Varun has worked in the Enterprise Risk, ESG, and Strategic Risk Management space in the financial services industry for over 20 years. He brings experience both as a practitioner and a provider of consulting services to global banking organizations. He is currently a leader in the Enterprise Risk Management function at Western Alliance Bank, an innovative and fast-paced growing bank based in Phoenix, AZ. He has previously worked for HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, and Deloitte in the US, Canada, and Europe.

Varun is a published author on varied topics in finance and risk management across the US and Europe. He has a Ph.D. in Economics, an MS in Financial Economics, and BS in Engineering, and a CFA Charter.

Dominique has over 25 years of financial services experience and deep expertise in Business Controls, Risk Management, Technology, and Process Transformation. He is a Managing Director at Mizuho Americas providing first line enterprise control services to the Americas region. His responsibilities include Business Continuity Planning, Third Party Risk Management, Data Management Operations, Strategic Sourcing, and Business Risk & Control Services, and a number of other important risk disciplines. Dominique has worked in similar capacities for some of the world’s leading global financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citibroup and Deutsche Bank. Dominique holds an MBA and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Rutgers University.

Leading a team of first line of defense risk and control professionals performing essential enterprise control functions across the company including Third Party Services, Business Continuity Planning, Data Management Operations, Data Loss Prevention, Strategic Souring and Business Risk and Control Services. The functions performed span all lines of business and corporate functions across the Americas region. The department is also accountable for spearheading the company’s efforts to understand and manage data privacy, fraud, conduct, reputational, and strategic risk.
Influential decision-maker with the gravitas and experience to develop robust risk management frameworks, lead enterprise-wide control functions, and drive business process transformation initiatives resulting in reduced risk exposure, improved internal controls, substantial cost savings, and accelerated time to market. Creates a winning culture by building extraordinary teams who work seamlessly together.

Chris Brozenick is Vice President of Product Marketing at Dataminr, where he leads go-to-market efforts for Dataminr Pulse and Dataminr for News. Prior to Dataminr, Chris was the vice president of product strategy for WorldAware and vice president of product for WeatherBug / Earth Networks. He holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Purdue University, and an MBA from Johns Hopkins University.

Patricia has over 25 years of Corporate Level experience in the Legal, Auditing, Risk and Compliance departments. Patricia began her career working as a Lawyer and Auditor for Serv Cadastro e Cobranca Ltda responsible for legal coordination and implementing internal auditing in its departments in Brazil. She joined Itaύ Unibanco in 2000 starting in Audit and moving to areas such as Compliance and Internal Controls. Patricia has led teams and implemented new methodologies to mitigate risk and increase innovation and efficiency. In 2014, Patricia began her International experience with Itaύ working with Itaύ Caribbean and Miami responsible for the Internal Controls department. In 2017, Patricia became the Head of Risk and Internal Controls for Itaύ U.S overseeing Financial & Operational Risk and Internal Controls, working with several jurisdictions as USA, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Chile and Mexico. In 2021, Fiduciary Risk in Asset Management was included in her activities, as well as oversight of Client Risk. In 2023, she was nominated Chief Compliance Officer for Nassau Branch.

Following her graduation with a Law Degree from the Universidade Estadual de Londrina, Patricia obtained a Corporate and Economic Law Post graduation Degree from Fundacao Getulio Vargas in SP. In addition, Patricia attained an LLM in Financial and Capital Markets Law from IBMEC/Insper, and an LLM in Corporate Law. Patricia is also a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and a Certified Control Self Assessment (CCSA).

Kerry Chambers has 25 years’ experience with business-to-business technology working for IT vendors and large blue chip global organisations in the capacity of senior leadership and sales leader roles. As newly appointed CEO of Acuity Risk Management, Kerry brings with her extensive experience in growing Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses. Her commitment to driving innovation, delivering exceptional results, and fostering strong client relationships has been instrumental in Acuity’s recent growth. In her previous roles as COO and Commercial Director at Acuity, Kerry built and managed high performing sales teams in both UK and international markets, accelerating revenue growth through the development of strategic plans and driving operational efficiency. Since Kerry joined Acuity, the company has shown significant growth and received recognition from prestigious industry schemes (such as the National Technology Awards 2021 ‘Cyber Security Solution of the Year’ award for which our software STREAM was shortlisted), as well as from peers and customers (Acuity has a rating of 4.8 out of 5 on Gartner Peer Insights, and has recently received Best Support, Easiest To Do Business With, Leader and High Performer badges on G2).

