Scaling Digital Asset Infrastructure: What Traditional Banks Need to Know

This is really exciting.

And you already decided to talk about risk, but we know that risk management is usually something associated with saying no, but innovation often requires saying yes.

So how has your definition of risk changed over the course of your career, especially taking into account your Treadfire experience?

Well, sure.

I think that's such a good question as well, because as I think about the differing lenses and roles that risk managers, all of us, play, and as I think about my role as well evolving within the second line, more traditional perspective of risk as well, I would say it's been about thinking about the context that I was in.

At Citi, when I was in the enterprise risk team there, the context is very different, right? You're talking about a significant institution.

You're talking about operations in multiple of the world's financial centers, operations with multiple different regulators as well, right? I'd say looking at it from that perspective, it's all about the context.

And it's all about how do you do things not just to tick a box, but how do you put things together such that the process is sustainable? The people supporting that is sustainable.

The tools that you have as well, they're sustainable at the same time as well.

And I think what for me had been the biggest jump, and it's a jump that I enjoyed, was moving from large, not large enterprise to a smaller function, right? Something that started with less than 15, 20 people.

And then that grew over time, right? And it's basically going down to first principles.

And it's actually being part of designing the controls from the start.

Designing not just controls separate from the product, but actually the product and the controls in one together at the starting point rather than at the end, right? And I think to answer your question specifically, what for me has been the biggest difference or the biggest change is the fact that As you think about whether it's a startup, a fintech, a scale-up, a risk manager is not there to say no.

A risk manager is there to say, how are we making sure that the decisions that we're making and the processes that we're putting in place and the support that we have in place against that is as sufficient as possible and as efficient as well and sustainable and at the same time thinking about the impact that it has to clients.

And how do you put together these building blocks such that you can go into a, yes, we can safely launch this and we can launch this quickly, rather than a, no, you can only do it after you hit a certain set of parameters.

And I feel like this evolution or this concept of continuous improvement...

And you'll learn more and you'll learn more and you'll continuously improve.

That's been the biggest change for me.

And I think it's super important, right? Because no entity is perfect.

Risk management, that doesn't mean eliminating risks to zero.

I don't think that's feasible for a business, right? It's actually about how do you make smart decisions? How do you make the risks clear as well? And make it clear where are you willing to accept risk and where are you not.

And make sure that you are working together as one overall team to address it and to build an environment and a control set that works at the end of the day.

It's not just a tick the box.