Carina (Ding) Zhao is a senior banking professional and analytics leader with nearly two decades of experience in the New Zealand financial services sector. Her expertise spans credit risk, model risk management, and analytical governance, with a strong focus on strengthening decision-making and operational resilience. She leads the model assurance function at a major New Zealand bank, overseeing model risk oversight, independent validation, and the development of assurance practices that support responsible and effective model use.
Carina holds a Master of Science with First Class Honours in Statistics from the University of Auckland and is undertaking a PhD in Finance at the University of Auckland. Her doctoral research explores the emerging operational risk implications of artificial intelligence integration in banking, using New Zealand as a case study for an industry in the early stages of AI adoption—where limited incident data, evolving regulatory expectations, and heterogeneous global adoption patterns create a unique research environment. Her work comprises three complementary components: empirical analysis of proprietary operational risk incident data; a conceptual evaluation of established operational risk frameworks, including the suitability of Robert A. Jarrow’s (2008) framework within an AI-enabled context; and qualitative insights from practitioners and regulators on emerging risk, adoption challenges, and governance considerations. This integrated approach leverages both academic rigour and her extensive practical experience in risk management.
Her broader research interests include operational risk, model governance, algorithmic decision-making, the interaction between human oversight and automated systems.
