Event Speakers

Malcolm Griggs is the Chief Risk Officer of Citizens. He joined Citizens in 2014 as Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer. Griggs serves on the Executive Committee and as CRO is responsible for defining and overseeing how we manage credit, market, operational, regulatory, compliance, and model risk at Citizens and for leading the 2nd line of defense risk function. Griggs has over 30 years of risk and business line experience.

He joined Citizens from Citigroup where he was head of business risk and controls for the U.S. commercial and consumer banking businesses. Prior to this, he held senior risk management and business line roles at firms such as Morgan Stanley and Wachovia. He was also the first CRO at Fifth Third Bank. Griggs is active in industry organizations and is a past chairman of the board of the Risk Management Association (RMA). He currently serves as the President of the board of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and Music School. He earned both his undergraduate and J.D. degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Kim joined BMO in August 2021 from RBC where she was the Global Head of the Client, Banking & Digital Channels Technology group across Capital Markets.  Kim developed and implemented a comprehensive client data strategy adopted by Capital Markets, sunset legacy applications and united the global salesforce under a single CRM instance.  Collecting and connecting client touchpoints with external data sets allowed her team to proactively source opportunities and recommendations using advanced AI and machine learning to deepen client relationships and increase wallet share.  Kim held multiple roles at RBC over 15 years supporting the business in various capacities from running Global Fixed Income Production Services to Head of Fixed Income Sales and Credit Trading technology.

Prior to joining RBC, Kim ran Front Office technology at Mizuho as well as the API Connectivity Development team at ICAP and was part of the initial launch of BrokerTec. She has also held multiple positions across the street with Kidder Peabody, Deutsche Bank and Chase Securities. Kim received a BA from Stockton University in accounting.

Vishal Thakkar is Chief Risk Officer at OCC, the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization. 

In this role, Mr. Thakkar is responsible for implementing OCC's Risk Management Strategy, which includes Enterprise Risk Management, Third Party Risk Management, Model Risk Management, Strategic Risk, Model Validation and Model Risk Governance areas.

Previously, Mr. Thakkar led the Enterprise Risk Management function for OCC and was responsible for designing a sound risk management framework with processes and systems to conduct risk assessments, support risk management decisions and prepare the company’s risk profile. He previously served as First Vice President of Financial Risk Management (FRM), Risk Advisory Services where under his leadership, FRM defined a transformation roadmap and significantly strengthened the risk and control environment to enhance process effectiveness and meet regulatory requirements. Mr. Thakkar first joined OCC in 2016 as First Vice President, Internal Audit and was responsible for leading Technology and Operations Audits for the company.

From 2004 to 2016, Vishal held internal audit and risk management roles for Southern Company Gas, most recently serving as Director Internal Audit, Corporate/Shared Services and Regulated Operations and prior to that as Senior Manager of Risk Management. Before joining Southern Company Gas, Vishal served in a variety of consulting, operations, and technology roles at Accenture and MCI.

Vishal earned both a bachelor’s degree in information systems and an MBA in entrepreneurship from DePaul University. A member of the Institute of Internal Auditors and ISACA, Vishal has been a regular speaker at industry events. He is a Certified Information Systems Auditor and a Certified Fraud Examiner. 

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.

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.

Wei Zhu is a Managing Director and Global Head the Market Risk Analytics in Citi.  After joining Citi in 2001, he has worked in various risk modeling areas including market risk, counterparty credit risk, and risk capital.   Mr. Zhu has a Ph.D. in Physics from New York University and is a CFA charter holder since 2004.

S.P. Kothari was named the Chief Economist and Director of the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) in March 2019. In this role, he oversees economists, data scientists, and other professionals who provide financial economics and data science in support of the SEC’s mission.

Dr. Kothari joined the SEC from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was a professor of accounting and finance and a former Deputy Dean.

Dr. Kothari spent nearly two decades at MIT, both as a professor and as an administrator. His research interests include financial reporting, valuation, asset allocation, international accounting practices, executive compensation, investment performance, and derivatives.

Dr. Kothari has served as the Co-Chair of the Board of Governors Asia School of Business, Kuala Lumpur, faculty director of the MIT-India Program, and editor of the academic publication Journal of Accounting & Economics. In 2008, he served as global head of equity research for Barclays Global Investors, where he was responsible for research supporting the firm’s active equity strategies and for managing a team of approximately 50 PhDs based around the world.

Dr. Kothari received his B.S. in Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science and his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management. Dr. Kothari earned his PhD from the University of Iowa.

Dr. Kothari has received honorary doctorates from University of Technology, Sydney (2013), University of Cyprus (2017), and London Business School (2019).

Jean Carlos is an accomplished economist and seasoned banker with over 20 years of global investment banking experience. Currently serving as the Executive Director and US Head of Risk Appetite & Limits and Valuation at Santander Corporate Investment Banking, He leads a team responsible for governance, admission, and risk control of capital markets activity in the US.

Jean Carlos possesses a wealth of expertise in technical, fundamental, markets, and risk knowledge, including ESG and impact investment approaches. Throughout his career, Jean Carlos has been instrumental in constructing robust capabilities and risk frameworks, geared towards facilitating multi-assets class activities within capital markets, with a focus on Latin America and the US. 

Jean Carlos earned a Master in Business Administration from MIT, with Business Analytics and Sustainability certifications. He also holds a Bachelor in Economics and a Master in Banking and Financial Markets. Beyond finance, he has contributed to sustainability projects with positive social, environmental, and financial impact.

Bernard Goyder is a senior staff writer for Risk.net, based in New York. His focus is on the global derivatives market. Before joining Risk.net he was a senior reporter at Euromoney Institutional Investor, covering the insurance industry for Insurance Insider, Inside P&C and Trading Risk. Before Euromoney, he worked at Dow Jones, where he covered investment banking and asset management for Financial News. He holds an undergraduate degree in history from SOAS, University of London and a Financial Journalism masters from City University, London.

Carlo Acerbi is a quantitative financial risk management researcher and professional, author of relevant contributions in the field of banking regulation (2002 coherent definition of ES ; 2019 ES backtesting), asset management liquidity regulation (2013 MSCI LiquidityMetrics) and stress testing (2016 MSCI ST best practices), among others.

He received a PhD in Theoretical Physics (1998, ISAS-SISSA, Trieste, Italy). He served for leading institutions in the financial risk industry (Banca Intesa, Abaxbank, McKinsey, RiskMetrics-MSCI, Banque Pictet). He teaches Advanced Derivatives at Bocconi University, Milan, Advanced Risk Management Topics at EPFL Lausanne (from Q4 2023) and he's Honorary Professor at Corvinus University, Budapest.

Victoria Chan serves as a Business Development Analyst for North America at ActiveViam.  Throughout her 15- year tenure in the career in the financial services and fintech sectors, she has held diverse positions in capital markets, focusing on trade operations, data services, and project management within the clearing and collateral management domain.  Vicky's deep knowledge and experience in technology and the financial markets allows her to bring insights into client requirements and to tailor software solutions accordingly. She holds a dual bachelor’s degree in financial economics and psychology from Binghamton University. Vicky resides in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and two children and in her free time when she’s not piecing broken toys back together with tape and glue, she likes to travel, go on hikes, practice yoga and capoeira, or create her own chaos in the kitchen. 

Mark Findlay is Global Head of Financial Risk Analytics at S&P Global Market Intelligence, which provides award winning products and solutions to financial institutions to measure and manage their counterparty credit risk, market risk, regulatory risk capital, derivative valuation adjustments as well as custom on demand risk services. Using the latest analytics and technology such as a fully vectorized pricing library, Machine Learning and a Big Data stack for scalability, the products and solutions are also available in the cloud and are used by the largest tier-one banks to smaller niche firms.

Prior to joining S&P Global, Mark worked as a Partner at TLG, a specialist risk management consultancy in London. Previously, Mark held Chief Operating Officer positions in financial markets trading and quantitative risk management roles at ABN AMRO, UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He was also the Capital Management Program Director of global markets at HSBC.

Mark holds an MBA from CASS Business School, University of London, UK.

