Global Advisory Board

The 2022 advisory board is packed with global risk industry leaders

The 2022 advisory board was packed with risk leaders from across the globe. Their expertise and insight helped shape the agenda for an event an unforgettable event.

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Kristen Walters

Chief risk officer

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

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.

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Nick Silitch

Former chief risk officer

Prudential

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.

Agus Sudjianto

Executive vice president, head of corporate model risk

Wells Fargo

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

Prior to his current position, Agus was the modelling and analytics director and chief model risk officer at Lloyds Banking Group in the United Kingdom. Before joining Lloyds, he was a senior credit risk 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 Modelling for Computer Experiments. His technical expertise and interests include quantitative risk, particularly credit risk modelling, 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.

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Rajat Baijal

Managing director, global head of enterprise risk

Cantor Fitzgerald

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.

Courtney Garcia

Head of investment risk

Apollo Global Management

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.

Ramakrishnan Chirayathumadom

Chief model risk officer

Goldman Sachs

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

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

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

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Wei Zhu

Managing director

Citi

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.

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Phil Ohana

Executive director

UBS

Jing Zou

Managing director, enterprise model risk management

Royal Bank of Canada

As Managing Director in Enterprise Model Risk Management (EMRM), Jing Zou is the head of model validation in Securitized Products, Value-at-Risk (VaR), Pre-Provision Net Revenue (PPNR), insurance, interest rate models, and retail mortgage. She also developed Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) model fragility analysis, which quantifies the impact of model uncertainty on capital ratios. She is an invited speaker for many industry conferences.

Jing joined RBC in 2014 as a Director in local model risk manager, where she engaged the business about model risks. Later on, she was promoted to a Senior Director and then a Managing Director. Before joining RBC, Jing worked at Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Fannie Mae, and Ziff Brothers Investments in various quantitative analytics roles covering front office models, buy-side models, 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 from Xi’an Jiaotong University.

Ash Majid

Managing director and chief risk officer

SMBC Capital Markets and SMBC Nikko America

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.

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Sven Sandow

Global head of credit and operational risk analytics

Morgan Stanley

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.

Steve Boras

Executive vice-president

Citizens Bank

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.

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Piero Monteverde

Assistant chief model risk officer

Capital One

Piero joined Capital One in 2011 to lead one of the first full-time Model Validation teams at the company. He currently serves as Assistant Chief Model Risk Officer within the Enterprise Model Risk, Analytics and Data organization. His group is responsible for the validation of models related to stress testing, finance, and loss forecasting. He is also responsible for the Model Risk Office Governance, Project and Process Management teams.

Piero has more than 22 years of experience in the financial industry and has spent the past 17 years as a manager of market, model, and valuation risk for large financial institutions, such as Bank of America / Countrywide, Ally Financial, and Barclays Capital, prior to joining Capital One. Piero obtained a bachelor’s degree from Universidad del Pacifico (Lima, Peru), and he has a master’s degree and Ph.D. ABD in Economics from University of Miami.

He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife.

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Judith Hilton

Head of non-financial risk management & programmes

DWS

Judith joined DWS (formerly known as Deutsche Asset Management) in 2005 following 8 years with JPMorgan Chase. Prior to her current role as head of non-financial risk management & programmes, Judith was the chief risk officer for DWS Americas, she served as the regional control officer for DWS Americas. Before that, she was the global chief operating officer for the DWS Alternatives and Fund Solutions business based in London.

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

 

Suresh Srinivasan

FRTB Americas implementation lead

HSBC

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.

Jonathan Hummel

Chief risk officer, Americas

Deutsche Bank

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.

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Christian Bluhm

Group CRO

UBS

Christian Bluhm became a member of the GEB and was appointed Group Chief Risk Officer of UBS Group AG and UBS AG in January 2016. He joined UBS from FMS Wertmanagement, where he had been Chief Risk & Financial Officer since 2010 and Spokesman of the Executive Board from 2012 to 2015. From 2004 to 2009, he worked for Credit Suisse, where he was Managing Director responsible for Credit Risk Management in Switzerland and Private Banking worldwide. Mr. Bluhm was Head of Credit Portfolio Management until 2008 and then Head of Credit Risk Management Analytics & Instruments after the financial crisis in 2008. From 2001 to 2004, he worked for Hypovereinsbank in Munich in Group Credit Portfolio Management, heading a team that specialized in Structured Finance Analytics. Before starting his banking career with Deutsche Bank in Credit Risk Management in 1999, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University in Ithaca and as a scientific assistant at the University of Greifswald. Mr. Bluhm holds a degree in mathematics and informatics from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and received his PhD in mathematics in 1996 from the same university.

Soren Andersen

Chief risk officer

Nordea Asset Management

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Jeff Simmons

Chief risk officer

MUFG Securities Europe

 

 

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Duncan Wood

Global editorial director

Risk.net

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

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

SP Kothari

Gordon Y Billard professor of accounting and finance

MIT Sloan School of Management

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

 

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Danny Frost

Global head of operational risk

Legal and General Investment Management

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

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

Christian Kjaer

Head of liquid markets

ATP

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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Kris Devasabai

Editor-in-chief

Risk.net

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.