Speakers

Janet Cosier is the former Chief Risk Officer and Adviser on Strategic Planning at the Bank of Canada. She continues in her capacity as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Payments Association. She has served in a variety of functions including comptroller and chief accountant, as well as chief internal auditor, before being appointed adviser to the governor. She has provided technical assistance to various central banks in the areas of strategic planning, risk management, governance and financial reporting. Before joining the Bank of Canada, she worked with the Office of the Auditor General of Canada and with the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Mrs Cosier holds degrees from York University and the University of Windsor in mathematics, computer science, accounting and financial management.

Mads G. Kristensen is the deputy head of the Internal Audit department at Norges Bank. He is certified as a state authorised public accountant as well as an internal auditor. A substantial part of his work is devoted to the banks operations for managing the Government Pension Fund Global, which is one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. Mr. Kristensen holds an MSc in Accounting and Auditing from BI Norwegian Business School.

Matthew Hite is the vice president of Strategic Bank Services for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.  In his role, he oversees the Bank’s Enterprise Risk Management, Strategy and Performance Management, Information Security, Business Continuity, and Continuous Improvement teams.  He also supports the Federal Reserve System’s risk management program, with a focus on operational risk. Mr. Hite has 25 years’ experience in risk management, compliance, operations, and audit at both the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and in the private sector. 

Shehzad Ali Sharif currently working as a Senior Joint Director has more than a decade and a half of working experience with the Central Bank. His main areas of expertise are Strategic Planning, Annual Performance Review and BCP. He played a key role in the development of SBP Vision 2020. In the area of BCP, he has been involved since the inception of BCP program in 2006, and has been instrumental in the development of the BCP manuals, policies, establishment of multiple backup sites, conducting BIAs & BCP preparedness Reviews, BCP Communication cards and development of the BCP course curriculum. Due to his accomplishments in the field of BCP at SBP, Mr. Shehzad was awarded with the Organizational Competence Award. Mr. Shehzad holds an engineering degree and an MBA degree.

Muhammad Akmal, has banking experience spreading over three decades. Joining the State Bank of Pakistan in 1991, he has worked in areas of regulation and supervision of banks and nonbank financial institutions. His areas of expertise include Banking Inspection, Foreign Exchange Policy formulation and implementation, Consumer Protection, Banking Conduct, etc. In view of his vast experience in Central Banking, he has been entrusted with the charge of Director Strategic Planning to provide leadership to SBP in formulation and implementation of strategic goals and SBP Vision 2020. He has attended a number of local and foreign trainings/expert panels and attachment programs offered by other central banks, IMF and the World Bank. He is member of various committees of the SBP. He also remained Co-Chairman National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) Technical Committee on “Financial Literacy & Consumer Protection”, Country Coordinator for Asian Clearing Union, especially for attending issues relating to import/export. He has conducted various capacity building programs for SBP and the Banking Industry. He has been a resource person from SBP for imparting trainings at Foreign Services Academy, Government of Pakistan, National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Trade bodies/Chambers and National Institute of Banking & Finance (NIBAF). 

Greg Carpenter is the AVP of Unified Communications for the Federal Reserve. His previous roles span across multiple government organizations including The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, NASA, United States Army Space Command, and United States Air Force Space Command. In these organizations Greg has led risk management, information security, and business continuity functions. The blend of Greg’s background and a focus on customer experience provides a unique perspective to risk management and technology survivability approaches.

Randip is Legal Counsel in the Bank of England’s Central Banking division of the Legal Directorate at the Bank of England. This team works on a variety of matters, including providing legal advice in respect of the Bank’s Sterling markets and banking operations and financial and funding arrangements. She advises on legal risks in respect of the provision of collateral in the Bank’s liquidity insurance operations under the Sterling Monetary Framework. She also advises on the Bank’s annual bond issuance and Corporate Bond Purchase Scheme.

Prior to joining the Bank of England, Randip was an associate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP in London, working within the Global Transactions team. She worked on international capital markets transactions, including medium term note programmes, bond issuances and liability management exercises. She has experience of working with both corporates and banks to assist them with their capital raising requirements.