Zhi Chung is the head of Non-Financial Risk Analytics for Credit Suisse AG, a company of UBS. Zhi joined Credit Suisse in early 2000 and held various positions in Global Markets Business Management and Client Strategy, Finance, Compliance, and Non-Financial Risk Management.  Zhi has led the development of multiple high-impact data solutions that help the bank achieve complex regulatory initiatives. Recently she led a team, which designed and developed an industry-leading Non-Financial Risk analytics platform that received the “Innovative Risk Management Award” from Risk.Net in 2021. Prior to Credit Suisse, Zhi worked in Citigroup and Deutsche Bank. Zhi holds an MBA in Finance from CUNY Baruch College and a BS in Material Science from Xi’an Jiaotong University.

Nick Diieso is a Director at Citigroup where he heads global Operational Risk business coverage for Markets and Securities Services and serves as the Head of Operational Risk for Citi Global Markets, Inc (the US broker-dealer). Prior to Citi, Nick was globally responsible for Operational Risk for the infrastructure functions at Deutsche Bank, served as a first line risk director and business CAO for the Specialty Commercial arm of Santander Bank, and served in corporate finance and audit capacities at GE Capital, MathWorks, and TJX.

Sara will be speaking at our Non-Financial & Operational Risk Congress this October.

Madiha Fatima is an Executive Director – Operational and Outsourcing Risk Management at JP Morgan, where she leads the second line of defense function for operational and outsourcing risk overseeing Third Party Risk Management, Sourcing, Procurement and Inter-Affiliate Management. Previously, Madiha was the Head of Third Party Risk Management Department at Angelo Gordon where she was responsible for development of Third Party Risk Management Framework while enabling businesses to achieve their strategic objectives from utilizing vendors. Prior to joining Angelo Gordon, Madiha Fatima served as the Third Party Risk Governance & Oversight Lead at DTCC. Madiha is a Certified Third Party Risk Professional (CTPRP). Madiha earned a Bachelors of Science degree in Financial and Capital Markets from Rutgers Business School.

Hafsteinn Gislason goes by Haffi

Haffi leads a team of risk advisors at M&T Bank’s second-line operational risk that provide oversight for the core bank. He has 15+ years of experience in non-financial risk management in financial institutions, focusing on the development, implementation, oversight ,and execution of Operational Risk and Enterprise Risk programs.

Haffi, led several workstream in a enterprise risk convergence project in a mid-sized us bank and the topic of shared taxonomies, elements and methodologies is something he believes can be rewarding for risk management as a whole.

Gislason has had several speaking engagements at non-financial risk conferences focusing on shared taxonomies, frameworks, and increased utility of the Operational and Enterprise Risk programs. He has also had the opportunity to lecture in the ERM program at Columbia University and is a member of the Non-Financial Risk Advisory Board at CeFPro.

Gislason is a GARP-certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM).

Education:

M.S. Internaltional Economics and Finance, Newcastle University, UK

B.S. Industrial Engineering, Technical University of Iceland

Sonia Jarvis leads model validation of third-party products at Fannie Mae. Previously, Sonia led model validation teams for commercial risk scoring and PPNR at Bank of America. She also represented the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System at the Basel Working Group on Operational Risk and assessed bank performance as an examiner for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Sonia has diverse consulting and model development experience in commercial and non-profit applications, including fraud detection, law enforcement, market research, human resources, and natural resource management. Sonia holds a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Economics from the University of Maryland.

Sabeena Ahmed Liconte serves as 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.

Sandeep Maira is a leader in the practical application of technology innovation, product development and in driving business transformation. With extensive experience in financial services, he has a deep background in high performance computing, large scale systems, data, and analytics, along with cloud technologies and machine learning.

He is founder and CTO of SunflowerLabs AI, an artificial intelligence venture that seeks to revolutionize and optimize financial risk management through the use of machine learning.