Mike is a lead model development and analytics expert across a range of risk and product types, having a focus on wholesale credit risk methodology, regulatory solutions and model validation. Currently Mike is an SVP and Lead Quantitative Analytics & Modeling Expert at PNC Financial Services Group, Model Development Department, where he leads 1st Line Wholesale Model validation. Mike has 25 years of experience in financial risk modeling and analytics, having worked 5 years at Accenture and Big 4 consulting as a Director in the risk modeling and analytics practice, with a focus on regulatory solutions; 7 years as a Senior Economist and Lead Modeling Expert at the OCC, focusing on ERM and Model Risk; and 8 years in banking as a Senior Vice-President at JPMC and SMBC, developing wholesale credit risk and economic capital models. Skills include model development & validation for CCAR, PPNR, CECL, credit / market / operational risk; Basel and ICAAP; model risk management; financial regulation; advanced statistical and optimization methodologies. Mike holds a doctorate in Mathematical Finance from the City University of New York / Zicklin School of Business, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Ash Majid is Managing Director and Chief Risk Officer for SMBC Capital Markets, Inc. & SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc. wholly owned subsidiaries of SMBC Americas Holdings, Inc. In his current role he oversees teams responsible for managing the risk from the two subsidiaries within the broader America’s Division risk management team. Prior to joining SMBC Capital Markets, Ash worked at Ernst and Young, LLP within their Quantitative Advisory Services and SunTrust Banks, Inc. with oversight of their derivatives trading desks' market risk. Ash holds a Doctorate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Master's degree in Quantitative and Computational Finance from Georgia Institute of Technology. Additionally, Ash holds FINRA Series 7 & 24 licenses.

Valerie Fontaine-Aubry is responsible for Murex's Market Risk practice in the Americas.  Valerie has over 20 years capital markets experience and runs the FRTB practice, a central role to design, implementation and presales activities for Murex Americas. Valerie has worked with Murex clients across Europe, North America and Latin America, implementing technology solutions to future-proof capital markets businesses. She started at Murex as an interest rate derivatives consultant before founding and heading the Murex emerging markets team in New York.

Mayank is Head of Risk Analytics and Product Management at Numerix, where he leads the market risk and counterparty credit risk teams to deliver best-in-breed analytics for clients.

In his previous roles at Numerix, he spearheaded the development of the firm's regulatory modules as a product manager, covering FRTB and SIMM, in addition to working in financial engineering and model validation roles.

Mayank holds a Masters degree in Mathematical Finance from Rutgers University and a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.  

He also has a Financial Risk Manager (FRM) certification from the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP).

Matthew Katz is a credit risk specialist for 5+ years at S&P Global Market Intelligence, who has long-term expertise in qualitative and quantitative financial data analysis.  Prior to joining S&P, Matt spent a number of years at Thomson Reuters specializing in credit risk models, as well as portfolio analytics.  Before joining the market and financial data side, Matt worked on the buy side at the likes of Cohen & Steers and AllianceBernstein taking on many roles, such as portfolio and client reporting and risk analytics for institutional clients.

Sven Sandow is the Global Head of Credit and Operational Risk Analytics at Morgan Stanley. During his 20-year career in the financial industry, Sven has worked in various quantitative modeling, risk management, and capital management capacities. Prior to Morgan Stanley, he worked at Merrill Lynch and Standard & Poor’s. Before he joined the financial industry, Sven worked as a physicist at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the Weizmann Institute of Science. He has been an active researcher in physics, finance, and machine learning. His research has been published in academic journals, and he coauthored a book on learning from data. Sven holds a Ph.D. in physics from the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany.

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.

Stewart Webster is a 13-year veteran at S&P Global and currently serves as a Director on the Credit & Risk Solutions team in the Market Intelligence segment. His focus is quantitative risk models that are driven by big data, machine learning and climate impact. Stewart uses these models to streamline processes and provide workflow automation for the firm’s global clients. He was also an Associate on the Leveraged Finance team at S&P Global Ratings. In this credit analysis role, he rated high yield sponsor backed companies and Middle Market CLOs. He was lead author for the “Credit Estimates within Middle Market CLOs” quarterly series and produced credit research often cited by financial institutions and government agencies. He joined S&P Capital IQ in 2010 where he managed the North America and MENA Private Equity Research teams.

Steve Boras is the Head of Model Risk Management & Validation at Citizens Bank in Boston, focused on managing the model risk of the bank via validation of models, performance management and monitoring of outcomes, and serving as a sounding board for new and emerging modeling techniques and their respective appropriateness. Since joining Citizens in 2015, Steve has led several risk analytics functions, most recently heading the Risk Architecture Center of Excellence (covering loss forecasting model development for CCAR/DFAST and CECL, and PD, LGD, and EAD modeling for wholesale), as well as anti-money laundering modeling, macroeconomic scenario generation, and Data Science.  Steve also holds leadership roles in enterprise risk, ESG and Inflation/Stagflation scenario analysis, and artificial intelligence and machine learning governance.

Brian Saldeen is the Senior Product Manager of Risk & Margin at Sterling Trading Tech. He holds over 20 years of industry experience and started his career at Susquehanna Investment Group, initially trading equity options on the floor of the CBOE when the option exchanges were still open outcry. Brian traded convertible bonds in Europe, equity options from an upstairs trading desk, and eventually utilizing his own capital. Most recently he’s worked in both client management and product management roles with E*Trade, Morgan Stanley and Apex Fintech Solution. His varied experience in trading and product management gives him a unique and extensive knowledge of risk management and margin applications.

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.

Marta Palanques is a seasoned security and risk professional, specialising in integrating risk management practices and processes to effectively support decision making with meaningful data while minimising the overhead and meeting regulatory expectations, and in communicating security and risk to technical and non-technical executive stakeholders.

In her current role as a director of risk methodologies at Capital One’s technology risk management team, Marta is responsible for defining methodology and practices for risk and controls management, and providing risk intelligence to benchmark risk analysis and monitoring. Her team also oversees technology and cyber risk compliance requirements and monitors adherence to those requirements.

Her previous experience in the industry ranges from IT audit and risk functions at Deloitte to conducting research in cybersecurity at Barcelona Digital Technology Center and includes defining and implementing an integrated risk management framework as a director of enterprise risk management at ADP, and building a programme to support a single reporting platform that enabled exploration of multiple data sources and provided ADP’s executive leadership with visibility and insight into the security and risk programme.

Tom Mangine is an adjunct professor at the Joint Special Operations University (JSOU), where he teaches classes on terrorist-financing, money-laundering and cybersecurity. He has developed and taught short courses on cyber-enabled financial crime, cryptocurrency and conducting financial investigations. He also serves as an instructor with the Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists, teaching classes on asset recovery, cybersecurity and investigative techniques. Tom previously worked at the Bank of Montreal (BMO), where he held positions as director, capital markets AML (global risk & special investigations), chief of special investigations, the money-laundering reporting officer (MLRO) for the US and director for cyber resilience. In 2021, he also became a volunteer sports integrity officer, helping civic organisations and ministries of sport in Europe as well as South America investigate corruption in professional sports.

Tom entered the financial industry after more than twenty years with the US Army where he served on six continents – including deployments to the Balkans, Central Asia, Horn of Africa, Middle East and North Africa. He earned a BS in political science from the United States Military Academy as well as an MA in international relations and security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School.

Norine Richards is the Director for Bank Information Technology for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) Operational Risk Policy Division.

In this role, Ms. Richards manages the team responsible for developing, communicating, and interpreting policies for the OCC’s supervision of technology operations at financial institutions. She represents the OCC on several interagency groups, including the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s Information Technology Subcommittee. The interagency groups focus on coordination and development of information technology risk management supervisory guidance for such topics as information security, resiliency, technology operations, corporate governance, and independent risk management. She assumed these responsibilities in May 2020.

Previously, Ms. Richards spent 22 years as a National Bank Examiner specializing in information technology examination for significant service providers and financial institutions and served as the Bank Information Technology lead expert for the OCC’s Western District. Ms. Richards has also worked as an information security consultant in Washington, D.C., and was the Director of Risk Management for a financial institution.

Ms. Richards attended Bloomsburg University and is a Certified Information Systems Auditor and Certified Fraud Examiner.

Victor joined HSBC in 2015 as the head of Americas operational risk unit with direct accountabilities over its global banking and markets business. In 2019, HSBC consolidated its operational and resilience risk coverage to one consolidated unit and assumed the direct full coverage over the broader suite of resilience risk such as information andtechnology, data, third Party and Transaction Processing and Payments Risks. His current team consists of senior risk officer s with deep business and operations subject matter expertise and technology, cyber and data risk specialists.

Prior to joining HSBC, Victor held leading roles within finance and risk management. He was global head of Barclays operational risk business oversight with specific
accountabilities over its fixedincome,equities, commodities and FX trading businesses. Victor was instrumental in leading Barclays risk management integration efforts with
Lehman Brothers as part of their 2008 acquisition. He also worked at Bank of America as the head of operational risk over their private bank and wealth management unit and spent 11 years in the first line of defence working on the trading floor covering of Deutsche Bank's capital markets platform.

Jason Healey is a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs specialising in cyber risk and conflict and a part-time senior strategist at the National Risk Management Center at the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.  Prior to this, he was the founding director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative of the Atlantic Council where he created the global “Cyber 9/12” student cyber-policy competition. He is the editor of the first history of conflict in cyberspace, A Fierce Domain: Cyber Conflict, 1986 to 2012 and helped stand up both the Office of the National Cyber Director at the White House (2022) and the world’s first cyber command (1998). A frequent keynote speaker on these issues, he is rated as a “top-rated” speaker for the RSA Conference and won the inaugural “Best of Briefing Award” at Black Hat.

