Agenda

After graduating from University of Pavia in 1997 with a degree in business and economics, Stefano Biondi started to work as a junior risk manager for JP Morgan, first in Milan and then in London. Soon afterward he joined ABN AMRO Bank and subsequently moved to Amsterdam as senior credit risk manager in charge of trading counterparty credit risk management. 

During his 5 years stint at ABN AMRO Bank, Biondi also worked on the implementation of a bank-wide credit risk portfolio modelling system as well as a risk reporting tool. Following that experience at ABN AMRO he came back to London to accept a role as head of credit risk analytics and portfolio reporting at Standard Bank of South Africa in charge, among other things, of implementing the internal model for the Basel 2 FIRB project. In January 2007 Biondi returned to Italy where he joined Banca Mediolanum as head of risk control with group-wide risk management responsibilities. In 2011 he undertook an executive master in business and banking administration at Bocconi University. In 2014 Biondi took, within risk management of Banca Mediolanum, the responsibility for quantitative modelling, reporting and group wide coordination. In April 2018 became head of risk management for Banca Mediolanum reporting to the group chief risk officer. In March 2020, Biondi became group chief risk officer for Banca Mediolanum. 

As a market risk manager at Intesa Sanpaolo, Fabio Lania leads the development and implementation of market risk methodologies that comply with both current and upcoming regulatory requirements, such as Basel 2.5, FRTB, and ICAAP. With over 10 years of experience in the banking industry, he has a strong background in financial risk management, banking balance sheet optimization, analytical skills and team leadership

Lania also supports Intesa Sanpaolo with quantitative and qualitative reporting for RWA optimization, addressing the impact of the new regulatory landscape on business models. Additionally, he actively participates in industry meetings and advocates on behalf of the bank for FRTB implementation. Lania's mission is to drive market risk innovation and optimization at Intesa Sanpaolo, one of the leading European banking groups.

In 2016 William Cooper became the head of risk for SEB Denmark with responsibility for protecting the banks financial results and reputation by preventing excessive risk taking and promoting a strong risk management culture. He has a key role in driving and contributing to risk related projects including the banks FRTB program. 

Cooper has worked in the past for both buy and sell side firms, in roles ranging from trading at a large hedge fund to working as a quantitative analyst at a tier 1 investment bank, always with a focus on improving financial modelling and analytics to maximize risk management and market awareness. He holds a BSc in mathematics and economics from the LSE and a MSc in mathematics from the University of Copenhagen.

David Carlin is an acknowledged authority on climate change and its implications for the financial system. He is the founder of Cambium Global Solutions, an advisor to governments, corporates, and financial institutions on climate and ESG topics. Carlin has authored numerous reports that provide practical tools for financial actors looking to address climate change and has run capacity-building programs for financial institutions and supervisors around the world. 

He is the head of climate risk and task force on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD) for the UN Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). Over the past years, he has worked with over 100 global banks, investors, and insurers on climate scenarios, climate risk assessments, and climate governance. 

Carlin is an advisor to UNEP FI’s  task force on nature-related financial disclosures (TNFD) pilot program on nature and biodiversity related risks as well as the net-zero banking alliance (NZBA). He has also been a technical advisor to the Glasgow Financial Alliances for Net Zero (GFANZ), is a contributor to Forbes and a senior associate at Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).

He has worked as a principal in finance, risk, and public policy for Oliver Wyman and in model risk management for PNC Bank. Carlin's background is in quantitative modeling and decision science.

Christian Hasenclever is the head of strategic asset and liability management at Norddeutsche Landesbank's treasury department. He is responsible for the strategic liquidity gap and funding risk management incl. funding planning and balance sheet optimization, and he is in charge of the group-wide internal funds transfer pricing (FTP) system. That includes the constant conceptional enhancement of the liquidity risk management and of the FTP-system as well as the coverage of regulatory developments relating to liquidity risk,  SREP, ILAAP and FTP.

