Speakers

Shumi Akhtar is an associate professor at the University of Sydney Business School. Her research publications have appeared in leading international and Australian peer-reviewed journals. Akhtar has received a number of highly competitive external research grants, and regularly attends, presents and chairs sessions at top financial economic conferences, including the American Finance Association, American Economic Association, European Financial Management Association and Asian Finance Association. A number of her research papers received local and international awards. Akhtar was visiting scholar at Harvard, MIT and Stanford among others. She was invited to share her expert opinion before the Australian Parliamentary Senate Inquiry on Tax, International Trade and Investment and her recommendations were implemented. Akhtar's research scholarships have been recognised by the Australian Research Council, US-Australia Fulbright and Oxford University Fellowship/Scholarship.

Anne Browne is chief risk officer at the Australian Retirement Trust (ART), and is responsible for overseeing its governance and strategy for risk management, financial crime, compliance and internal audit. She is responsible for relationships with key regulators and is a member of ART’s executive team, reporting to the chief executive and the board audit, finance and risk committee. Browne's team provides independent oversight and guidance for managing risk and ensuring compliance, including the development and implementation of risk management measures across the organisation. It leads efforts to build and sustain a strong risk culture in which all employees understand the importance of managing risk to serve members. She has more than 28 years’ in the financial services industry, and has held senior roles at UBS both in Australia in Switzerland. 

Elliot has been with Westpac Economics for 13 years, having previously worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). Over his career, his focus has remained on Australia’s place in the global economy, having assessed economic and financial developments in Asia for the RBA. Clarke manages Westpac Economics’ global economic and financial market forecasts. He holds an honours degree in economics from the University of Sydney, a masters of applied finance from Macquarie University and is a CFA Charterholder.

Peter Deans is a former Chief Risk Officer and retired from executive life in 2019, after a finance career of over 32 years. Peter is today an industry leading risk management and strategy advisor through his firm, Notwithoutrisk Consulting. Peter is currently Chair and Non-Executive Director of NerdWallet Australia, and a Non-Executive Director of Trade for Good and The Regtech Association. Peter is also an advisory board member for several fintechs and start-up companies.

Peter is a regular contributor to a range of strategy, risk and finance publications including Company Director Magazine (Australia), Director Today (India), FINSIA (Australia) and The Asian Banker (Singapore).

Peter was awarded Australian Banking & Finance magazine’s Chief Risk Officer of the Year award in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018. 

Viisti is an Industry Expert at UTS, with both public and private sector including as a Senior Director in top tier consulting firms and in-house, across financial services, telecommunications, media, and education sectors. She focuses on helping organisations with their biggest challenges - including M&A, Diversity and Inclusion, Culture change, Risk, Innovation and ESG - often on high priority programs. Her focus on business transformation is commercial, strategic and pragmatic.

Viisti is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, jas a Masters of Law (USyd), Masters of International Relations (UQ & Sciences Po Paris), and a Bachelor of Business (QUT). She has lived and worked in France, UK, Chile and Vietnam.

John Feeney manages Martialis Consulting working on financial markets product and infrastructure. He has been in financial markets for 30 years in trading and management roles across most asset classes. Feeney has worked for National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank, Citibank and Macquarie Bank, trading and managing interest rate derivates, foreign exchange, credit, commodities and funding businesses. Most recently, he has focused on Libor and other interbank offered rate transition issues as well as the broader practice areas of Martialis Consulting.

Robert Fievez has 15 years’ experience in financial markets, specialising in derivatives reform, execution and collateralisation. His experience includes helping firms match regulatory requirements against underlying portfolio impacts to make a transition to new operating and business models. Most recently, Fievez's focus has been with buy-side firms as they seek to acquire a wider range of market risk management access methods. He has also led engagement with local and overseas regulators across a range of derivative reform issues.

