Risk Management Association Virtual Conference: Home

Keynote Address: Emerging Risks 1:00 P.M. ET

Overview

Volatility and disruption is the new normal and extreme risks are manifesting themselves at an alarming rate.  Firms need to be aware of emerging risks and to take these extreme but plausible risk events into consideration as part of the strategic planning process.  This presentation will discuss emerging risks and how to build a framework to help manage them.

Learning Objectives:

To differentiate between risk and emerging risk.
To review and identify existing emerging risks.
To identify the elements needed for a framework to manage emerging risks.

Speaker

Joe Iraci, Managing Director Financial Risk Management, TD Ameritrade

Operational Resilience – Key Considerations for a World Class Framework 2:00 P.M. ET

Overview

Events of recent months have challenged Financial Services firms with multiple disruptions at a far greater duration and breadth than were anticipated or planned for by Operational Resilience teams. Financial services firms reacted and responded swiftly to address the challenges posed in parallel across the organization. That said, the multi-faceted disruptions reflected dislocations – rather than a widespread lack of availability across any of the critical assets below. In short, while early analysis suggests firms were able to cope with the fallout from the disruption caused by COVID-19, and BCP plans for the most part were effective at mitigating disruption, strategies that address more widespread and longer duration scenarios are needed. Crucial to a successful Operational Resilience program is a framework that provides the necessary governance and focus, while enable a process that identifies and defines critical organizational services and assets, performs appropriate testing and assessment of those assets, and provides ongoing reporting of service remediation and enhancement.

Learning Objectives:

Define core pillars of operational resilience
Understand how current events impacted operational resilience at the firm level
Articulate what leading practices firms will be required to do moving forward.

Speaker

Greg Matthews, KPMG; Paul Fagone, KPMG,

Keynote Address: A Framework for Managing Technology Risk 2:30 P.M. ET

Overview

With the continually changing technology environment and ongoing maturity of our understanding of risk, we developed a structure to enable a holistic look at technology risks that may be present in your environment and across the industry.  This framework enables you to collapse/expand based on your size, complexity and business structure, and works in conjunction with other risk frameworks available through the RMA.

Learning Objectives:

Define RMA’s Technology Risk Framework.
Determine how the Framework can be used.
Learn how the framework can be leveraged for more enriched conversation with the board and other stakeholders.

Speaker

Erika Crandall, Chief Compliance Officer, Head of Risk, Reserve Trust

Bias in Machine Learning Models and Corrective Methods 3:30 P.M. ET

Overview

All models but in particular Machine learning (ML) models run the risk of incorporating bias or unfairness in their outcomes. This is often driven by the underlying data used to train or calibrate the model. Since these models are not only increasingly used to make important decisions in our financial lives but also in other aspects like granting university admission, social benefit assignment, predicting risk of criminal recidivism, and part of hiring tools to review job applicant’s resumes, these biases have social, ethical as well as legal implications. This lecture gives a brief overview of the definitions of fairness used in the industry and some of the methods used to correct for unfairness in ML models.

Learning Objectives:

Provide participants with an understanding of how bias or unfairness can become embedded in models
Help the reader identify root causes and in particular…
To understand some basic strategies to mitigate bias in models

Speaker

Kevin Oden, Kevin D. Oden & Associates, LLC

Keynote Address: What Your Bank Needs to Know about Bank M&A Transactions 4:00 P.M. ET

Overview

In 2019 the banking industry witnessed the highest rate of bank mergers in the U.S. since Congress passed the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking Act of 1994 that opened the floodgates to interstate banking.  Some banking pundits believe the pace of bank mergers will accelerate over the next several years as the industry transitions into a new era of banking that requires greater scale and access to next-generation talent expert in the digital economy and Big Data.  This session will overview M&A trends as well as the forces shaping merger activity.  In addition, this session will introduce RMA’s new M&A Playbook which includes:   Five Questions Risk Executives/Bank Boards Should Ask and Debate Before a Bank Begins Merger Discussions   Ten Material Matters Every Bank Due Diligence Team Needs to Consider Before Acquiring a Bank   Merger Checklists  Two Often Overlooked M&A Risks 

Learning Objectives:

Introduce RMA M&A Risk Management Playbook
Equip risk management community with tools for exercising the challenge role
Encourage future discussions to allow community develop critical tools for next 3-5 years (as the industry evolves)