Radhika Sood is a Senior Legal Counsel and Manager in the Central Banking division of the Legal Directorate at the Bank of England. Her team advises on a range of commercial, financial regulatory, markets, banking and public law matters and her particular focus is on the risks associated with taking collateral in the Bank’s liquidity insurance operations under the Sterling Monetary Framework and in providing emergency liquidity assistance. She also advises on a range of Markets projects, including benchmarks reform and the transition to sterling risk free rates from Libor.

Radhika joined the Bank of England in 2013 prior to which she was part of the finance practice at Linklaters, London, advising on a wide range of bank finance transactions, including investment grade loans and general syndicated lending, restructurings, acquisition and leveraged finance, real estate finance and emerging market transactions. She has spent time on secondments at Linklaters’ New York office and with the investment banking division of Barclays Bank, London.

Kestutis Laurinavicius is heading a team of lawyers at the European Central Bank (ECB) working on monetary policy, foreign reserve management and various other financial law topics. The team is handling a number of cases in which the ECB has been sued before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Mr Laurinavicius represents the ECB in court cases, advises policy colleagues on the legal aspects of monetary policy and other market operations, and reviews and prepares briefings to the decision-making bodies of the ECB. Since his start at the ECB in 2003, Mr Laurinavicius has been dealing with legal questions relating to payment and securities settlement systems, issuance of banknotes, governance and the institutional aspects of the supervisory function. Prior to joining the ECB, Mr Laurinavicius worked at the central bank of Lithuania, advising on legal issues relating to market operations and the implementation of EU financial services law. In 2010-2011 he was on secondment to the International Monetary Fund’s Legal Department, working on financial sector assessments, new legislative proposals for bank resolution and participating in technical assistance missions to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Eritrea.

Steve Thomas joined the Bank of Canada as Assistant General Counsel in 2014. In this this capacity, Steve manages the Bank’s Legal Services unit which supports all aspects of the Bank’s operations. Prior to joining the Bank, Steve was Director, Regulation Sector at Canada’s federal prudential regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. Previously, Steve was a Partner with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, at the time Canada’s largest law firm, where his practice focused on investment management and corporate finance.

Hans Kuhn is a practicing attorney with Wicki Partners AG. He specializes in banking and financial market law, including fintech law. He advises and represents banks, fintechs and financial services providers in regulatory matters and has also extensive experience in securities law (including international securities transactions) and payment and secured transactions. Before joining private practice he has served as chief legal counsel for Swiss National Bank, Switzerland’s central bank, for more than 13 years. In this capacity he was responsible for setting-up the UBS StabFund, the UBS bad bank which acquired legacy assets of up to USD 60 bn. from UBS in October 2008. He later represented SNB at the board of the UBS StabFund until its liquidation in 2013.

Clare Merrifield is the senior legal counsel and manager in the Resolution Division of the Legal Directorate at the Bank of England. She joined the Bank from Linklaters LLP, where she specialised in restructuring and insolvency law. She was involved in developing responses to the recommendations made by the Bloxham report into the investment bank special administration regime. Her experience includes advising the administrators of Lehman Brothers International Europe, primarily on the return of trust assets to the bank’s clients, and advising financial institutions on resolution planning.

Mrs. Elsie Addo Awadzi was appointed 2^nd Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana in February 2018, with responsibility for financial supervision, financial stability, and financial integrity, among others. She is the second woman to be appointed Deputy Governor in the Bank’s 62-year history. 

Before her appointment as Deputy Governor, she was Senior Counsel of the Financial and Fiscal Law Unit of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Legal Department, based in Washington, D.C. In that role, she helped to assess the stability of financial systems in a number of G-20 member countries, and provided technical assistance to help strengthen financial systems and manage financial crises in a variety of IMF member countries. She also advised on legal and institutional aspects of public financial management, public debt management, and fiscal responsibility frameworks.

Thomas J. Curry is a recently retired partner in Nutter McClennan & Fish’s Corporate and Transactions Department and was a co-leader of the firm’s Banking and Financial Services group. He was a regulatory attorney who advised clients on a wide range of policy, financial services regulation, governance, and other issues.

Tom serves on the board of directors of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston (FHLBB) and serves on The Brookings Institution's Center for Regulation and Markets Policy Advisory Council. He also chairs the Milken Institute’s Fintech Advisory Council and is a foundation board member of the Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR), which helps regulators integrate technology into financial supervision and regulation.