Prior to this, Mr. Maira served as Managing Director of Strategic Systems at Options Clearing

Corporation from 2019 – 2023.. He designed a framework replacing all processing with a new highly scalable, flexible, and resilient cloud native technology stack. Previously he was Head of Risk and Compliance technology for BNY Mellon, leading a successful transformation effort. Earlier he was Head of Risk Technology from 2007-2015 for various businesses in JP Morgan, including Asset Management and within Capital Markets. Earlier in his career he worked at Citigroup and Lehman Brothers.

Mr. Maira helped develop the first banking crypto asset initiative while at Citigroup. In addition, he designed and executed the first and only USD digital currency pilot with the U.S. Treasury Department and performed the world’s first multimillion dollar cryptocurrency transaction. He is a noted expert on technology innovation and is a frequent industry speaker on risk, data, and machine learning.

Mr. Maira holds a Master of Engineering from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Cornell University. He is certified in machine learning from Stanford University.

Enterprise Risk Management professional with expertise in risk appetite, risk indicators, risk identification, enterprise risk profile quantification, operational risk quantification, RCSA, enterprise risk measurement, monitoring and reporting. Subject Matter Expert on aggregation of risk information and identification, creation, monitoring and reporting on key risk indicators for a bank holding company. Calculating risk appetite and risk tolerance levels. Creating appropriate thresholds for effective risk escalation.

Tom Mangine is a Director at DAG where he specializes in Due Diligence, Cybersecurity and Risk Assessment.  An experienced Military leader and former Diplomat, Tom is also an instructor both with the Joint Special Operations University (JSOU), part of the US Government’s National Defense University system, as well as the Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists (ACFCS), where he teaches classes on terrorist-financing, financial crime, the investigative process and cybersecurity. He previously worked at the Bank of Montreal where he held positions as Vice President, Capital Markets AML (Global Risk & Special Investigations), the Money-Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) for the US and Director for Cyber Resilience. Tom entered the private sector after serving 20 years as an Army officer.

As Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer for Ulster Savings Bank, located in Kingston, NY, I am responsible for oversight of all Bank risk management functions, including the Bank’s Legal and Compliance departments; I also serve as the Chief Information Security Officer. I previously served as Vice President and Risk Manager at Bankwell in Bridgeport, CT, as First Vice President and Audit/Compliance Officer at Naugatuck Valley Savings and Loan in Naugatuck, CT, and as Senior Attorney with the FDIC. I hold a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Rhode Island, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Houston, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tulane University.

Andrew Moyad is the Chief Executive Officer of Shared Assessments.
Andrew is an accomplished leader and trailblazer in third party risk management. As a practitioner and a senior risk management executive, he has driven a culture of accountability and diligence in safeguarding information. Andrew has more than 25 years in risk management and information security. He has contributed greatly to the transformation and advancement of risk management as a strategic function that intersects with and helps guide all aspects of organizations.

Most recently, Andrew served as Senior Vice President, Vendor Risk Management at Blackstone, where he led a team of risk professionals responsible for overseeing all phases of the vendor lifecycle at the firm, including risk assessments, control diligence, contract reviews, financial checks, performance monitoring, issue tracking, and management reporting. Prior to Blackstone, he served as a director and global head of vendor risk management and BlackRock and Senior Vice President for Citigroup, where he was a Business Information Security Officer in Global Fixed Income and led third party risk assessments for several years.
Andrew holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Natural Sciences from Harvard University and a Master of Science Degree in Information Systems from the Stevens Institute of Technology.

Yogesh will be speaking at CeFPro’s Non-Financial and Operational Risk Management USA Congress.

Melissa Mellen is the Director of Third-Party Risk Management within the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In this capacity, Melissa manages Bank wide strategic priorities, such as the Third-Party Risk Management Risk and Control Unit, Policy, Governance, and Compliance across TPRM & Procurement, and Supplier Diversity.

