Events

Brooklyn Quant Experience Lecture Series: Charles Fishkin

Finance and Risk Engineering
Academic,
Lecture / Panel
 
For NYU Community

 

Upon the request of the speaker, no recording is available for this lecture.

 

The Department of Finance and Risk Engineering welcomes Charles Fishkin, Adjunct Professor, Financial Engineering at Baruch College to the BQE Lecture Series.

Title

The Dysfunctional State of Risk Management Policies: What's Wrong, Why It Matters, and What Can be Done?

Abstract

In March of 2021, Charles Fishkin and Jay Newberry published an article on Risk.net about the difficult state of risk management policies. Both experienced risk managers observed that the current risk policies were often inadequate, ineffective, non-existent, or inconsistently applied — a situation that has resulted in serious reputational damage and significant financial loss at various institutions and organizations. Fishkin will discuss these themes and facilitate an interactive discussion with attendees about the roots and extent of the problem as well as possible solutions.

Read: "Clear, concise, consistent, doable – rules for a risk policy" (Source: Risk.net)

Bio

Charles A. Fishkin is a risk management expert, adviser, educator, and author. With over thirty years of industry experience, he has designed, advised on, and implemented risk management programs in global financial services firms, corporations, governmental agencies, and non-profit entities. In 2004, he was selected to create and lead the Office of Risk Assessment at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Serving as its first Director, he led an agency-wide program to assess complex risks across the securities markets, including issues relating to hedge funds, mutual funds, and financial services innovation. He served in this role until 2007.

Subsequently, he was Senior Vice President and Director of Risk Management for North America at AllianceBernstein. There he evaluated a wide range of risks relating to the firm’s new and established activities in asset management, wealth management, equity capital markets, and institutional equity trading.

Charles currently serves or has served on various boards, industry working groups, and risk committees, including:

  • Invisible Technologies Inc. (advisor and member of external Advisory Board)
  • Steele Creek Capital Corporation (Independent Director and Audit Committee Member)
  • Global Information Security Advisory Board, International Rescue Committee (IRC) 
  • Directors and Chief Risk Officers Group (DCRO)
  • Board of Directors of the International Association of Financial Engineers (IAFE) and co-founder of its Operational Risk Committee 
  • Member of working groups on enterprise risk and systemic risk sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
  • Member of a working group on best practices in risk management for mutual fund directors, which was sponsored by the Mutual Fund Directors Forum (MFDF)
  • Trustee of an independent private school in Connecticut and member of the investment committee for the school’s endowment 
  • Senior risk representative on various risk committees at AllianceBernstein (AB)

He has also held varied roles at other industry leaders, including Fidelity Investments (firm-wide risk oversight); Bankers Trust Company (OTC derivatives); and Drexel Burnham Lambert (mortgage-backed securities and high yield bonds). 

Charles is an adjunct faculty in the financial engineering master's program at Bernard M. Baruch College of The City University of New York. He has been a guest lecturer and speaker at other leading graduate programs, including the University of Michigan, University of Chicago, Harvard Business School, MIT, NYU, and Wharton.

His writing on risk management has been widely published in industry journals. He is also the author of The Shape of Risk (2006) and co-author of Managing Country Risk in an Age of Globalization (2018), both published by Palgrave Macmillan, an imprint of Springer Nature. He is currently working on a third book on human capital to be published by The University of Chicago Press.

He has advised global financial services companies, risk management firms, new economy firms, start-ups, and non-profits.

He received a BA in Economics, with General Honors, from The University of Chicago.