With over 22 years of experience in banking and risk management, Rex Alex currently works at CWB Financial Group as Assistant Vice President, managing the Operational Risk Management division. Rex gained his risk management expertise working with various Canadian Schedule I and Schedule II Banks, Crown Corporations as well as several International Financial Organizations. Rex also teaches undergraduate students investment management and finance courses at Concordia University of Edmonton. Rex volunteers with Edmonton CFA Society as a Board of Director and is currently serving as the President of the Society. Rex is also a member of the Program Review Committee at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT).

Rex is a CFA Charter holder, has a Masters Diploma in Business Administration and Bachelor of Science degrees. He has also completed Executive level courses at Schulich Business School and New York Institute of Finance.

Saad is currently a Senior Director leading the Finance and Treasury Audit team at CIBC. He has over 12 years of progressive experience in governance roles including Operational Risk, Internal Audit, and Control functions. He obtained his Chartered Accountant designation while working at PricewaterhouseCoopers with a focus on Financial Institutions and Asset Management.

Saad also is involved with academia including course facilitator for the CPA program and exams, session leader for CPA modules, adjunct professor at York University amongst others.

Norman’s career in risk management spans more than 30 years. As Operations Manager for First Generation Capital, he oversaw operational risk for the parent company plus an extensive and diverse portfolio of subsidiaries in Canada, the Philippines, and the USA. He later performed the same managerial role for projects in Canada and southern Africa with Resource Group and Lion Mining Finance. He subsequently spent 23 years in Brazil, where he trained staff teams at HSBC Brasil, Banco Itaú, Banco Real, Itaipu Binacional, and Accor do Brasil on creating risk cultures and compliance programs for international operational risk management practices and standards. He is currently a managing partner of GRC Vista, which provides governance, risk, and compliance consulting services to groups in Canada and Brazil, primarily in methodologies and technologies to create successful risk cultures. Norman holds a BA from the University of British Columbia, and an MBA in Strategic Management from the Federal University of Paraná in Curitiba.

Andres is a Certified AML Specialist, Certified Financial Crime Specialist, Certified Blockchain Expert, Certified Cryptocurrency Investigator, and member of the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators who works in the Global AML Audit Centre of Excellence for Scotiabank. Andres has over 10 years of experience in Compliance and AML working within the financial services industry working on regulatory compliance effectiveness reviews of reporting entities, AML and fraud investigations, AML remediations, quality assurance program design and testing, training and strategy development, Centre of Excellence processes and AML internal control audits in Canada and international banking regulatory audit reports (Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Cayman, TCI, Uruguay and Central America).

Richard is a senior GRC and Cyber Risk/Security adviser with over 25 years successfully delivering value for organizations in oil and gas, energy, utilities, and healthcare.

Mumtaz Chaudhary  is the Chief Experience Officer and Co-Founder at Pragilis Solutions—a boutique consultancy that partners with CEOs and executives to anticipate change before it arrives in their organizations. After spending over a decade consulting to companies in the education, energy, machinery, mining, and financial services sectors, Mumtaz knows what it takes to build change-resilient organizations and change-ready leaders—and it’s not managing change as a one-off event. It’s building change management skills for the future.

A thought leader for Pragilis, Mumtaz routinely writes for notable publications such as Consult Magazine and Change Management Review. Mumtaz is a frequent speaker on how companies can properly engage their people to deliver successful change—digital, organizational, strategic or otherwise. She has an active interest in helping companies lead people-centered change and looks for opportunities to incorporate agile, design-thinking and lean principles into her distinctive approach.

Mumtaz is a Certified Change Management Professional™ (CCMP) and holds a B.Sc. in Science, Technology and Society from the University of Calgary.

Shaheen Chaudhary is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Pragilis Solutions. After having gained over a decade of experience working for the world’s largest consulting firms, Shaheen left his comfortable corporate job to launch his own company—a boutique consultancy with his wife, Mumtaz. And, he hasn’t looked back.

Throughout his career, Shaheen has always enjoyed turning challenges into opportunities. Through his firm’s efforts, he’s assisted a growing number of organizations not only survive, but thrive, using his expertise and guidance. Shaheen is passionate about emerging technologies, entrepreneurship and the future of work.