Prior to joining the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Ms. Mellen spent fifteen years in the private sector, specializing in Third Party Risk Management program design, development implementation, and oversight for firms such as: MUFG Union Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Oppenheimer Funds, and Mizuho Bank, Ltd.  Ms. Mellen received her bachelor’s degree in philosophy from SUNY Albany, and holds a MBA with a concentration in Risk Management from Saint Peter’s University. She is a Certified Third-Party Risk Professional (CTPRP) and holds a Professional Certificate in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion from Cornell University.

Melissa lives in Northern New Jersey with her husband Kevin, and Pitbull Viggo.  She is a certified yoga instructor affiliated with both the Dharma Yoga Center of New York City, as well as Yoga Alliance.

Accomplished risk management executive for multi-national global financial institutions with broad knowledge across Enterprise Risk Management, in particular Operational Risk, including Third-Party & Outsourcing Risk, Business Resilience & IT Risk, Business Controls Management, and Risk Strategy. Experienced in risk management program design, implementation and execution. Specialist in risk assessments (RCSA, Fraud Risk Assessments (FRA), Third-Party Risk Assessments, ORSA, etc.), Internal and External Operational Risk Loss Data / Event Reporting and Investigations, Key Risk Indicators, Issue Management, Controls Testing, Risk Treatment, Data Management, and Operational Risk Technology (GRC tools) solutions. Experienced with leading strategic and change initiatives in Risk Governance & Oversight, and Operational Controls, including Business Accountability models, Conduct and Risk Culture programs. Regulatory focused with foreign bank supervision and systemically important financial institution (SIFI) compliance knowledge. Work experience includes international risk and control projects across foreign markets including Latin America, Europe, Japan and Australia.

Alice Rojas is the Head of Sanctions Compliance for the Americas at Société Générale (New York, NY) where she is responsible for managing a team working on sanctions compliance issues. Ms. Rojas also previously worked at Standard Chartered Bank and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ where she led teams working on sanctions related matters.  In addition, Ms. Rojas served as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Michigan and worked for 10 years in the federal government on sanctions and export control related issues at the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the U.S. Department of State, and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).  Ms. Rojas holds a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan, an MA in International Affairs from George Washington University, and a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Brandon C. Smith is the Americas Head of Economic Sanctions at Credit Suisse, where he oversees the Americas Sanctions Compliance program.  In the three years before this, Brandon was the Deputy Americas Head of Sanctions at UBS AG.  Prior to his role with UBS, Brandon was a Vice President with the Financial Crime Department at Barclays Bank Plc and an Assistant District Attorney with the Kings County District Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, NY.  Brandon possesses a Juris Doctorate from Brooklyn Law School and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Southern California.   Outside of work, Brandon is the Co-Chair of the New York City Bar Association’s Financial Crime Subcommittee within the Compliance Committee.  He is admitted in good standing to practice law in New York State.

Michael Steinhoefel is a Director of Operational Risk Management at Barclays responsible for Connecting Risk in the Supply Chain. Prior to this Michael was at BNY Mellon Global Markets and 20 years with Citi, the Swiss Stock Exchange, and Credit Suisse in roles in Internal Audit and in first line Risk & Control and Business Process Reengineering in the US, LATAM and EMEA. Michael worked several years as external auditor. He holds a Master of Political Science from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany and an MBA from the Institute of Management Development (IMD)

Michael G. Tzitzikalakis currently serves as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York – El Dorado Task Force (EDTF) Cyber Division. In this executive level position, Mr. Tzitzikalakis leads an HSI investigative task force comprised of agents, Task Force Officers, and analysts from over eight law enforcement agencies focused on combatting transnational criminal organizations operating in cyberspace. The HSI New York EDTF Cyber Division is comprised of four highly specialized groups: the Cyber Intrusion Investigations Group; the Dark Web/Cryptocurrency Task Force; the Child Exploitation Investigations Team; and Computer Forensics/Technical Operations.