Jason has been a founding member of the Office of the National Cyber Director at the White House (2022) as well as the first cyber command in the world, the Joint Task Force for Computer Network Defense in 1998, where he was one of the early pioneers of cyber threat intelligence.  During an earlier job in the White House, he was a director for cyber policy, coordinating efforts to secure US cyberspace and critical infrastructure. He created Goldman Sachs’ first cyber incident response capability and later oversaw the bank’s crisis management and business continuity in Asia. He served as the vice chair of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC). He is on the review board of the DEF CON and Black Hat hacker conferences, served on the Defense Science Board task force on cyber deterrence, and is past president and founding board member of the Cyber Conflict Studies Association. He started his career as a US Air Force intelligence officer with jobs at the Pentagon and National Security Agency.

Fred Harris is the managing director of cybersecurity risk, data risk and IT risk at Société Générale Americas. Fred is an accomplished technology executive with more than 30 years of technology and cybersecurity experience in the financial services industry. Before joining SG, Fred was in a similar role at Bank of America and before that he was with Deloitte for 16 years in a variety of roles.

Jasmine Burgess became the COO/CRO of Coinbase Asset Management, after an acquisition of One River Digital, a role she started in November 2021. Prior to One River Digital, she was appointed head of the US for Coremont in March 2020, Brevan Howard’s infrastructure spin-out after serving as Brevan Howard’s head of risk in New York from August 2016. Prior to joining Brevan Howard, Burgess was chief risk officer at Prologue Capital, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based hedge fund (April 2013 to July 2016). Prior to this buy-side focus, Jasmine worked at Macquarie Bank from August 2006 to March 2013. In March 2009, she transferred to New York as an associate director to assist building the fixed income, currencies and commodities trading floor after starting as a senior manager leading the market risk team in Sydney, Australia. Jasmine started her career at Citibank in 1999 before joining JP Morgan as an analyst within the Investment Banking Group in 2002.

Madiha Fatima is an executive director - operational and outsourcing risk management at JP Morgan, where she leads the second line of defence function for operational and outsourcing risk overseeing third-party risk management, sourcing, procurement and inter-affiliate management. Previously, Madiha was the head of the third-party risk management department at Angelo Gordon, where she was responsible for developing a third-party risk management framework while enabling businesses to achieve their strategic objectives by utilising vendors. Before joining Angelo Gordon, Madiha Fatima was the head of third-party risk governance & oversight at DTCC. Madiha is a certified third-party risk professional (CTPRP). Madiha earned a Bachelor of Science in financial and capital markets from Rutgers Business School.

Aengus Hallinan joined Bank of New York Mellon in New York in January 2020.  Having held a number of roles at BNYM, he is currently chief operational risk officer and chief risk officer for the Securities Services and Digital business.  Prior to BNYM, Aengus spent five years at Credit Suisse where he was group head of operational risk management and business continuitymanagement.  Aengus started his career in London (originally with Swiss Bank Corporation) and held a variety of front office equities roles with UBS Investment Bank in London, New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.

Andrew is a lecturer with the Climate Risk and Finance Council. Andrew specialises in assessing and managing physical and transition risk using emerging techniques such as scenario analysis and stress testing paired with quantitative risk modeling, data analytics, and automation technologies. From 2018 to 2021, Andrew was a partner at Climate Finance Advisors (CFA), a boutique advisory firm operating at the intersection of climate change policy and financial markets. As coordinator of climate assistance programs for the U.S. Department of State from 2010 to 2014, Andrew managed clean energy programmes and diplomatic initiatives designed to assist developing countries to accelerate their transition to low-carbon growth pathways. Andrew has a masters in public affairs with a focus on international development and climate change from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and a BA in Russian history and literature from Harvard College. He holds the GARP certificate in sustainability and climate risk certification (SCR), is a level II candidate for the CFA and SASB fundamentals of sustainability accounting, and the Columbia University certificate in sustainable finance. 

CJ is the chief compliance officer at Kraken overseeing all aspects of global compliance. He has held many prominent roles in his career. CJ was previously chief compliance officer at Blockchain.com, where he was tasked with building out global compliance frameworks and mitigating compliance risk. Prior to that, CJ had several roles at Deutsche Bank, including head of business line anti-financial crime - Investment Bank, as well as chief compliance officer for its swap dealer and US broker dealer. CJ also worked at UBS Investment Bank in multiple roles, including as global head of client infrastructure. He also served as manager of counterparty relations at Bridgewater Associates, and as senior counsel in the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Michael Zanga is group head of cyber, technology and data risk at Barclays responsible for managing the systemic and residual risk of services at the firm. Prior to Barclays, he was a strategy and transformation executive at IBM. Michael had been previously seated on TechR2’s Advisory Board which is a data protection, assessment and eradication firm. He also was on the Board of Alkymi, which is a natural language and AI data manipulation firm. Michael is very experienced in all facets of technology from working at major international banking institutions including the Royal Bank of Scotland as CIO, Deutsche Bank as CTO and the Union Bank of Switzerland as an engineer. He is a CISSP certified in information security and has a Master’s degree from Iona University. He has worked with the Federal Reserve on reviews of practices across banks. He has focused on cost containment and the continual alignment of technology initiatives with business needs. Michael led in a variety of information security initiatives including

safeguarding critical, confidential, and sensitive data which provided him with the insight into data security regulations making him a subject matter expert.

Michael previously was the President of the Stamford Connecticut Public Education Foundation (SPEF). Founded in 1996, the mission of the Stamford Public Education Foundation (SPEF) is to deliver educational programmes and resources that elevate student, educator, and parent success by bridging the gap between needs in the Stamford Public Schools and resources in our community. The Foundation’s vision is that each and every student in the local public schools will graduate high school prepared and inspired to be a productive member of society.

Michael also worked with the Utah Chamber of Commerce as well as University of Utah and BYU to create in school curriculum that aligned to the Royal Bank of Scotland open roles. Internship programmes and graduate programme were created, which fostered junior talent at the bank as they created an operations programme in Salt Lake City. He is also a professor at Iona University teaching computer systems.

Charlie Donovan is a senior economic advisor at Impax and visiting professor of sustainable finance at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. Charlie’s role at Impax deepens the firm’s expertise in understanding the opportunities arising from a global energy transition. He contributes to Impax’s thought leadership initiatives and provides insights on North American policy developments to Impax’s clients and investment teams.

Before joining lmpax in 2022, Charlie was previously professor of practice at Imperial College London and founding executive director of lmperial’s Centre for Climate Finance and Investment. In his corporate career, Charlie was head of structuring and valuation for global power at BP plc and part of the team that launched BP alternative energy in 2005 with an $8 billion funding commitment. He began his career as an energy policy analyst at the US Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton Administration.

Charlie serves as academic co-chair of the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment (CCRI), an investor body representing $20 trillion of assets under management, and is co-author and editor of Renewable Energy Finance: Powering the Future, now in its second edition. Charlie holds a BA from the University of Washington, an MBA from Vanderbilt University, and gained his doctoral degree from IE Business School.

Mark Hofberg is an accomplished risk management leader with over 20 years of industry experience.  He previously served as a leader in a variety of audit, risk and compliance management functions within retail, wealth, and investment banking at Bank of America.  Mark currently serves customers as Risk Solutions Executive within ServiceNow’s financial services division.  Prior to joining ServiceNow, Mark served as RSA Archer’s field risk officer for US and Canada.

Mark has held various senior leadership roles at Accenture, Bank of America, RSA and now guides customers on their integrated risk transformation journeys with ServiceNow.  He is passionate about the evolution of risk management, emerging risks, and the utilization of technology to optimize business outcomes.  Mark has co-authored white papers on impacts of technical debt, digital risk, and has a patent on optimization of technology decisions (US 8,321,363 · Issued Nov 27, 2012) along with a patent pending process risk prioritization model.  Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from North Carolina State University.

Greg Kanevski, is the Global Head of Banking for ServiceNow serving as the company’s subject matter expert and leading the strategic plan for products within the Retail and Commercial Banking sector.