Shaheen is an ITIL® certified professional and holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Calgary.

With over 17 years of experience, Eslam currently leads the Business Continuity and Business Risk Management in Home Trust Company where he designs, monitors, and manages the Business Continuity Management program for the company, Eslam’s core focus is to ensure both business resilience and emergency response preparedness are effectively embedded into business process, functions and teams to navigate through emergencies and critical business disruption events. Eslam built his experience as he assumed different leadership roles in Business Continuity and Enterprise Risk Management with different financial institutions in several countries and in various sectors from Banking, Insurance, Leasing, Brokerage and Mortgage.

Eslam has a bachelor degree in finance as well as a master degree in Banks’ management, a diploma in Credit Risk Management, a Chartered Risk Analyst, Associate- Life Management Institute-ALMI®, a Certificate in Risk Management and Assurance-CRMA®, A Certified Business Continuity Professional-CBCP® and a Certified Internal Auditor-CIA®, Eslam believes deeply in the value of continuous learning. Eslam is deeply passionate about his area of expertise and he believes in Steve Job’s quote ‘’The Only Way To Do Great Work Is To Love What You Do”.

Michael Leung is an experienced leader of governance and risk management in cyber/information security with more than 15 years of senior level management responsibility. He is the founder of CANADIAN CYBERSECURITY INC. and a management consultant – helping businesses and organizations identify, prepare for and mitigate cyber risks by providing counsel and expertise in risk management, strategy, and tactics.

Michael was previously the head of Information Security at a Canadian financial institution for over 11 years, and also an active volunteer and a leader within the local, national and international cyber/information security, IT governance and risk community. He has volunteered on a number of task forces, working groups, and committees for ISACA International, and is also a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors. As a past President and Board chair of the ISACA Vancouver Chapter, he was responsible for the oversight and direction of chapter operations in promoting the practices and the development of professionals in IT risk, governance of enterprise IT, information security management, and IT assurance within the local business and academic community, and chapter membership.

ISACA is a non-profit, global membership association for IT and information systems professionals, and consists of more than 460,000 engaged professionals, with more than 165,000 members in 188 countries, including 217 chapters worldwide and offices in both the United States and China.

Ashok Menen is an Investigation Counsel in the Enforcement Branch of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC). Ashok is both a lawyer and a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CA). Ashok serves a dual role at the OSC, advising on enforcement matters with an inter- jurisdictional component and as legal counsel to the Office of the Whistleblower. Ashok has been involved with the Whistleblower Program since before its launch. Ashok is responsible for reviewing whistleblower submissions, dealing directly with whistleblowers and their submissions and assisting Commission Staff assigned to investigate whistleblower tips. He is also responsible for public enquiries about the Commission’s Whistleblower Program. Prior to joining the OSC, Ashok worked as a forensic accountant at a Big Four accounting firm and at a global forensic accounting boutique.

Sarah Reppchen is leading Financial Services for Deloitte’s Risk Advisory practice in Western Canada, located in Vancouver B.C. She is responsible for supporting Financial Institutions across Western Canada managing the Regulatory and Risk Management challenges, especially Operational Risk creates one of the most imminent challenges. Sarah has over 10 years of experience in the financial services industry, especially in auditing and advising Enterprise Risk Management Functions concerning regulatory compliance in the context of the Basel III framework, as well as Vendor Risk Management Governance, Anti Money Laundering processes and Model Risk Management. Sarah’s primary experience was generated on large, complex banks (G-SIBs, D-SIBs), Credit Unions, investment management firms in Canada, Europe and on a global scale. Sarah has worked with the first, second, and third line of defense to inform on optimization opportunities while meeting regulatory requirements. She worked on behalf of EU Supervisory Authorities (ECB, BaFin, PRA) and supported on managing Regulatory Affairs with Regulators in North America. She was mandated by Regulators to support their audits of large banks concerning operational resilience, governance, development of control frameworks and policies meeting operational risk management and reporting requirements. Sarah qualifies as Wirtschaftspruefer, the German CPA (IFAC compliant).