The View from the Board and Expectations of Risk Executives
The View from the Board and Expectations of Risk Executives

Bruce is a Risk and Compliance specialist, with an international career of over 40 years.
He is currently a Non-Executive Director at Julius Baer Group in Zurich, where he is Chairman of the Board’s Governance & Risk Committee. He is a Senior Advisor at Boston Consulting Group in London, supporting their Risk and Compliance and Financial Services practice, and is Chairman of the Professional Risk Managers International Association (PRMIA), which is a member led not-for-profit specialising in risk management training.
He previously served in four Chief Risk Officer positions, most recently as the CRO for NatWest Group, and before that as the CRO for the Global Retail Banking and Wealth Management business at HSBC.

Alessandra Mongiardino is a Non-Executive Director at Triodos Bank UK, a member of the Financial Services Faculty Board of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), a member of the Advisory Board for Essex Business School, and the former Director of Financial and Strategic Risk at NatWest.
Alessandra has more than 25 years of international Risk Management experience developed in Banking, Asset Management and Rating Agencies. Her expertise includes enterprise-wide risk management, oversight of climate, financial and strategic risk, and credit portfolio analysis and modelling. She has extensive executive and Board committee experience, and thrives in multi-cultural environments, having worked in the UK, Denmark and the UAE.
Alessandra holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Warwick and an M.Sc. in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Southampton. She also holds the GARP FRM certification.

Raj Singh is the CEO and Founder of Accredere AG, a Switzerland-based advisory firm. He is also a Non-Executive Director of AIB PLC, a major Dublin-based Irish FTSE and Irish Exchange-listed financial services firm, and has served on their Risk and Sustainability Committee of the Board since 2019. Additionally, he serves as Chairman of Hoerner College Society, a charitable society that runs a college with roughly 1,500 enrolled students in Lucknow, India. His prior professional experience spans serving on the executive boards of major global FTSE, SMI, and DAX listed financial services companies with a focus on risk, governance, business development, sustainability, and ESG. Most recently, he has actively been involved in advising fintech, insurtech, and liquidity solutions start-ups.
Through 2020, Raj had been a member of the Group Executive and Group Chief Risk Officer of EFG International, a leading Zurich-based, SMI listed wealth manager with around $150 billion in AuM, which he joined in 2018. Prior to this, he had been a Member of the Executive of Standard Life Aberdeen PLC, a FTSE and LSE listed financial services provider focused on asset management, wealth and pension platforms, and life insurance with operations in 32 countries and £670 billion in AuM based out of London and Edinburgh, since 2012. During his time at Standard Life Aberdeen PLC, he served as the Group Chief Risk Officer and Group Executive Financial Institutions.
Before joining Standard Life, Raj acquired extensive experience in financial services worldwide. From 2007 to 2011, Raj was Group Chief Risk Officer at Swiss Re, the global SMI listed reinsurer in Zurich, where he was a member of the Executive Board and Committee covering the reinsurance, asset management, corporate insurance, and closed life businesses. Through 2007, he was Group Chief Risk Officer at Allianz SE, a global DAX and NYSE listed financial services leader with over a trillion balance sheet and multi-trillion in AuM, in Munich, a position he held from 2002 covering their retail and wholesale insurance, investment, corporate, private and consumer banking business as well as asset management businesses in over 90 countries. Prior to this, he held various senior investment banking, sales/relationship management, and risk positions at Citibank in the corporate, institutional, real estate, and private banking businesses from 1988 to 2002 in New York, London, Brussels, and Düsseldorf. He has also served on the boards of several listed European and Middle Eastern financial institutions as well as Schufa AG, the German Credit Bureau. He has also been a board member at many principal banking, insurance, and reinsurance subsidiaries of companies worldwide.
Raj is a globally networked financial services veteran with broad interests across the industry and volunteers considerable time to various industry topics. Most recently, Raj has been a member of the House of Finance Advisory Board at the International Centre for Insurance Regulation at Wilhelm Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, for the past eight years. He has been Chairman of the Swiss Market Advisory Group at TheCityUK, the representative body for the UK's financial and professional services industry. Raj was also the founding Chairman of the Netherlands-based Chief Risk Officers Forum, the professional forum for global insurance CROs. He is also a past Chairman of the International Finance Risk Institute, the Swiss-based CRO Forum for the top 40 financial institutions. He has also represented his respective firms as a delegate to the World Economic Forum, IMF, BIS, IAIS, EIOPA, and other global venues. Raj resides in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, with his spouse and three children.

Sara is a seasoned investment banking executive passionate about digital transformation and innovation in shaping the future of finance. She is highly proficient in seamlessly aligning strategy and risk management to grow alpha and market share by utilising technology as a differentiator, including the use of responsible AI.
Sara boasts a wealth of leadership experience. Prior to joining Barclays, Sara was the Chief Risk Officer and Head of Investment Oversight Committee for a global investment manager. Throughout her career as a banker and management consultant, Sara has advised boards and executive teams of the world’s largest financial services firms across EMEA, APAC, and North America. Her counsel has extended to strategy, M&A transactions, AI, and sustainability. Notably, Sara has been a trusted advisor to regulators, governments, and other policy makers on how best to approach and understand such critical matters.
Sara is a Certified Board Director in the USA, a Steering Committee member of 100 Women in Finance, a member of European Women on Boards Technology Executive Group, and a member of National Association of Corporate Directors, New York Chapter.