Finastra’s Chief Risk Officer on the Art of Risk Mitigation DIGITAL REPORT 2021
FINASTRA’S
CHIEF RISK OFFICER ON THE ART OF RISK MITIGATION
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Elona Ruka-Wright, Chief Risk Officer at Finastra, talks strategy and thought leadership inside one of the world’s leading financial technology companies
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isk management is as much an art as it is a science’, says Elona Ruka-Wright, Chief Risk Officer at Finastra. We’re speaking about the art of risk mitigation and her role on a Monday morning, and she dives right in. ‘While there are aspects of risk that you can predict based on statistical data, no risk stands alone. You have to connect the dots; think about unintended consequences’. This is partly what draws her to risk management: the intellectual challenge. ‘You need critical thinking to constantly evaluate and make decisions’, Elona explains. ‘There is no business without risk. It’s about making informed and balanced decisions that maximise opportunities while minimising risk. You can’t let infinite available data paralyse you, or you run the risk of doing nothing’. As Finastra’s Chief Risk Officer, she leads all aspects of the firm’s global risk management and governance practices, manages crisis situations, and builds strong relationships with regulators. Having come to Finastra following a 20-year career built in established banks, Elona holds a unique perspective on the fintech industry. ‘Fintechs are different; they’re often more agile, more globally dispersed, and more diverse in their products and customers’, she says. But both Black Knight (where she worked previously) and Finastra (her current company) serve big banks. ‘In many ways’, she says, ‘we have similar risk management programmes and practices as the world’s largest institutions’. 4
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Elona Ruka-Wright Chief Risk Officer at Finastra
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“No risk stands alone. You have to connect the dots; think about unintended consequences” ELONA RUKA-WRIGHT
CHIEF RISK OFFICER, FINASTRA
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Finastra’s Global Focus remote working in just a “There is no business As the largest purefew days. At the start of without risk. It’s about play software vendor the pandemic, we faced that serves the financial familiar risks—safety, making informed and services industry, Finastra balanced decisions that security, and resilience— operates across the but we knew that they maximise opportunities globe, with key hubs and would accelerate and centres of excellence evolve’. She points out while minimising risk” located in Europe, that risk management Canada, Asia, and the US. demands collaboration. ELONA RUKA-WRIGHT Some risks that Elona ‘There’s no competition’, CHIEF RISK OFFICER, FINASTRA and her team oversee she says. ‘We look at are universal, such as ourselves as peers cybersecurity, health and and partners. And we safety, and operational disruption. Yet others communicate regularly within our industry are localised—such as political strife in Hong in order to do our best work’. Kong, hurricanes in the US, tsunamis in the Gulf of Thailand, or Brexit. Banking as a Service: FusionFabric.cloud In terms of risk, there’s also the global Not all change is bad. ‘At Finastra, we see pandemic. ‘First and foremost, we huge market opportunities arising from focused on our people’s health and safety, new business models’, Elona tells us. ‘We prioritising employee wellbeing’, Elona says. see Finastra as being a financial ecosystem ‘We moved over 95% of our workforce to orchestrator’. The firm’s FusionFabric.cloud 6
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platform, for instance, is the foundation for Finastra’s Banking as a Service (BaaS) proposition. An open developer platform for innovation, with over 150 apps, it’ll lead the way in which solutions are written, deployed, and purchased. The platform enables organisations to access capabilities that extend core solutions and, in turn, will help financial institutions bring relevant solutions to their customers. ‘Since we collaborate with a network of infinite developers, we can far surpass what Finastra’s developers can do alone’, Elona explains. ‘As our suite of apps and solutions grows, it creates opportunities for traditional and non-traditional banks and, ultimately, for Finastra and its customers. It increases their relevance and scale—and consequently, their growth and digital transformation’.
Agile Operations The pandemic has accelerated digitalisation—and risk management is
TITLE: CHIEF RISK OFFICER INDUSTRY: FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY LOCATION: CENTRAL FLORIDA Elona recently joined the Office of the CEO, where she heads up Finastra's global risk management and governance practices and is the company's key liaison with regulatory bodies and auditors. She is accountable for Finastra's Enterprise Risk Management framework, strategy and governance, as well as regulatory compliance, enterprise policy governance, client and third-party due diligence, business resilience, crisis management, and internal audits.
EXECUTIVE BIO
Digital Risk Management With digital transformation being a key driver for financial services institutions, how does it impact risk management? ‘On one hand, digital evolution introduces new risks’, Elona explains. On the other, risk management has turned to digital tools to cope with COVID-19. ‘Reliable and timely data coupled with the ability to automate and analyse risks is critical to driving insight’, she adds. But is tech always the answer? To answer that, let’s return to Elona’s vision of risk management as an art. ‘We have a proliferation of tools’, she says. ‘But they can never fully replace professional judgement and a healthy dose of scepticism. If something doesn’t seem right—even if the data says it’s perfect — I trust my team’s intuition and expertise’.
ELONA RUKA-WRIGHT
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Benefits for Financial Institutions
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• Accelerates innovation and time to market • Embraces digital transformation and the cloud • Engages customers with better experiences • Enhances business decisions with data insights • Streamlines workflows and unlocks efficiencies • Creates new business models and revenue streams
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no exception. As a direct result of the pandemic, Finastra has rapidly taken steps to keep up with the complex threats that companies now face. To proactively manage risk, Elona’s team has taken an agile approach. ‘We’ll see an emerging risk and launch a targeted response’, Elona explains. ‘And when we evaluate new strategic initiatives or business projects, we identify risks that we want to nip in the bud’. In addition, Finastra has started to conduct more frequent and short sprint risk assessments, refresh its audits and crisis scenarios, and implement new enterprise Governance Risk & Compliance (eGRC) and risk data visualisation tools and functionality. This is all part of Elona’s strategic approach to continuously prioritise—to determine the balance
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between risk-taking and risk avoidance. ‘There is no business without risk’, she emphasises. ‘You just have to know where to draw the line’. In the end, risk management comes down to mindset. ‘Our job is more than merely preventing disaster’, she says. ‘We aim to be an enabler: to help Finastra mitigate risk and maximise opportunity’. Building the Next Generation of Talent What’s more, Elona cares deeply about building strong teams. ‘One of the parts I like most about my job is developing the next generation of talent’, she explains, ‘culture starts at the top’. At Finastra, she appreciates that she has the support of its board and its executives in making risk management a priority.
“ I feel privileged to work for a company that cherishes diversity, equity, and inclusion, where you can belong and bring your whole self to work” ELONA RUKA-WRIGHT CHIEF RISK OFFICER, FINASTRA
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That’s why when it comes to the ‘Great Resignation’, or the fabled exodus of skilled workers from their jobs following COVID19, Elona is more level-headed than most. ‘Good people are, of course, hard to replace, especially in roles that require domain expertise’, she says. There’s certainly a war for talent, but she has a strategy.
“Simply buying talent isn’t enough — we have to develop and nurture it” ELONA RUKA-WRIGHT
CHIEF RISK OFFICER, FINASTRA
In addition to leveraging Finastra’s global recruitment networks, she intends to invest in internal risk management training and education programmes. ‘We support individuals at all stages of their careers’, she says. ‘Risk management is an entry point into an organisation. It gives you great visibility and insight into all parts of the organisation. It’s a great career option with many exciting trajectories’. This final point hits close to home, as Elona started out in risk management and grew to love it. Now, she wants to build the next generation of global leaders. ‘Simply buying talent isn’t enough’, she concludes. ‘We have to develop and nurture it’.
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