Prior to ServiceNow, Greg lead a centralized group of experienced professionals managing risk for a diverse number of business lines including Technology, Corporate Security and Data Management.  His team was accountable for the first line risk responsibilities including assurance, risk assessments, program governance & execution as well as quantification analysis. Prior to this role, Greg managed a team of more than 300 security and technical professionals with an annual budget of $40M and a capital budget of approximately $65M that were focused on identity, data management and infrastructure security.  Greg quickly earned respect by rebuilding the function in less than one year, as well as embarking on a modernization effort focused on an end-to-end integration & automation that reduced expenses. Prior to joining Citizens bank, Greg spent more than 20

Filippo is a financial economist in the Quantitative Supervision and Research (QSR) unit of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Filippo joined the Richmond Fed in 2014 after earning his doctorate in Finance at the University of Arizona. Prior to moving to the US, Filippo worked one year for Toro Assicurazioni S.p.a. (now Assicurazioni Generali S.p.a.) and obtained his master degree in Actuarial and Statistical Science from the University of Turin. Since he started working for the Richmond Fed he has been heavily involved in Operational Risk as both modeler and examiner.

Digital native with more than two decades of senior management experiences within the financial industry leading strategic growth and mutations across digital risk, technology and operations. Cyril is chief operational resilience officer for BNP Paribas CIB Americas. He is responsible for imporving the organisation's risk management as well as resilience capabilities across business, continuity, cyber resilience, technology and third-party resilience. Cyril thinks himself a proponent of thought leadership, is an avid reader, speaker and writer… mainly on twitter; he is contributing to cross industry collaboration, and regulatory framework enhancement. 

With 14 years of Financial Services industry experience, Rob currently leads the Internal and External Loss Data team within Operational Risk Management at PNC. Rob has developed new risk frameworks and identifies and provides risk management and control solutions to address high profile and complex problems. Rob has overseen acquisition duties including integration of enterprise-wide risk data. Prior to joining PNC, Rob spent 7 years at BNY Mellon with positions in Asset Servicing and Global Markets. Rob has a keen eye for process improvements and automation using technology in the risk management and data analysis space.

Rob has held leadership roles at both PNC and BNY Mellon and holds a BSBA with a concentration in Economics from Robert Morris University and an MBA with a concentration in Management Information Systems from Point Park University.

Adam Ennamli is the current chief risk officer at General Bank of Canada, overseeing the evolution and management of all enterprise-wide risks. He leverages over 15 years of risk management, compliance and operations leadership experience at major financial and technology institutions globally, including Thomson Reuters, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Morgan Stanley and National Bank of Canada.

In his prior roles, Adam spearheaded the development of risk management, governance and compliance programmes driving strategic decision-making and prudent growth. He holds an MBA from HEC Montreal as well as multiple ESG certifications, complementing his expertise across ERM, cyber security, operational resilience and technology. Adam is recognised for enabling companies to build durable competitive advantages through world-class capabilities.

Matthew Moore is a New York-based executive with 20+ experience in a variety of roles in the banking industry. He is currently a director at Barclays with responsibility as US head of operational risk for the markets, banking, research and treasury businesses. Prior to Barclays, he was the Americas lead at Deutsche Bank responsible for overseeing Americas second line operational risk teams responsible for resilience, third party, technology and transaction processing.  Previous to this role he spent over a decade in finance and operations supporting the markets business at both Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan. Matthew holds a Bachelor's degree from University of South Florida and FINRA Series 99.

Rajith Sebastian is the head of ESG and sustainable investing at NYSIF, where he leads the sustainable investing, stewardship, and ESG integration activities across the $20bn portfolio. He also holds the position of head of impact investments at the Wharton School’s ESG Initiative, where he oversees various research and experiential education programmes that aim to advance the field of sustainable investing. Rajith brings a wealth of global experience in finance and consulting, with 14 years of work experience in investment banking, private equity and management consulting across Europe, Africa and China. He earned his Bachelor of Business Science degree from the University of Cape Town and completed his MBA at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a CFA charterholder.

Since 2021 Alex is managing director at Citi, office of operations and technology transformation. He leads a global function for Citi-wide operations and technology transformation, with focus on risk and controls, enterprise risk management, data governance, straight-thru processing, finance, workforce planning, and compliance. 

Alex joined Citi from IHS Markit (acquired by S&P Global) where he led third party risk assessments business (part of a joint venture with 16 Banks) to improve operational resilience, regulatory compliance, and cost. He led enablement of multiple industry consortiums and establishment of strategic industry partnerships. 

Previously, for over 20 years at BNY Mellon Alex led numerous global  functions, including technology transformation, third party risk management, business process improvement, enterprise architecture and shared services.  

Alex has MBA in Finance & Management and BS in Computer Science from NYU, project management professional (PMP), certified data privacy solutions engineer (CDPSE), and certified information security manager (CISM) certifications. He served on multiple advisory boards as an expert in cybersecurity, risk, and technology.

As the leader for horizontal programmes within the operational risk group at U.S. Bank, Faron leads teams responsible for the issue management program, product and service delivery risk management programme, enterprise taxonomy programme, GRC transformation programme’s 2LOD activities and readiness and technology oversight for risk management use cases and requirements. Faron has a diverse career history across financial service operations, first line of defense risk management and second line of defense programmes and technology.

Prior to his current role, Faron served as the head of the RCSA programme for Union Bank through the bank’s acquisition by U.S. Bank. Previous roles have also included head of business management for risk in the Americas and GRC transformation business lead at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

Before joining Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Faron spent nearly a decade at Bank of America in horizontal risk programmes and consumer operations. He holds an M.B.A. in Supply Chain Management from Arizona State University and a B.B.A in Economics from the University of North Dakota.

Rinku Sinha is the programme lead for the supervision group cybersecurity policy department at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  She leads a team that is responsible for developing and managing cybersecurity policy objectives to advance cyber risk reduction in the financial sector.  During her 20 years at the Fed, Rinku has served in many capacities, including supervising IT, operational and cyber risks at significantly important financial institutions both domestic and international.  She holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Michigan.

Penny is head of operational risk Americas governance with UBS, where she currently manages the operational risk framework, practices, regulatory responses and core programmes. Operational risk & regulation magazine awarded Penny three awards for her contribution to the field of operational risk, including a special industry award in 2011. Penny has published widely, including authoring the chapter on risk and control self assessments for the PRMIA Operational Risk Manager Handbook.

Brian Smith is the head of information risk and resilience at Prudential Financial. In this role, he oversees the implementation of operational risk management policies and processes for technology, data and cyber risk across the company and oversees the business continuation and third-party risk management programmes.  

Prior to joining Prudential in early 2014, Brian worked at AIG leading the IT security, risk and compliance team for AIG Global Services; at MetLife as a director of IT audit; and at Ernst & Young as a manager in their technology risk assurance and consulting practices. Brian also served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force.

Brian is a certified information systems auditor and certified in risk and information systems control. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a master of business administration degree from Georgia College and State University, and a master's degree in information systems from New York University.

As Vice President of Operational Risk, Michael leads the first line of defense risk management for financial crimes, privacy and information security, business resiliency, vendor management and compliance with regulatory requirements. Mike and his team establishes the risk direction by aligning the Multifamily Governance Framework with the business operating model. He continually improves governance by understanding the multifaceted drivers that effect risk environment.

Akshaya, an ESG & climate model validator, thrives within Deutsche Bank's model risk management team in vibrant New York City. Prior to her tenure at Deutsche Bank, Akshaya specialised in catastrophe risk models, delving into both natural and man-made peril models, including earthquakes, terrorism and cyber risks. Holding a geology background from Cornell University, Ithaca, and St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, she exudes a unique blend of expertise. Beyond her professional journey, Akshaya is a zealous advocate for diversity, equity & inclusion, as well as corporate social responsibility. Outside the walls of Deutsche Bank, you'll find her strumming the ukulele and harmonising vocal melodies (eliciting debates between being mellifluous or cacophonous), playing volleyball, immersing herself in philosophical non-dualism literature, and embracing the joy of cycling when the weather bestows its delight.

With many years of experience deploying business continuity and risk management platforms globally, Rich Cooper oversees customer success and business development for large, global accounts.

Rich has more than 20 years of experience in the business continuity and risk management marketplace, running programmes and implementing software in both Europe and North America for some of the world’s largest organsations. He has an MBCI certification from the Business Continuity Institute.

Michele was appointed to Americas head of operational risk in July 2016 reporting to the chief risk officer. Responsible for defining the goals, missions, day-to-day management of the overall operational risk management framework including data, technology and business continuity risk, cyber security risk management, third-party risk management, control testing and global risk monitoring teams.

Michele’s career at Société Générale began in 1993 and has worked in all three lines-of-defense. Her career began as a manager in internal audit. In 1999, Michele moved to San Francisco and worked in the investment banking division. She has held various positions in operations including: control manager responsible for accounting, system administration and managementreporting; chief of staff and head of operational risk management; head of structured finance operations, as well as responsible for the oversight of all operations in Brazil and Canada.

Michele received a Master’s in Finance from St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia, and a B.S. in Accounting from St. Joseph's University. Michele has successfully obtained series 99 regulatory license.

