a quantitative fund manager. He has a MA in Mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge. 

Lakshmi Murthy is the Global lead for Climate Risk Strategy and ESG Analytics at Credit Suisse.

She is an experienced Financial Services leader with a passion for building scalable data-enabled products to solve business problems using advanced analytics.

Lakshmi has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from India, and an Master’s degree in Business Analytics from NYU Stern School of Business

Will Hadfield runs the investing team for Risk.net, overseeing coverage of hedge funds, conventional asset managers and insurance companies. He previously covered market structure for Bloomberg News in London, both as a reporter and an editor. He studied history at the University of Durham and speaks French.