Spring 2023 Advisory Boards

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Agus Sudjianto is an executive vice president, head of Model Risk and a member of Management Committee at Wells Fargo, where he is responsible for enterprise model risk management.

Prior to his current position, Agus was the modeling and analytics director and chief model risk officer at Lloyds Banking Group in the United Kingdom. Before joining Lloyds, he was an executive and head of Quantitative Risk at Bank of America.

Prior to his career in banking, he was a product design manager in the Powertrain Division of Ford Motor Company.

Agus holds several U.S. patents in both finance and engineering. He has published numerous technical papers and is a co-author of Design and Modeling for Computer Experiments. His technical expertise and interests include quantitative risk, particularly credit risk modeling, machine learning and computational statistics.

He holds masters and doctorate degrees in engineering and management from Wayne State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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.

Chris Callies has partnered with senior officers of major financial institutions to address growing complexity in the nature of financial risk and its propagation across geographic, asset class, market structure, and operational boundaries. After initially working with institutional asset managers, commercial and investment banks, and multi-family offices through the financial crisis that began in 2007–08, her professional domain later expanded to alternatives managers, insurance firms, non-bank lenders and regulators. Callies has advanced through a series of senior roles at Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch and Bessemer Trust, including chief investment strategist, chief strategist, head of market risk strategy, and acting chief investment officer, with oversight of more than $40 billion in traditional and alternative assets. She is a dedicated advocate for fully integrated, flexible, proactive risk analytics as a vital tool for effective capital planning, product development and sustainable returns. Callies holds a bachelors degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, with a sub-specialty in advanced applied mathematics.

Leah Mallas is the Global Head of FX Prime Brokerage and FX Clearing at J.P. Morgan.  She has held this position since late 2017 and is responsible for the global product management and development of the business.

A 17 year veteran of the firm, Leah has held a variety of internal roles within the bank managing client service teams, in addition to an external trading management role at Millennium Partners.

Leah holds a Bachelor of Science from the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University.

One of the most widely respected and quoted currency experts, Marc Chandler has been covering the global capital markets for more than 30 years. As a keen observer of the interconnection of international politics and economics, Marc appears daily in the financial press - CNBC, CNBC Asia FOX Business, Bloomberg TV and Radio, Barron’s, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, and more – where he provides his colorful take on the day’s global financial and economic news.

Throughout his career on Wall Street, Chandler has advised private businesses, hedge funds and asset managers on navigating the foreign exchange market, and most recently joined Bannockburn Global Forex as Managing Director and Chief Market Strategist in their New York City office.

Keep up with Marc Chandler's ongoing analysis on his blog, www.marctomarket.com, or follow him on Twitter, @marcmakingsense.

Mr. Crosby joined Guggenheim Partners in June 2015, where he runs the FX and Derivatives Sector Team.  He and his team are responsible for all FX related funding and hedging portfolio management and trading across the organization.  Additionally, he manages an alternative cash management strategy and is the Portfolio Manager for FX and Rate Volatility relative value mandates.  Prior to joining Guggenheim, he worked as an FX G10 STIR trader at Wells Fargo Bank and as a fixed income trader at Wells Fargo Advisors. Mr. Crosby graduated from College of Charleston with a B.S. in Business Administration and a Minor in Economics and additionally has his CFA Charter.

John Velis is a member of BNY Mellon Markets' global strategy team and serves as FX and Macro Strategist for the Americas. He leads BNY Mellon's continued investment into North American commentary.

He joined BNY Mellon from State Street in Boston, where he was instrumental in running a Macro Research function that applied proprietary data on investor behaviour, market-risk modelling and real-time inflation analysis to the firm’s client base. Prior to his role as a senior multi-asset strategist at State Street Global Markets, John was based in London and worked at Vanguard Asset Management, Russell Investments and ABN Amro.

He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from Indiana University and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Jonathan Karlin is the Global Head of Emerging Markets FX Trading at Wells Fargo, joining in 2022. He has more than 15 years in Emerging Markets Trading having previously worked at Bank of America, Macquarie, and most recently at RBS / NatWest Markets as the Head of Emerging Markets FX Trading in the US. He additionally has spent time on the Board of Directors at EMTA (Emerging Market Traders Association). Jonathan holds a B.S. in Economics from Duke University.

Joe Parsons is deputy editor on the global markets desk. He was formerly deputy editor at Global Custodian, and prior to that he was at The Trade.

Don Cummings is head of G10 and EM Asia FX trading at Mizuho Americas (MSUSA). In his current role he is responsible for overseeing the provision and management of a broad portfolio of FX hedging products to MSUSA’s corporate and institutional clients. Since joining in 2017 Don has worked to build and develop MSUSA’s capabilities across the spectrum of FX derivatives. Prior to joining Mizuho Don worked in FX and Macro rates trading at Nomura securities. Don holds an MSc. In Economics from the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE).

Fred Harris is the Head 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 role

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.

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.