Nita Kohli is an operational resilience executive who is driving to strengthen and mature resiliency capabilities across industry, recently serving as a board advisor. She is formerly the global head of enterprise resilience at Citi, and prior to that at Freddie Mac. She partners with executives, regulators, and industry counterparts to drive convergence and integration across the industry to promote consistency across peer institutions, and harmonisation with the intent of the regulations.

Nita has 25+ years of multi-disciplinary experience within the financial industry. She has held a variety of leadership roles across a multitude of functional areas, including technology, operations, finance, risk & control, and has a demonstrated record of accomplishment having led several large-scale business transformations.

Nita’s career spans internationally, across Europe, Asia and North America. She is a chartered accountant (ACA) and has a BSc(Hons) in Mathematics and Management from King’s College, University of London.

Nita has recently published several articles with the Disaster Recovery Journal and Newsweek. She has been an industry finalist Excellence in Leadership with both Women in Housing and Disaster Recovery Institute.

In 2022, Nita has been named as one of the Top 50 American Asians in Business.

Sabeena Ahmed Liconte serves as head of legal and chief compliance officer, Americas to ICBC Standard Bank Group (“ICBC Standard”), including its SEC-registered broker-dealer, ICBC Standard Securities Inc., and its CFTC-registered introducing broker, ICBC Standard Resources (America) Inc.

Prior to joining ICBC Standard, Sabeena’s previous professional experience included serving as deputy chief operating officer and chief legal officer to the US investment banking division of Bank of China International. She also served as futures & derivatives counsel to E*TRADE Financial Corp., including E*TRADE Clearing Corp. and E*TRADE Securities Corp.; and worked for the office of general counsel at Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Incorporated, the division of enforcement at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Bank of New York Mellon’s legal division and the securities fraud prosecution division of the Attorney General’s Office for the State of New Jersey.

Sabeena is a licensed attorney with a Juris Doctor from the St. John’s University School of Law. She also completed a visiting year at Fordham University School of Law. In addition to her law degree, she holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from Columbia University and, paying homage to her Canadian roots, a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology and Political Science from the University of Toronto.

She also serves as a member of the executive committee to the Futures Industry Association’s Law and Compliance Division; advisory board member of the Center for Financial Professionals FinTech Advisory Group; Diversity Chair of the American Bar Association’s Business Law Committee – Futures and Derivatives Law Subcommittee; and member of the New York City Bar Association’s Foreign and Comparative Law Committee, and Derivatives and Futures Committees.

David is the global chief information security officer for GSR. David’s experience includes serving as president of CISO’s Connect and being a senior partner at Law and Forensics responsible for the crypto and digital banking practice and serving as a key member of the cybersecurity and privacy practice. David served as a senior banking regulator. He was the vice president for cyber and IT risk for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. David specialised in large institution supervision, fin-tech, AI/ML and cryptocurrencies. Prior to this role, David served as the chief information security officer for IBM. He had global responsibility for all aspects of security practices, processes and policies across the IBM Cloud SaaS business unit.

Previously, David served as the SVP and chief information security officer for Elsevier, where he led an organisation of experienced legal, risk and security professionals that provided data protection, privacy, security and risk management guidance on a global basis for Elsevier.

David has extensive experience in IT security, risk assessment, risk management, business continuity and disaster recovery, developing security policies and procedures. He has played a key role in leading and building corporate risk and governance and information security organisations in the financial sector. As the senior director of information security risk and governance for Freddie Mac, David rebuilt the risk and governance function and developed a team to provide risk assessments, methodologies, tools, services and training to improve the organisation’s capabilities and maturity. Prior to that, he was vice president of risk management for JPMorgan Chase and was responsible for providing an accurate assessment of the current risk management state, contributing to the future direction of risk management, continuity and disaster recovery capabilities for the organisation.

David has a MSE from the University of Pennsylvania, and a MBA from MIT. He is adjunct faculty for Harvard. He is also a frequent speaker at high profile industry conferences and served on several boards

Landon Winkelvoss co-founded Nisos in 2015 and serves as its VP of intelligence research, where he leads public-facing and community adversary research. Furthermore, he leads Nisos intelligence advisors where his team is directly involved in go-to-market sales, demand generation marketing efforts, targeted prospecting, partnership acquisition, product management advice and project sales conversion to annual recurring revenue. He also sits on the board of directors and is involved in the strategic direction of Nisos with Columbia Capital, Paladin Capital Group, and Skylab Capital. His vision as a founder was to deliver intelligence community-level digital insights to blue-chip companies to enable a stronger defence and more effective response against advanced cyberattacks, disinformation, threats to executives and physical assets and abuse of digital platforms. Prior to founding Nisos, he spent 10 years as a technical targeting officer for the U.S. intelligence community, including multiple warzone deployments and overseas postings. Landon is a regular contributor to numerous publications on cyber intelligence and investigations including Security Week, Dark Reading and SC Magazine.

Serge De Coster is the chief intelligence and analytics officer at Acin. Prior to Acin, Serge was the head of analytics and co-head of CIB at Coalition Greenwich, a leading provider of benchmarking analytics to the financial service industry and before that, he spent four years at Oliver Wyman, where he advised global corporate and investment banks in Europe, US and Asia. With an educational background in finance, computer science and a qualified Actuary, Serge brings deep expertise in data analytics, benchmarking and risk management, acquired by advising most global banks on capital management and capital optimisation.

Hamid serves as Vice President of Risk Analytics, Risk Management at OMERS. He has over 13 years of experience in the Pension Industry with a primary focus on Risk Management. He's earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of Toronto.

Ms. Garcia joined Apollo in 2021 as the Head of Market Risk.  Prior to joining Apollo, Ms. Garcia was an Executive Vice President and Portfolio Risk Manager at PIMCO from 2007-2021.  While at PIMCO she served on various management committees, oversaw investment and counterparty risk, and led firm planning for LIBOR transition.  Prior to PIMCO, Ms. Garcia was employed by Barclays Capital within the CDO Structuring group.  She graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a Masters of Financial Engineering and Columbia University with a BS in Applied Mathematics.

Ronald Ratcliffe, PhD, is a Managing Director in BlackRock’s Applied Portfolio Analysis practice area within the Analytics & Quantitative Solutions (AQS) group. He focuses on multi-asset portfolio risk, scenario analysis, and portfolio construction.

Dr. Ratcliffe's service with BlackRock dates back to 2004, including his years with Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which merged with BlackRock in 2009. Prior to joining AQS, he led the Market-Driven Scenarios (MDS) initiative as Head of Cross-Platform Scenario Analysis in the Risk & Quantitative Analysis (RQA) group. Previously in RQA, he was Head of Multi-Asset Investment Risk for the Americas West region. In the Portfolio Management Group (PMG), he was a portfolio manager and developed systematic macro trading strategies. Prior to joining BGI, Dr. Ratcliffe was a senior manager at KPMG in corporate valuation and international transfer pricing. Previously, he was the chief economist for Latin America at SG Cowen Securities, a subsidiary of Societe Generale. Before that he was with Bankers Trust Company (now part of Deutsche Bank) where he carried out country risk analysis.

Dr. Ratcliffe earned BA degrees in economics and in political science, with distinction and with departmental honors in economics, from Stanford University. He received a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Matt Kaczmarek is global head of private debt sustainable investing at BlackRock. He leads a team overseeing the consideration of ESG factors in the investment process and developing sustainable investment solutions. Matt is co-head of BlackRock’s Los Angeles office and chairs the firm’s Out & Allies LGBTQ+ employee network for the Americas. Prior to joining BlackRock, Matt held senior economic policy appointments in the White House under President Obama and served in the U.S. Treasury and State Departments. He received his BA from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and MA from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

John Levy is the director of impact for Franklin Real Asset Advisors. He is responsible for the thoughtful integration of impact management into the Real Asset team's investment processes. Mr. Levy manages a framework which covers impact goal-setting, measurement, evaluation and reporting.

Mr. Levy began working for Franklin Templeton Investments in 2005 as an intern. He later joined the company's Futures Program and took a position with Franklin Templeton Solutions in 2008, and Franklin Real Asset Advisors in 2018.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Levy was director of manager research for Franklin Templeton Multi-Asset Solutions

Mr. Levy holds a B.A. in economics and political science from Bucknell University (2005). He graduated Magna Cum Laude with Honors in economics. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) charterholder.

Andy Sparks is Managing Director and Head of Portfolio Management Research. Previously, he was responsible for Fixed income Research Strategies.  Andy and his group show how MSCI’s analytical models can be used to offer investment insights on topical market issues.  In this role, he is able to leverage his extensive knowledge of valuation models, indexes and portfolio risk methodologies. Previously, Mr. Sparks had been Head of Technical Product Management, with responsibility for product vision and leadership in the buildout of MSCI’s multi-asset portfolio analytic products.