Andreas Hefter is associate partner at McKinsey & Company, focusing on risk management and business transformation at financial institutions in Europe, the US, Asia and Australia. His work is focused on risk management and compliance at financial and non-financial institutions, and spans across engagements in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Hefter has worked extensively on risk and culture transformations, enterprise risk, non-financial risk, financial crime, risk organisation, three lines of defence, regulation and compliance.

Manish Jayswal is the Head of Risk Management, Consumer and Business banking at Westpac, In his current role, Manish is responsible for the oversight of consumer risk and portfolio insights across financial and non-financial risk. In prior roles at Westpac and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, he worked in credit risk, balance sheet management, treasury and capital allocation. Over the last 23 years, Manish has held several global senior risk management roles, notably with Fannie Mae in Washington DC during the peak of global financial crisis that began in 2007–08, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation and GE Capital. He has designed and implemented risk management frameworks such as risk appetite, early warning framework, the economic capital framework , stress-testing, loss allowance modelling, home price forecasting.

As National Australia Bank’s Chief Compliance Officer and Chief Risk Officer - People, Conduct & Culture, Chris is responsible for the oversight of risks within these domains and supports NAB’s lines of business, globally, in their assessment and management of Compliance, Conduct, People and Culture risk.

He supports individual business units with the development, implementation and monitoring of policies and procedures required to manage risk, including the regular testing of their effectiveness.

Prior to joining NAB, Chris was a partner at Deloitte specialising in Risk within the Financial Services sector. With over 25 years’ experience in consulting and the financial services industry, he has experience in and exposure to all aspects of retail, business, wealth and capital markets/institutional banking.

Experienced highly-rated financial sector analyst that is highly skilled in providing strategic and policy advice to a range of clients, including financial institutions, large corporates and retail clients. An inclusive and collaborative thought leader with a high degree of personal integrity and credibility. Adept at developing the full potential of team members. Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills. A self-starter that enjoys the challenge of working independently, but within a team environment that has a culture of intellectual challenge.

Vasyl Nair is group chief executive at Mine Super and has a background in law and corporate finance, having also held roles across operations, strategy, marketing and risk functions at some of Australia’s largest financial services institutions. He holds bachelor of laws, bachelor of commerce, graduate diploma of legal practice and executive master of business administration degrees. Nair is also a director of Recreo Financial, an Australian financial technology company, specialising in superannuation and investment administration.

Tri Nguyen leads the Market Specialist team for Calypso in APAC. In this role, he works closely with different financial institutions in the region to optimize their technology solution and business processes to keep up with market trends, better manage risk, lower TCO and meet ever changing regulatory landscape. Before joining Calypso, Tri Nguyen worked at various banks in Singapore and Sydney.

Campbell Nicoll is chief risk officer (CRO) at Regional Australia Bank, with 15 years' experience in credit and operational risk management. His previous roles in the financial sector include general manager positions at ASB Bank and a CRO role at the Bank South Pacific.

Francis O'Sullivan is head of risk for QIC’s private markets investment divisions. He was previously the chief compliance officer and head of risk for QIC’s US business. He has played a key role in developing QIC’s risk and valuations management frameworks, and has worked with QIC’s infrastructure, private equity and real estate teams on risk management and valuations. O'Sullivan has 20 years' experience in investment and asset management in Australia, the USA, the UK and Ireland. Prior to joining QIC, he worked at Suncorp Investment Management, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Daiwa Securities Trust and Banking.

Sam O'Sullivan is chief risk officer at QIS and leads a team in continually enhancing QIC's risk management capability. Before joining QIC, he held senior roles in the investment management and infrastructure sectors in Australia and overseas. O'Sullivan is passionate about delivering confidence in business decisions and outcomes by delivering risk and assurance programs in support of strategic objectives.

Ravi Pandit is executive director, foreign exchange and interest rate products, Asia-Pacific at CME Group, and is responsible for expanding its existing FX and interest rate business and developing new opportunities across the region. He joined CME Group in August 2015 and he has 25 years' experience in the financial markets. Prior to joining CME Group, Pandit was a consultant to Singapore Exchange, where he provided strategic advice and project management for its launch of listed FX futures. Before that, he worked for 12 years in Dresdner Bank and subsequently Commerzbank, where he headed up the local markets trading team and helped build its Asian presence in interest rate and FX derivatives trading. Pandit also worked in various trading roles at Barclays, and in operations and technology at Citibank.

