Changing hats

Duncan Wilson

Duncan Wilson, formerly global head of operational risk management at BNP Paribas, based in London, has joined UK-based consulting firm RiskBusiness, according to the firm. Wilson will be executive director responsible for Europe. Wilson joined BNP Paribas in 2001, and is a noted author and conference speaker on the subject of op risk. He is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and a member of the UK Association of Corporate Treasurers. Prior to joining BNP Paribas, he was the partner in charge of the financial risk management practice at Ernst & Young. From 1996 to 1999, he was the global head of risk management services at IBM UK.

Operational Risk magazine reported last month that Roland Kennett has also left BNP Paribas. Kennett was hired by Wilson in 2001 to serve on the operational risk team. Kennett's new home is ABN Amro in London.

In addition, Hansruedi Schütter, who joined the firm in early 2004, will relocate from Zurich to Hong Kong to take up the position of executive director for Asia and the Middle East. Both will report to Mike Finlay, managing director for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. Schuetter was regarded as an early pioneer of operational risk discipline when he was group operational risk manager at Credit Suisse. After leaving the firm in summer 2003, he set up a firm called HRS Consulting.

John Byrne

The American Bankers Association (ABA) has lost John Byrne to Bank of America, according to the Charlotte, North Carolina-based financial institution. Byrne will become anti-money laundering strategy executive in the bank's compliance risk management division. He joined the Washington DC-based ABA in December 2003 as director of the ABA Center for Regulatory Compliance, and has since become an authority on AML. He has been a member of the Treasury Department's Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group since it was created and co-chairs the American Bar Association/ American Bankers Association Annual Money Laundering Enforcement Seminar. At Bank of America, he will report to Lucille Reymann, the global anti-money laundering operations and compliance executive for the bank, and he will be based in Washington DC.

William Roberts

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, based in New York, has named William Roberts as chairman of its credit derivatives market practice committee in North America. Roberts is also head of structured products trading at Goldman Sachs, the New York investment bank. Isda is involved in several projects aimed at improving the back-office processes surrounding credit derivatives – the volume of paperwork created by these popular financial management tools has surged passed the ability of many firms to cope, resulting in substantial operational risks for institutions. Regulators, including the UK's Financial Services Authority and US banking authorities, have voiced their concerns about the lack of robust practices in this area. Roberts – along with the chairs of the credit derivatives market practice committees in Asia and Europe – will be heavily involved in finding ways to improve back-office processing practices at financial institutions.

John Jordan

JP Morgan Chase has brought John Jordan on board to work in the firm's risk methodology group with a focus on operational risk, according to Joseph Sabatini, managing director and head of corporate operational risk at the firm. Sabatini says: "He has seen it from a regulatory standpoint, from a academic/theoretical/ statistical standpoint, and obviously from a practitioner standpoint." Jordan, who published a number of papers on the quantification of operational risk while at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, joined FitchRisk in mid-April 2004 from the regulator. Jordan was a senior vice-president and a part of the OpVantage division – Fitch purchased Algorithmics several months ago and has rebranded under the Algos moniker. A paper that Jordan co-authored, New evidence on the implications of large operational losses, won an Operational Risk Achievement Award in March 2004.

Brian Ferrell

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has appointed Brian Ferrell as chief counsel. Ferrell will supervise the attorneys and staff that provide legal support to FinCEN officials on issues relating to the administration of the Bank Secrecy Act, domestic and international aspects of information law, inter-agency information-sharing, the use of information in enforcement operations and proceedings, international law relating to counter-money laundering efforts, and administrative law. Previously, he served as chief counsel of the Bureau of the Public Debt and as the US Treasury's senior counsel for litigation.