Prior to joining MSCI in 2011, Mr. Sparks had been Head of Product Management for the POINT business at Barclays Capital, where he had responsibility for product strategy and product execution for the POINT portfolio analytics platform.  Mr. Sparks was named the Head of the POINT marketing group at Lehman Brothers in 2004.  He also had managerial responsibility for Lehman’s index business between 2006-2008. 

Mr. Sparks joined Lehman Brothers in 1995.  Other senior level positions he held within the bank include Head of Mortgage Strategies and Head of U.S. Rate Strategies.  In this role, Mr. Sparks and his group were repeatedly named to Institutional Investor’s All-America Fixed Income Research Team.  Before joining Lehman, Mr. Sparks had been Head of Mortgage and Rates Research at Citicorp Securities.

Mr. Sparks has an M.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Economics from UCLA. 

Jean Carlos is an accomplished economist and seasoned banker with over 20 years of global investment banking experience. Currently serving as the Executive Director and US Head of Risk Appetite & Limits and Valuation at Santander Corporate Investment Banking, He leads a team responsible for governance, admission, and risk control of capital markets activity in the US.

Jean Carlos possesses a wealth of expertise in technical, fundamental, markets, and risk knowledge, including ESG and impact investment approaches. Throughout his career, Jean Carlos has been instrumental in constructing robust capabilities and risk frameworks, geared towards facilitating multi-assets class activities within capital markets, with a focus on Latin America and the US. 

Jean Carlos earned a Master in Business Administration from MIT, with Business Analytics and Sustainability certifications. He also holds a Bachelor in Economics and a Master in Banking and Financial Markets. Beyond finance, he has contributed to sustainability projects with positive social, environmental, and financial impact.

David is responsible for risk management of Blackrock's Alternatives businesses consisting of Hedge Funds, Private Equity, Private Credit, High Yield, Real Estate, Infrastructure, Commodities and Currency funds. Before joining Blackrock, David was Commonfund’s Chief Risk Officer. Commonfund manages alternative heavy, endowment and foundation  portfolios. Before joining Commonfund, David was the Global Head of Hedge Fund Credit for UBS Investment Bank responsible for the risk management of hedge fund, private equity and managed fund exposures in the Investment Bank globally. Also at UBS, he was Head of Risk Management - Americas for UBS Prime Brokerage. Prior to UBS, he spent 10 years in Asia and was Head of Risk Management for Temasek Holdings, a Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund.  Prior to Temasek, David traded Sovereign Debt for a hedge fund and underwrote Political Risk Insurance at Citibank. David is the author of two books on risk management, Value Added Risk Management (Wiley 2004) and Managing Hedge Fund Risk and Financing (Wiley 2011). He graduated from Bowdoin College Cum Laude and received his M.B.A. and Master’s Of Science International Relations from Yale University.  Mr. Belmont is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) He is also a lecturer on Risk Management for Asset Managers at the Yale School of Management.

Eric Schaanning is heading the Group Banking Book team covering Interest Rate Risk in the Banking Book for the combined UBS & Credit Suisse Group. Prior to joining UBS / Credit Suisse, Eric held various positions at the European Central Bank and Norges Bank, covering Stress Testing, Macroprudential Policy, Cyber Risk and Central Clearing among others. Eric holds a PhD in Mathematics from Imperial College London and an MSc in Mathematics from ETH Zürich.

Mark Cabana is the head of US Short Rates Strategy at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research, based in New York. In this role, he publishes research and trade recommendations covering US short-term interest rates and macro strategy. He also meets regularly with a broad range of clients to discuss the firm's views on Fed policy, interest rates and financial regulation. He has been with the firm and in this role since 2015.

Before joining the firm, Cabana worked as an officer in the Markets Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which he joined in January 2007, analyzing global macroeconomic conditions and financial markets. Prior to that role, he was a senior trader/analyst on the Fed’s Treasury Market Policy staff.

Cabana earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and Asian studies at Furman University and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University in international relations. He is a CFA charterholder.

Avi is an experienced treasury risk professional with extensive leadership experience in building and leading Treasury (Asset and Liability Management (ALM), Interest Rate Risk (IRR), Liquidity, and CCAR) and market risk teams. 

Avi is currently working as Head of Liquidity, Interest, and Market Risk at Apple Bank. Prior to Apple, Avi spent 7 years at BNY Mellon as Head of Treasury Market Risk. Avi also worked at Cantor Fitzgerald in various capacities in both risk and trading.  Avi has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS from Yeshiva University.

Petr Chovanec is GWMA Banking Quantitative Analysis and Data Science Team Lead at UBS Global Wealth Management where he leads a team modeling, predicting, and optimizing the balance sheet and income statement of America’s wealth management banking. In his position, he is involved in business forecasting, strategic planning, capital optimization, and various stress testing exercises (CCAR, CECL, LPA). Before the position with UBS, he spent four years in the capital management group and in model validation of Citizens Bank (formerly RBS Citizens) and State Street. Before that, he was a front office quant in fixed income, currency, and commodities trading with State Street and ENGiE.

Mark is the Global Brand Director at Chartis and has over 30 years’ experience in global capital markets, consulting and associated technologies focusing on risk management, front and middle office platforms and data management. Prior to Chartis he has held executive roles in large global financial institutions, consultancies and FinTechs in various positions including platform and software development, solution architecture, large scale program management, vendor selection and implementation and strategy development and execution. With a background covering front, middle and back office Mark brings a holistic view of business, technology and regulatory issues across the enterprise and how these issues can be addressed by leveraging appropriate technology solutions.  His primary focus has been risk technology and includes leading the global teams for risk technology at RBS Capital Markets and AIG, Middle office and front office technology teams at Barclays Capital, extensive consulting experience with major consulting organizations including EY and Deloitte together with extensive vendor experience including time at both Algorithmics and Misys (now Finastra). Mark has an MA from Oxford University and is Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Sven Sandow is the Global Head of Credit and Operational Risk Analytics at Morgan Stanley. During his 20-year career in the financial industry, Sven has worked in various quantitative modeling, risk management, and capital management capacities. Prior to Morgan Stanley, he worked at Merrill Lynch and Standard & Poor’s. Before he joined the financial industry, Sven worked as a physicist at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the Weizmann Institute of Science. He has been an active researcher in physics, finance, and machine learning. His research has been published in academic journals, and he coauthored a book on learning from data. Sven holds a Ph.D. in physics from the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany.

Chris is a member of Milliman’s Cyber Risk Solutions (CRS) practice group.  The practice delivers a portfolio of risk consulting services, such as enterprise risk design, cyber risk assessment and quantification, test and build projects, operational risk assessments, enterprise risk management (ERM) education and training, and ERM technology evaluation. The CRS practice uses diagnostic consulting strategies to understand an organization’s enterprise risk goals and challenges and then customize solutions to deliver required business results. 

EXPERIENCE

Chris has 15 years of professional experience.  His experience includes work in the banking, insurance, capital markets and card sectors helping clients assess and mitigate risk. 

Prior to joining Milliman, Chris was a Senior Manager in Accenture’s Finance and Risk Management Consulting practice, delivering work for global financial service clients.   Additionally, Chris served as an active duty Naval Officer and has multiple overseas deployments. 

Professional experience and subject matter advisory includes: 

• Cyber Security metrics and governance
• Financial Service Regulatory and Compliance initiatives
• Risk Management 
• Corporate and Risk Governance
• Surveillance 
• Financial Services operating model and cost reduction
• Regulatory remediation and responses
• Legal department risk and optimization
• Leading large cross functional projects and teams

EDUCATION

• BS Political Science, University of Wisconsin–Madison
• MBA, University of Chicago – Booth School of Business

Kristen has 25+ years of experience in risk management and analytics at large buy- and sell-side firms.  Currently serving as CRO for The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.  Kristen also served as CRO of Natixis Investment Managers from 2020-2022.

Prior to Natixis, she was the Chief Operating Officer of BlackRock's Risk and Quantitative Analysis (RQA) Group from 2012-2020. Kristen reported to the firm's Chief Risk Officer (CRO) and is a member of RQA's EXCO. Her responsibilities included ensuring RQA effectively manages market, counterparty credit, liquidity and operational risk on behalf of BlackRock and fiduciary clients.  She was 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 worked 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 was recently senior vice president, chief risk officer of Prudential Financial, Inc. In this role, Silitch oversaw Prudential’s risk management infrastructure and risk profile across all business lines and risk types. Under his direction, his team developed 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 was 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 worked with external stakeholder groups to forward industry interests. He was head of the International Affairs Committee for the North American Chief Risk Officers’ Council, and 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.