Prior to this assignment, Mr. Tzitzikalakis served as the Supervisory Special Agent of the Cyber Intrusion Investigations Group, where he oversaw several high-profile investigations relating to breaches of computer networks, many of which often received international and congressional attention. Previously, Mr. Tzitzikalakis was the Supervisory Special Agent of the Child Exploitation Investigations Team, managing a team of investigative agents/officers dedicated to identifying and rescuing victims of child sexual exploitation and pursuing those seeking to produce and distribute child sexual exploitative material on the Internet. In 2016, Mr. Tzitzikalakis was a founding member of the HSI New York Cyber Division and assisted in its original conceptualization, resourcing, and staffing

Mr. Tzitzikalakis has served as a Program Manager at HSI Headquarters, where his responsibilities included oversight of the systems and programs that support law enforcement databases and emerging technologies for agents and analysts around the world. In that role Mr. Tzitzikalakis served as a core member of the team responsible for the deployment of HSI’s $800M case management system modernization, where he leveraged both his law enforcement and technical experience to ensure that the needs of the field were met while ensuring development resources were prioritized effectively

Before his assignment to HSI Headquarters, Mr. Tzitzikalakis was assigned to the HSI New York Computer Forensics Unit where he designed, planned, and oversaw the construction of a $5.5M Computer Forensics Laboratory, the first of its kind in agency history to be equipped with the ability to perform chip-off forensic examinations on mobile devices, and a 2,000 Terabyte (TB) digital evidence repository. The project was funded entirely through asset forfeiture funds, and was completed under the estimated budget, all while maintaining operation of the existing forensics laboratory.

Mr. Tzitzikalakis holds a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice Leadership and a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, both from St. John’s University in Queens, NY.

Daniel will be speaking at CeFPro’s Non-Financial and Operational Risk Management USA Congress.

Saba is an experienced risk professional, with over 18 years of experience leading successful risk framework design, governance supervision programs, and implementation in financial services. She has extensive experience in working across First and Second Line of Defense roles. She has held multiple roles at Morgan Stanley spanning across the Wealth Management business, Enterprise Risk, Legal & Compliance as well as Information & Cyber Security.

She holds a Master of Science degree in Enterprise Risk Management from New York University and an undergraduate degree in Finance & Economics Baruch College in NY.

She’s also an adjunt Professor at Columbia University.

Shared Assessments will be knowledge partners at the upcoming Non-Financial & Operational Risk USA Congress.

Phyton Consulting focuses on the most complex initiatives facing our clients and strives to be the best subject matter-led, execution-focused group on the street. Our services are conceived to address your industry-specific business and data challenges with the right blend of tactical and strategic execution. Phyton excels at enhancing the way organizations approach change across people, culture, processes, and technology. Our cross-industry understanding of Data Management best practices is our core strength. By integrating Phyton’s refined data framework and the core governance pillars that support it with subject-matter expertise, we are driving the harmonization of best practices across industries.

Acuity Risk Management helps businesses worldwide effectively manage, prioritize and report on their risks to inform strategic decision-making and build long-term resilience. Its powerful STREAM platform provides rapid time-to-value to reassure stakeholders that risks are under control and compliance is maintained with increasingly complex standards and regulations. With STREAM, Acuity eliminates the guesswork around risk to support strategic decision-making, prioritization of resources and justification of expenditure to maximize ROI.

With customers worldwide, Acuity has proven success supporting customers in highly regulated and targeted industries such as finance, IT, telecommunications, healthcare, defence and government.

Dataminr delivers the earliest warnings on high impact events and critical information far in advance of other sources. Recognized as one of the world’s leading AI businesses, Dataminr enables faster response, more effective risk mitigation and stronger crisis management for public and private sector organizations spanning global corporations, first responders, NGOs, and newsrooms. Most recently valued at $4.1B, Dataminr is one of New York’s top private technology companies, with 800+ employees across eight global offices.

Since its founding, Dataminr has created the world’s leading real-time information discovery platform, which detects digital patterns of emerging events and critical information from public data signals. Today, Dataminr’s advanced AI platform performs trillions of daily computations across billions of public data inputs from over 500,000 unique public data sources. The Company has been recognized for its ground-breaking AI platform and rapid revenue growth by Forbes AI 50 and Deloitte Fast 500, and has been named to the Forbes Cloud 100 for six consecutive years.

Alongside Dataminr’s corporate product, Dataminr Pulse, the Company provides its First Alert product for first response to public sector organizations, including the United Nations, which relies on First Alert in over 100 countries. Dataminr for News is used by more than 650 newsrooms and over 30,000 journalists worldwide.

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