Hasenclever was previously the head of strategy and modelling – a unit within treasury, which had a special focus on developing an advanced pricing model for embedded options in wholesale loans. Prior to that he worked for Bremer Landesbank as a portfolio manager and expert within ALM. Hasenclever started his career at Bankgesellschaft Berlin as a project manager in the structured finance department and later as a senior fixed income researcher within capital markets. He is a certified international investment analyst (CIIA) and graduated economist.

Valérie Villafranca joined Societe Generale 5 years ago. She has been director of the Societe Generale Group's ESG by design program for 2 years. The program is in charge of operationalizing the group’s ESG transformation. 

Villafranca started her career at Arthur Andersen where she was responsible for the risk management team in Paris. In 2006, Villafranca joined Aon to develop a consulting and financial intermediation activity specializing in carbon markets, climate risks and commodities. In 2010, she was appointed managing director in charge of Accenture's Emea banking risk management practice. Before joining SG Villafranca was a director at the Boston Consulting Group in charge of risk management and compliance consulting activities for the Wesa (Western Europe, South America and Africa) region.

Merlin Linehan is a risk manager at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). He is also a regular commentator and speaker on geopolitical and climate topics.

Justin C McCarthy has worked in risk, complinace and leadership roles in many firms, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ulster Bank (RBS / NatWest) and with the Irish financial regulator at the Central Bank of Ireland. This work has allowed him to see the changes in risk management and compliance since through and beyond the recent global financial crisis. His work on the PRISM risk-based supervision framework with the Irish regulator included exposure to banking, funds and insurance risk practices as well as the quantitative work done on the related impact models and the challenge in feeding valid financial data to these models.

He is CEO of the Professional Risk Managers' International Association (PRMIA). This is a global risk management professional body and education organization for risk managers based in the United States with a network of over 45,000 in over 60 chapters around the world. Previous to this, he spent several years as a senior volunteer for PRMIA, serving on many committees and ultimately chairing the global board.

Justin has a BSc in Computer Science from University College Cork and an MBA from the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business at University College Dublin. He has a corporate director certificate from Harvard Business School.

Chris Knight took the role of group chief risk officer in May 2021. For the previous three years he had been the chief executive of Legal and General’s retail retirement business, where he led the expansion of annuity propositions, developed one of the leading providers of lifetime mortgages and launched their financial advice and care businesses. Knight also serves as Legal and General’s customer champion, representing retail customers’ interests across the whole product range, a perspective he brings to his chief risk officer role. 

He has previously held positions at Legal and General of finance director of the international division, and chief financial officer of Legal & General Assurance Society. Knight has a first-class economics degree from King’s College, Cambridge and has worked on four continents in a career spanning more than three decades. He is a fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Jeff Simmons joined MUFG Bank in June 2014 as the head of enterprise risk, tasked with creating the function. He has been involved intensively with the enhancement of the risk management framework in MUFG Bank (Europe). This has involved him in the formation of an enterprise risk function in Amsterdam tasked with delivering the full range of regulatory submissions.  In April 2018, Simmons transitioned to MUFG Securities to become involved in the Brexit project. In this capacity he is the chief risk officer for MUFG Securities (Europe) N.V. the Dutch subsidiary of MUFG Securities (EMEA).

Prior to joining the bank, Simmons spent some 20 years specializing in best practice risk management including market risk, credit risk, risk model validation and regulatory risk consulting. As well as having line management responsibilities in various institutions he has also gained extensive experience in implementing risk management frameworks from both a technical and operating model-based perspective.

Andrew Morkot is a UK-based lead consultant for Riskonnect. He has worked in the resilience sector for over 25 years and specialises in the development and testing of highly effective, simple, meaningful, and flexible business continuity and incident management systems and solutions, tailored to align perfectly with operational resilience, organisational strategy, and meeting customer requirements.

Mr. James Egginton is a Regional Sales Director for EMEA Analytics at FactSet. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing FactSet’s Risk products across the EMEA region. His primary focus is on ensuring the product meets clients’ regulatory and business needs. Prior to this position, he served as a Portfolio Analytics Specialist and Consultant. Mr. Egginton earned a degree in Chemistry from the University of York.