Jonathan Hummel is the Chief Risk Officer (CRO) of the Americas for Deutsche Bank which includes oversight for Credit, Market, Non-Financial, Model and Liquidity Risk.  He is a member of the Group CRO Executive Council as well as the Americas Regional Executive Council and serves as the Chair of the U.S. Management Risk Council, Americas Reputational Risk Committee, U.S. Liquidity Risk Council and Risk Data Governance Steering Forum.  He is also the regional sponsor of the Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) strategy for Risk Americas to promote an inclusive organization.

Jonathan joined Deutsche Bank in 2004.  He has held various senior roles in Credit Risk Management including global oversight of Financial Institution and Hedge Fund Portfolios.  Additionally, he has held cross risk roles including Global Head of Risk for FX, Rates and Institutional Clients Group overseeing Market, Credit, Liquidity and Non-Financial Risk.  Prior to working at Deutsche Bank, Jonathan was at Goldman Sachs where he worked in Credit Risk and Legal.  

Jonathan has held leadership roles in a number of industry organizations.  He is the former Chairperson of the Capital Markets Credit Analysts Society from 2008-2011.  He is currently on the Board of Governors for the Risk Management Association (RMA) of New York.  He has been a speaker on a number of industry panels and a guest lecturer at the London School of Economics and Fordham University. 

Jonathan attended Dartmouth College where he graduated with honors.

Ronald Ratcliffe, PhD, is a Managing Director in BlackRock’s Applied Portfolio Analysis practice area within the Analytics & Quantitative Solutions (AQS) group. He focuses on multi-asset portfolio risk, scenario analysis, and portfolio construction.

Dr. Ratcliffe's service with BlackRock dates back to 2004, including his years with Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which merged with BlackRock in 2009. Prior to joining AQS, he led the Market-Driven Scenarios (MDS) initiative as Head of Cross-Platform Scenario Analysis in the Risk & Quantitative Analysis (RQA) group. Previously in RQA, he was Head of Multi-Asset Investment Risk for the Americas West region. In the Portfolio Management Group (PMG), he was a portfolio manager and developed systematic macro trading strategies. Prior to joining BGI, Dr. Ratcliffe was a senior manager at KPMG in corporate valuation and international transfer pricing. Previously, he was the chief economist for Latin America at SG Cowen Securities, a subsidiary of Societe Generale. Before that he was with Bankers Trust Company (now part of Deutsche Bank) where he carried out country risk analysis.

Dr. Ratcliffe earned BA degrees in economics and in political science, with distinction and with departmental honors in economics, from Stanford University. He received a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Saskia Goedhart joined HOOPP in 2020 as Senior Vice President & Chief Risk Officer, and she is responsible for the evolution and ongoing enhancement of the risk management function for the organization. She is accountable for continuing to strengthen HOOPP’s risk systems, practices and monitoring to meet current and future demands.
Saskia has more than 20 years of experience in senior risk positions. She has extensive expertise in designing and implementing value-add risk management frameworks and maintaining risk-aware cultures in financial organizations around the world.
Most recently she served as Chief Risk Officer for IMCO (Investment Management Corporation of Ontario), an independent long-term investor for Ontario's public sector. Prior to that Saskia was the Chief Risk Officer of AMP Ltd., a Sydney, Australia based financial institution with a broad range of business lines.
Saskia holds a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration with a focus on financial management, and a Master’s in Accountancy from Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

Rob Allard is the Chief Investment Officer and Head of Rothesay Asset Management in North America. With over 20 years of experience in structured finance, Rob joined Rothesay Asset Management in 2018 to build and run the investment portfolio in North America. Prior to his current roles, Rob was the founding partner and CEO of Firebreak Capital, as well as Managing Director, Head of Structured Product Sales at Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. He is currently studying part-time at Harvard to obtain his Masters in Sustainability and he currently holds a graduate Certificate from Harvard in Corporate Sustainability and Innovation and a Certificate from Harvard Business School in Sustainable Business Strategy.

Wei Zhu is a Managing Director and Global Head the Market Risk Analytics in Citi.  After joining Citi in 2001, he has worked in various risk modeling areas including market risk, counterparty credit risk, and risk capital.   Mr. Zhu has a Ph.D. in Physics from New York University and is a CFA charter holder since 2004.

For 25 years Tat has been contributing in Treasury and Capital Markets quant and mathematical finance space. He is currently the Global Head of Risk Model Methodology at Jefferies, and was a senior principal and senior manager for  many years in the financial technology space.Tat holds a Ph.D from Columbia mathematics department and currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University, inspiring the next generation since 2006.

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.

Ms. Garcia joined Apollo in 2021 as the Head of Market Risk.  Prior to joining Apollo, Ms. Garcia was an Executive Vice President and Portfolio Risk Manager at PIMCO from 2007-2021.  While at PIMCO she served on various management committees, oversaw investment and counterparty risk, and led firm planning for LIBOR transition.  Prior to PIMCO, Ms. Garcia was employed by Barclays Capital within the CDO Structuring group.  She graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a Masters of Financial Engineering and Columbia University with a BS in Applied Mathematics.

Suresh Srinivasan is currently the Americas FRTB implementation lead at HSBC. Prior to this role, Suresh helped in establishing the GMS program in HSBC. Before his career in HSBC, Suresh worked as a Management Consultant in EY and assisted several major US banks in their GMS initiatives. Suresh has held several leadership roles and has worked with multiple functional units in the Traded Products and Investment Banking domain. Suresh earned his MBA in Finance from Zicklin School of Business, New York and Bachelors in Engineering from India.

Suzanne is a Managing Director and Chief Risk Operating Officer at State Street Global Advisors as well as a member of the firm’s Senior Leadership Team.  She oversees Counterparty Credit Risk and Risk Infrastructure.  She leads a team of analysts responsible for the management and development of credit risk policies and procedures, comprehensive trade exposure reporting, oversight and monitoring of counterparties, as well as regulatory deliverables and project management of key technology and platform initiatives.

Suzanne has deep credit experience in both front office and risk management.  Prior to joining State Street Global Advisors in 2013, Suzanne worked at Fidelity as a senior analyst in Counterparty Research.  Previously, she held fixed income analyst positions at Eaton Vance and Deutsche Asset Management covering a broad range of industries and debt instruments.  Early in her career, Suzanne completed the credit training program at Bank of Boston and was a corporate relationship banker.

Suzanne earned her MBA from Boston University’s Questrom Business School and BA from Hamilton College.  She has been a speaker on fixed income and risk industry panels as well as a contributor to Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP) publications.  She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a member of the CFA Institute.  She is also involved in the arts and serves as a board member for the Boston Ballet Volunteer Association.  

Ash Majid is Managing Director and Chief Risk Officer for SMBC Capital Markets, Inc. & SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc. wholly owned subsidiaries of SMBC Americas Holdings, Inc. In his current role he oversees teams responsible for managing the risk from the two subsidiaries within the broader America’s Division risk management team. Prior to joining SMBC Capital Markets, Ash worked at Ernst and Young, LLP within their Quantitative Advisory Services and SunTrust Banks, Inc. with oversight of their derivatives trading desks' market risk. Ash holds a Doctorate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Master's degree in Quantitative and Computational Finance from Georgia Institute of Technology. Additionally, Ash holds FINRA Series 7 & 24 licenses.

Rajat Baijal is the Managing Director – Global Head of Enterprise Risk at Cantor Fitzgerald. In this role, he is responsible for designing and embedding a robust Risk Framework across the firm. This includes articulating and implementing a robust Risk & Control Self-Assessment (RCSA), Risk Event Management, Key Risk Indicators etc. and ensuring that the Board is suitably informed about all material issues.

Rajat has an MBA in Finance and has previously worked for Kensington Mortgages, Lloyds Banking Group and Aviva specialising in global implementation of their Risk Framework. Rajat is a regular speaker at risk conferences across London and New York and has authored a number of articles for risk journals/textbooks.

Sven Sandow is the Global Head of Credit and Operational Risk Analytics at Morgan Stanley. During his 20-year career in the financial industry, Sven has worked in various quantitative modeling, risk management, and capital management capacities. Prior to Morgan Stanley, he worked at Merrill Lynch and Standard & Poor’s. Before he joined the financial industry, Sven worked as a physicist at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the Weizmann Institute of Science. He has been an active researcher in physics, finance, and machine learning. His research has been published in academic journals, and he coauthored a book on learning from data. Sven holds a Ph.D. in physics from the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany.

Vishal Thakkar is Chief Risk Officer at OCC, the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization. 

In this role, Mr. Thakkar is responsible for implementing OCC's Risk Management Strategy, which includes Enterprise Risk Management, Third Party Risk Management, Model Risk Management, Strategic Risk, Model Validation and Model Risk Governance areas.