William Parry-Okeden began his career in financial markets in 1991 at Macquarie Trust Management before moving into broking in early 1993. In 1994 he relocated overseas to work in Hong Kong then Tokyo, London and New York, working on and managing many rates products desks. Returning to Hong Kong in 2007 to concentrate on the Asean regional and then Australian dollar rates before returning to Sydney in 2013. During Parry-Okeden's time in Hong Kong and Sydney. he developed and launched one of the first to market interest rate swap and interest rate option trading platforms. His experience across currencies and asset classes – especially in volatility linked markets – gives him an unparalleled advantage over competitors domestically and abroad in Australian and New Zealand dollar rates.

Emma Pringle joined Maple-Brown Abbott in May 2020 as head of ESG, and is responsible for the development and implementation of its ESG strategy, policies and governance. She also oversees the integration of ESG risks and opportunities into investment decision-making, engagement and proxy voting initiatives and stakeholder communications. Prior to this, Pringle spent 14 years with BT, most recently as head of customer governance and sustainability, with responsibility for the organisation’s product governance and sustainability functions across superannuation, investments and insurance. Before BT, she worked in blue-chip technology and financial services organisations in Sydney and London. Among industry collaborations, Pringle served as co-chair of the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative technical working group on meeting community expectations and has experience across the asset owner, corporate and investor pillars of the ESG value chain. 

Kylie-Anne Richards is the deputy chief investment officer and leads the implementation of responsible investment practices at Fortlake Asset Management, and is also a member of the Fortlake Asset Management Board and a board member of IAM Funds. She has worked at Macquarie Group in Hong Kong as head of financial engineering for Asia-Pacific and head of indexation and quantitative trading research at CLSA in Sydney. Most recently, Richards was director and portfolio manager at QTR Capital. She is a tenured academic at the University of Technology Sydney with research and teaching interests in sustainable finance, green finance, ESG and high-frequency finance. Richards is an internationally published academic with papers appearing in the International Journal of Financial Engineering and Statistical Inference for Stochastic Processes. She is also a board member of Sport & The Spectrum, a not-for-profit organisation enriching the lives of children on the autistic sectrum through sport.

Terisa Roberts is the global solution lead for risk modelling and decisioning at SAS, and has two decades of experience in quantitative risk management and advanced analytics. She has helped companies in financial services, telecommunications, government, energy and retail derive business value and make better decisions using risk analytics. Roberts has experience in regulatory compliance, IFRS 9, BCBS 239, model risk management and enterprise stress-testing. She advises banks and regulators on industry best practices in artificial intelligence (AI), automation and digitalisation related to risk modelling and decisioning, and in the responsible use of AI and machine learning. Roberts regularly speaks at international risk conferences on innovation in risk management.

Keith has over 30 years experience in the finance industry across the Asia Pacific region. Keith was most recently the CEO of Maia Financial and has held previous roles with Challenger, BOQ Finance, CIT and GE Capital. Keith was also Deputy Chair of the Australian Finance Industry Association and the inaugural recipient of an AFIA lifetime achievement award for services to the finance industry. Keith brings a practical perspective to the impact of technology on risk, lending, operations and compliance for financial services firms.