Prior to joining Nutter, Tom served as the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency until May 2017. He also served as an expert consultant for the International Monetary Fund in 2017-2018 and 2021-2022. 

In 2012, Tom was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as Comptroller of the Currency – the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal agency that charters, regulates, and supervises national banks and federal savings banks. As Comptroller, he launched the OCC’s Responsible Innovation Initiative, proposed the Fintech national bank charter, and established the OCC Office of Innovation, a first among federal financial regulators. In this role, Tom served as an ex-officio member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Financial Stability Oversight Council. He was also a member of the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision (GHOS), the oversight body of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

Tom also served as Chairman of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) for a two-year term from April 2013 until April 2015.

Before becoming Comptroller in 2012, Tom served as a member of the Board of Directors of the FDIC. He was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2003. He continued to serve on the FDIC Board until May 2017. Tom was a FDIC Board member during the Global Financial Crisis and the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and participated in the adoption and implementation of its post-crisis reform regulations as well as the United States’ adoption of the Basel 3 capital reforms.

Prior to joining the FDIC’s Board of Directors, Tom served five Massachusetts Governors as the Commonwealth’s Commissioner of Banks from 1995 to 2003 and from 1990 to 1991. He was appointed by Governor William F. Weld, a Republican, in 1995 and by Governor Michael S. Dukakis, a Democrat, in 1990.

Tom served as the Chairman of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors from 2000 to 2001 and served two terms on the State Liaison Committee of the FFIEC, including a term as Committee chairperson.

Previously, Tom served as Acting Commissioner of Banks from February 1994 to June 1995. He previously served as First Deputy Commissioner and Assistant General Counsel within the Massachusetts Division of Banks. Tom entered state government in 1982 as an attorney with the Massachusetts’ Secretary of State’s Office.

Tom was a longtime member of the NeighborWorks America Board of Directors (NWA). He twice served as Chairman of the Board of Directors, most recently from March 2014 through June 2016. NWA is a Congressionally chartered non-profit whose mission is to support affordable and sustainable housing and community development.

Nikita Aggarwal is a lawyer and researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute and Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. Her research examines changes to the regulatory landscape occasioned by the proliferation of data-driven technology, with a particular focus on the implications of machine learning ('artificial intelligence') applications in consumer credit markets. Previously, as the Research and Course Design Fellow in Law and Technology at the Faculty of Law, she researched the educational skills gaps in legal education and training created by technological growth, and helped to design and deliver a more interdisciplinary approach to law and technology education at the University. Prior to entering academia, Nikita was an attorney in the legal department of the International Monetary Fund, where she advised on financial sector law reform in the Euro area and worked extensively on initiatives to reform the legal and policy frameworks for sovereign debt restructuring. She previously practiced as an associate solicitor with Clifford Chance LLP, where she specialized in EU financial regulation and sovereign debt restructuring. She earned an LLB (Hons) from the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

Eamonn is Director of Ardhill Advisory LTD, an independent consulting firm focused on advising financial institutions, central banks, national authorities and international organisations, including the International Monetary Fund, on financial stability policy. This includes advising on prudential regulation, bank resolution, central bank liquidity and crisis management.

Between 2020 and 2022, Eamonn was a senior advisor to the Bank of England (BoE), leading a resolution planning team for a large UK bank as part of the BoE's Resolvability Assessment Framework, contributing to UK resolution policy development and cross-border cooperation with international authorities on resolution issues.

From 2016 and 2019, Eamonn was Head of the Resolution Office at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). During this time, he was responsible for leading the development of the domestic statutory/regulatory resolution regime for all Hong Kong banks, leading resolution planning for banks in Hong Kong, often in close cooperation with foreign authorities, and contributing to the international cross-border resolution policy framework and resolution plans for global banks through his work as a member of the Financial Stability Board committees and for the cooperative organization of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP).

Before joining the HKMA, Eamonn worked on financial stability topics, including bank resolution at the Bank of England for 4 years. He was also a senior policy advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer at HM Treasury (HMT) for 7 years. At HMT he worked at the centre of the UK’s policy and strategic response to the financial crisis, both managing bank failure and the policy response to the Too-Big-To-Fail problem.

In his early career, Eamonn was a diplomat in Washington DC, covering EU foreign policy and trade issues.