Previously, Mr. Thakkar led the Enterprise Risk Management function for OCC and was responsible for designing a sound risk management framework with processes and systems to conduct risk assessments, support risk management decisions and prepare the company’s risk profile. He previously served as First Vice President of Financial Risk Management (FRM), Risk Advisory Services where under his leadership, FRM defined a transformation roadmap and significantly strengthened the risk and control environment to enhance process effectiveness and meet regulatory requirements. Mr. Thakkar first joined OCC in 2016 as First Vice President, Internal Audit and was responsible for leading Technology and Operations Audits for the company.

From 2004 to 2016, Vishal held internal audit and risk management roles for Southern Company Gas, most recently serving as Director Internal Audit, Corporate/Shared Services and Regulated Operations and prior to that as Senior Manager of Risk Management. Before joining Southern Company Gas, Vishal served in a variety of consulting, operations, and technology roles at Accenture and MCI.

Vishal earned both a bachelor’s degree in information systems and an MBA in entrepreneurship from DePaul University. A member of the Institute of Internal Auditors and ISACA, Vishal has been a regular speaker at industry events. He is a Certified Information Systems Auditor and a Certified Fraud Examiner. 

As Managing Director in Enterprise Model Risk Management (EMRM), Jing Zou is responsible for validating models in Securitized Products, Pre-Provision Net Revenue, Retail Credit models, and interest rate derivatives models. She also developed Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) model fragility analysis, which identifies the impact of model uncertainty on capital ratios. She is an invited speaker for many industry model risk management training courses.

Jing joined RBC in 2014 as a Director in local model risk manager, where she was responsible of engaging the business about model risks. Later on, she was promoted to Senior Director and then Managing Director and has expanded the scope to cover the validation of 40% of CCAR models. Prior to joining RBC, Jing worked at Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Fannie Mae in various quantitative analytics roles covering front office quant, market risk, and model risk areas.

Jing has a Ph.D. in Applied and Computational Mathematics from Princeton University and a B.S. and M.S. in Computational Mathematics in Xi’an Jiaotong University.

Steve Boras is the Head of Model Risk Management & Validation at Citizens Bank in Boston, focused on managing the model risk of the bank via validation of models, performance management and monitoring of outcomes, and serving as a sounding board for new and emerging modeling techniques and their respective appropriateness. Since joining Citizens in 2015, Steve has led several risk analytics functions, most recently heading the Risk Architecture Center of Excellence (covering loss forecasting model development for CCAR/DFAST and CECL, and PD, LGD, and EAD modeling for wholesale), as well as anti-money laundering modeling, macroeconomic scenario generation, and Data Science.  Steve also holds leadership roles in enterprise risk, ESG and Inflation/Stagflation scenario analysis, and artificial intelligence and machine learning governance.

Venky Venkatesh is the Head of Multi-Asset Investment Risk at the Vanguard Group. Venky has been with Vanguard since 2018 and is responsible for overseeing the risk governance for the flagship Target Retirement Fund suite (target date funds) at Vanguard. Additionally, Venky’s team is responsible for overseeing both liquidity and derivatives risk for Vanguard’s 40-Act funds.

Venky has more than 15 years’ experience in Investment Risk Management. Prior to joining Vanguard, Venky was Vice President at Oppenheimerfunds specializing in risk management of fixed income domestic, and municipal funds.

Venky has a master’s degree in computer science from University of Missouri and an MBA from NYU Stern. He is also a CFA Charterholder.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management 1997 – Present

US Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, D.C. 2019- 2021

Barclays Bank 2008 – 2009 (Global Head of Equity Research, Barclays Global Investors)

Harvard University, Harvard Business School 2005 – 2006

University of Rochester, Simon School of Business 1986 – 1998

Jen Liang is a Vice President and Portfolio Manager at AIG Investments, where she co-manages more than $13 billion in emerging market debt. She is an honoree on the Forbes 30 Under 30 List 2022.

At AIG, Jen is responsible for constructing portfolios, developing strategies, providing market insight and execution, and managing counterparty relationships for USD and local currency portfolios across strategies. She also plays an active role in improving portfolio analytics and marketing for EM. Prior to joining AIG, Jen was an investment manager at Fosun Group, an international conglomerate and investment company. Before Fosun, Jen was an associate at AllianceBernstein. Jen obtained Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Grinnell College and was a recipient of the merit-based Trustee Honor Scholarship.

Jen is a CFA Charterholder and holds the Certificate in ESG Investing. She is also a RYT500 Yoga Teacher and an avid traveler who speaks 4 languages.

Dr. Chen is a Director of Portfolio Management at PanAgora, and the lead portfolio manager for Global Sustainable Strategy. In this role, he is responsible for leading the development of PanAgora’s ESG strategy, including alpha research, portfolio management, and model and product development. He is also responsible for novel ML alpha research and model development in the Dynamic team and across the wider Equity group, and daily management of firm’s Dynamic portfolios. Dr. Chen’s research interests are in the areas of machine learning, ESG, and alternative datasets. In this capacity, Dr. Chen developed a novel ESG portfolio construction framework for which patent has been filed. Previously, he was a portfolio manager at PanAgora’s Stock Selector team.

Prior to joining PanAgora, Dr. Chen was a Portfolio Manager at BlackRock’s Scientific Active Equity (SAE) team, where his responsibilities include portfolio management and research into alpha insights for use across the entire SAE platform. While at SAE, Dr. Chen won “Signal of the Year” award for an alternative data signal he researched and developed. Prior to BlackRock, Dr. Chen worked at Google where he was a member of the team that managed Google’s fixed income investment portfolio. Dr. Chen started his career at Morgan Stanley in New York where he traded exotic US rates derivatives. While at Morgan Stanley, Dr. Chen researched, developed and patented a framework that allowed for pricing of derivatives based on two rate curves with dynamic multiplicative spread, one of the first such models on the street. 

Dr. Chen graduated from the University of Illinois in 2005 with a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and has 14 years of financial industry experience. He has published in leading engineering and applied mathematics journals, and had been invited to talk at numerous academic and industry conferences.

Mr. Ruskin joined PineBridge Investments in 2017 and is a Senior Research Analyst covering Global Cyclical stocks for the Global Focus Equity team, and is also the Head of Sustainable Investing for Equities, ensuring that the Equities team is at the forefront of integrating ESG into their investment strategies, including how they engage and assess companies. Mr. Ruskin is also a member of PineBridge’s ESG Investment Committee. He has 23 years of experience in equity investing and corporate strategy consulting, and has worked in a number of leading organizations in equity research and in portfolio management. Mr. Ruskin began his career at Stern Stewart (EVA), then was a manager in strategic planning at American Express before moving to Putnam Investments as a Vice President in Global Equities and then as a Partner and Co-Portfolio Manager with Temujin Fund Management. Before joining PineBridge, he was a PM/Senior Analyst at Acclivity Capital Management, an asset management venture which he co-founded. Mr. Ruskin received his BA from Princeton University and his MBA from Wharton. He is a member of the CFA Institute.

Robert Choynowski, President and Managing Partner of SeaGlass Technology, is a visionary entrepreneur and early adopter known for his relentless pursuit of groundbreaking technologies that shape the world we live in today.

Robert's journey to success was marked by determination and a thirst for knowledge. Eager to push boundaries, Robert founded his first technology firm at the age of 24.

By taking the time to deeply understand his clients' challenges, Robert was able to craft tailored and innovative solutions that precisely addressed their specific requirements. He saw these challenges not as roadblocks but as opportunities to create value and make a difference in the lives of his clients.

Moreover, Robert's ability to identify gaps in technology within the financial industry allowed him to envision and develop novel products and services that positioned his ventures at the forefront of innovation. By filling these voids, he not only gained a competitive edge but also demonstrated a commitment to driving positive change within the industry.

Robert's customer-centric approach and willingness to tackle technological challenges head-on earned him the trust and loyalty of his clients. This, in turn, led to long-lasting partnerships and a reputation for delivering results that exceeded expectations.

Throughout his career, Robert emphasis on understanding clients' needs and addressing technology gaps remained a constant guiding principle. It reinforced his position as a visionary leader who not only anticipates industry trends but also stays deeply connected to the human aspect of technology – the people and organizations that benefit from his innovations.

Beyond his professional achievements, Robert is also known for his philanthropic endeavors. He is dedicated to supporting and uplifting those in his community who are struggling and in need of a helping hand. Robert believes in the power of community and wants to do his part to make a positive difference, particularly for families and children who are facing difficult circumstances.

Despite his numerous accomplishments, Robert remains humble and dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. He is often seen mentoring young entrepreneurs and sharing his experiences, inspiring the next generation of innovators to dream big and make a difference.

As the world continues to evolve, Robert remains at the forefront of innovation, shaping the future and leaving an indelible mark on the technology landscape. His passion for pushing boundaries, combined with his unwavering commitment to making the world a better place, makes him a true force to be reckoned with in the tech industry and beyond.