Global Risk Management Executive

Professional Experience

Purchase, New York | 2012 – 2024

American Express

New York, NY and Brighton, UK | 1995 – 2011

Award-winning, strategic, and fact-based Senior Risk Management Executive with 20+ years of transferable risk and compliance experience, providing strategic leadership, governance, and oversight in navigating complex global risk and regulatory landscapes in the payments industry while balancing risk and reward to reflect organizational risk appetite. More than twelve years in roles involving engagement with C-suite and/or board leadership. Recognized six times through CEO-and CFO-level awards.

CORE COMPETENCIES

• Risk Management Decision Frameworks 

• Global Stakeholder Engagement

• Cross-Functional Team Leadership

• Mentoring and Talent Development 

SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT, RISK AND COMPLIANCE SOLUTIONS | MAR 2021 – JUL 2024

Led a team of five and managed budget of $3M-$5M per year to develop and deploy innovative AML and RegTech products.

• Led development of product based on cutting-edge AI models to identify, using global transaction data, accounts exhibiting potential money-laundering behavior.

• Completed phase 1 deployment to banks in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2023.
  Initial revenues trended ~50% above plan.

SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT, INTEGRATION LEADER | MAR 2017 – FEB 2021

Drove successful integrations of 5 Mastercard acquisitions with total value of ~ $1B.

• Directed development of cross-functional 24-month integration plans and delivery of all objectives in acquisition business cases, including revenue, technology, operational, and talent retention goals.

• Communicated monthly with C-suite business leadership on risks, opportunities, and issue management.

A 2020 CEO Award recognized the success of these acquisitions.

SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT, CUSTOMER RISK MANAGEMENT | APR 2013 – FEB 2017
VICE-PRESIDENT, CUSTOMER RISK MANAGEMENT  | FEB 2012 – MAR 2013

Transformed management of ~$40B in exposure to card issuers and merchant acquirers under Mastercard’s settlement guarantee.

• Led cross-functional global effort and obtained buy-in from globally matrixed business leadership to rationalize scope of settlement guarantee.

  Reduced global exposure by $3.4B (8.5%). Repeatedly cited by the CFO as a major achievement and resulted in a 2012 CFO Award.

• Drove transformational concept development and global deployment for customer-level exposure appetite framework incorporating risk management best practices and governance protocols.

• Identified $850M in excess customer collateral, release of which alleviated a significant pain point in customer relationships.

• Lead concept development and phased 3-year deployment of transformational global platform providing real-time tracking and management of customer-level exposure.
  Project team received 2014 CFO Award.

• Clarified for Dutch regulators Mastercard’s management of settlement exposure and procedures for addressing settlement failures.
  Clarification accelerated securing a domestic switching license for Mastercard; licensing project team earned a 2017 CFO Award.

Sustained success in risk management leadership roles, and at increasing levels of seniority, in consumer, small business and commercial card businesses including acquisition and credit risk management policy and modeling, end-to-end risk operations, process re-engineering, fraud policy and operations, and operational risk management.

• Led re-engineering of New Account operations. Identified $3.5mm in expense savings deliverable across 2010/2012 on baseline cost of $45mm.

• Led globally-distributed risk operations teams of up to 1,000 people serving 21 markets.

• Coordinated innovative contact and conversion strategies for Europe which generated $150mm in incremental collections.

• Led major cross-functional effort, under weekly C-suite scrutiny, to remediate account acquisition AML controls for Italian card businesses, a key step in the lifting of a regulatory moratorium on new card acquisition.

• Rolled out innovative fraud prevention policies, procedures and capabilities in 26 non-US markets.

  Delivered lower, and better-than-budget, fraud losses each year over a 3-year period.

• Led analytics highlighting that the highest-risk 5% of corporate card applicants accounted for 60% of credit write-offs. Championed senior management approval for Amex’s first use of credit bureau data in underwriting corporate cardholder accounts, and led design and build of platform to execute policy.

  Reduced credit losses by 50%, and lead to 1999 Tier 1 Chairman’s Award.

• Co-led development and operational release of US underwriting policies for Amex’s first small business lending cards in only 7 months due to anticipated competitor market launch.     

  Product team earned a 1997 Premier level Chairman’s Award.