Carl Schwartz is acting Acting head, domestic markets, and lead on climate at the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). His involvement in financial markets includes time leading the RBA’s New York office and a senior leadership role in its financial stability department during and after the global financial crisis that began in 2007–08. Schwartz has held senior leadership positions in all major policy areas of the RBA, including economics and payments, and has worked as a financial stability adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Chris Schaub has been delivering risk management solutions into the financial services, insurance and corporate sectors for 25 years, and has a proven record of selling and implementing risk solutions that meet compliance and business needs. Schaub joined SAS in 2010 to head up the operational risk, governance and compliance solutions, and has since been appointed business solutions manager​, financial risk management, helping customers modernise their risk ecosystems to meet the demands of IFRS 9 and Basel III/IV Regulatory Capital. Prior to joining SAS, he worked at Misys, Sungard and Fiserv, where he sold and delivered risk and compliance solutions as part major risk transformational programs at global ASX-listed financial institutions.

Dr Peter Simpson is currently the Global Head of Safety, Security & ESG for Standard Chartered bank., with a footprint in the highest risk regions of the world. Peter is a pilot by trade, and has BSc, MSc, MA, MBA and DBA. He is passionate about and leading organisations through customer-focussed change and simplification, and working with the next generation of young leaders. He is a Board member in a not-for-profit looking after the most vulnerable members of society.

Jo Tornatore-Gallo is managing director and chief risk officer, Australia, at RBC Capital Markets. She has previously worked in operational risk roles for financial institutions such as Bank of Scotland, Westpac, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia ABN Amro. Tornatore-Gallo is currently an executive sponsor of RBC PRIDE and has also established a mentoring program for Sydney branch employees, and is a member of the Australasian Compliance Institute.

Otu Umoren has led the successful rollout and scale out of risk management technologies into the Australia and New Zealand markets for 15 years. Otu has successfully delivered solutions that help banks detect financial crime, CROs transform operational risk, CISOs protect their key assets, and CIOs ensure the resilience of their critical services. He joined ServiceNow in 2018 and is the Australia / New Zealand business lead for the company’s Risk, Resilience and ESG portfolio of software solutions. Prior to joining ServiceNow, Otu worked at MetricStream, SAI Global and Thomson Reuters, delivering risk and compliance solutions to organisations across the A/NZ region.

Dianne Weinstein has 25 years' experience in the financial services industry across senior risk and compliance roles. As the head of group regulatory risk at AMP, she developed a regulatory risk framework, and led regulatory engagements with regulators and regulatory change management. Weinstein has worked in major financial institutions and as a former regulator.

With over two decades of experience in the banking and financial sector, Alex has held diverse roles and demonstrated expertise in risk management, compliance, audit and operations. Currently, Alex is the Head of Enterprise Risk & Compliance at Avenue Bank, where he has been instrumental in establishing a fully licensed Australian bank. Alex has a track record of successfully obtaining licenses for banks and branches, and his expertise includes embedding risk frameworks, ensuring regulatory compliance, and overseeing robust compliance programs. With experience in various reputable financial institutions, Alex has honed his skills in risk analysis, operational efficiency, and fostering a culture of informed risk-taking.

Deborah Young is the founding CEO of The RegTech Association, a global non-profit industry member body focussed on accelerating adoption of RegTech solutions and creating a global centre of excellence. Since helping to establish the Association in 2017, she has led the growth to 170 organisations. The cohort includes top tier banks, global technology companies and consulting firms. She has advocated for the industry with Government, regulators, investors and trade agencies. Deborah is a sought-after leader and advisor on the global RegTech industry, a regular speaker, presenter and designer of RegTech programs and engages with regulators globally. Deborah is driving the Association’s global market program.

She is member of Chief Executive Women, a member of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Digital Panel, she sits on the global advisory committee of Women in Regulatory Innovation and on the Alliance for Innovative Regulation Global Advisory Council and Griffith University Advisory Board Member for their Academy of Excellence in Financial Crime Investigation and Compliance.

Deborah is an accomplished chief executive, non-executive director, mentor and strategic business consultant. She is a passionate diversity advocate and volunteers for a human rights organisation to limit food waste and provide food to those in need. She has over 30 years' experience as a senior executive across financial services, including investment banking, private equity, venture capital, superannuation and insurance spectrums. Deborah holds an Executive MBA (Global) from UTS Business School and was named as one of the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence in 2019 for Innovation.