President:
Chris Linde – Group Chief Compliance Officer, NAB
Treasurer:
Teena Rowell – Chief Risk Officer, Enterprise Risk & Compliance at Suncorp Group
Secretary:
Catherine Thrum – Chief Risk Officer, Group Functions & Services, Westpac
General Committee Members (including as alternate):
David O’Brien – Group General Manager, Risk Metrics & Measurement, ANZ
Catherine Thrum – Chief Risk Officer, Group Functions and Services, Westpac
Chris Linde – Group Chief Compliance Officer, National Australia Bank
Katharine Goulstone – Partner, Rik Advisory, Deloitte
Laura Box – Partner, Risk Consulting, PwC Australia, PwC
Bosco Mendez – Head of Credit Decisioning, Bendigo & Adelaide Bank
Tara Cahill – Chief Risk Officer, Enterprise Services, Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Teena Rowell – Chief Risk Officer, Enterprise Risk & Compliance, Suncorp Group
Megan Holt – Partner, Financial Services, Consulting, Ernst & Young
Warren Dunn – Partner, KPMG Forensic Financial Services lead
Guy Harding – Chief Risk Officer, NGM Group
Michael Vainauskas – Chief Risk Officer Australia, Pepper Money
Management Committee Profiles
President: Chris Linde
Group Chief Compliance Officer, National Australia Bank
Chris Linde is National Australia Bank’s (“NAB”) Chief Compliance Officer and Chief Risk Officer – People, Conduct & Culture.
Chris assists NAB’s lines of business, globally, in their assessment and management of Compliance, Conduct and People risk. He assists individual business units with the development, implementation and monitoring of policies and procedures required to manage Compliance and relevant risks, including the regular testing of their effectiveness.
Prior to joining NAB, Chris was a senior partner at Deloitte specialising in Risk within the Financial Services sector. With over 25 years’ experience in consulting and the financial services industry, Chris has experience in and exposure to all aspects of retail, business, wealth and capital markets/institutional banking.
Secretary: Catherine Thrum
Chief Risk Officer, Group Functions and Services, Westpac
Catherine is Chief Risk Officer, Group Functions and Services at Westpac Banking Group. In this role, Catherine is responsible for providing independent 2nd line risk oversight of the Group Functions, ensuring all risk decisions are consistent with risk appetite. Catherine plays an integral role in enabling a strong risk culture and embedding the three lines of defence model, as well as supporting frameworks and policies to meet all relevant regulatory and governance requirements.
Catherine is Westpac’s representative on the Risk Management Association Management Committee, has previously Chaired the Committee and is currently the Secretary. Catherine has also led the Risk Management Association Senior Women in Risk Roundtable.
Catherine’s key areas of interest include best practice risk governance, risk culture and strategy. A strong supporter of women in risk, Catherine mentors several promising young Risk professionals.
Prior to her current role, Catherine held various roles within Risk at Westpac including Acting General Manager, Governance and Assurance, Head of Governance, Frameworks, Prudential & Risk Culture; Head of the Commercial Credit and Head of Credit Strategy and Policy. Catherine also spent time in the Institutional Bank in both the structured asset-backed finance and debt capital markets businesses.
Catherine has a business degree from the University of Technology, has completed AGSM Executive Programs in Leadership and Strategy.
General Committee Profiles
Laura Box
Partner, Risk Consulting PwC
Laura is a Partner in the PwC Risk Consulting team and the Chief Operating Officer for the Financial Services industry at PwC Australia.
She is a financial services risk and regulation transformation specialist with over 10 years of experience across the UK, the Middle East and in Australia.
Laura has extensive experience leading regulatory compliance and controls transformation programmes with Australia’s leading banks. She also has extensive experience delivering strategic and large-scale regulatory engagements with wealth management and insurance companies.
Laura holds a Bachelor of Science (Economics) from the London School of Economics and is a Chartered Accountant in the UK and Australia.
Katharine Goulstone
Partner, Risk Advisory, Deloitte
Katharine atharine is a Partner in Deloitte’s Risk Advisory practice and focuses on supporting the firms banking and capital markets clients who are responding to scaled regulatory response.
A leader in regulatory risk, operational risk and governance, Katharine has been at the forefront of large scale regulatory change in financial services for 20 years and has an intuitive understanding of this environment and unique skills that help organisations transform.
With additional expertise in regulatory technologies, Katharine has been closely involved in the regulatory and commercial application of artificial intelligence and machine learning. This enables her to provide the critical guidance that helps organisations to bring these technologies to life, while also achieving a balance between data insights and human skill.
Katharine’s goal is to deliver effective risk outcomes in the interest of an organisation, its customers and shareholders. She excels at leading businesses through challenging growth pathways, enabling them to operate with the right mix of technology and capability to predict and navigate future regulatory events.
Bosco Mendez
Head of Commercial Credit Risk, Bendigo & Adelaide Bank
Bosco is the Head of Commercial Credit at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, and has overall responsibility for the quality of commercial loans originated across the Bank’s network.
Prior to joining Bendigo in 2015 Bosco spent over 20 years with the CBA in various roles with the last 16 years in credit risk, most of which were looking after clients in the Institutional Banking segment with industry
specialisations in Transport, Aviation, Infrastructure, Retail and Healthcare.
He has a Bachelor of Business – Banking & Finance, as well as a Masters of Applied Finance.
Tara Cahill
Chief Risk Officer, Enterprise Services, Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Tara joined CBA in August 2018 as the Chief Risk Officer, Enterprise Services reporting to the Group Chief Risk Officer, with Line 2 responsibility across Technology, Cyber, Supplier, Group Operations, Payments Utility and Delivery.
Prior to joining CBA, Tara worked at Westpac from August 2004 to December 2017, after a career of over 15 years in management consulting with KPMG and Ernst & Young in Europe and Australia.
Tara is an experienced leader who has worked with international clients and internal stakeholders across diverse industries and solutions, covering a broad range of integrated skills across risk management, IT and business strategy development, programme and project management, change management and communications, and process improvement.
Treasurer: Teena Rowell
Chief Risk Officer Strategic, Technology & Corporate, Suncorp Group
Teena Rowell joined Suncorp in 2000, and is currently Chief Risk Officer Strategic, Technology & Corporate. Teena leads the implementation of enterprise risk frameworks relating to strategic and project risks, driving awareness of key risks and promoting a strong risk culture. Teena also leads risk committee reporting for Suncorp, and works with senior leadership in Suncorp’s Customer, Technology and Corporate functions to build strong risk management that supports the group’s customer led strategy.
Teena has held senior executive positions in the Risk division since 2010, and was previously Chief Risk Officer of the technology and corporate functions. Prior to joining Risk, she worked in senior finance roles including CFO of the technology and shared services function.
Teena is a Chartered Accountant and prior to joining Suncorp worked at KPMG for 10 years, with industry specialisation in Financial Services and Energy and Natural Resources.
Warren Dunn
Partner, KPMG Forensic, Financial Services lead
Warren is a Senior Partner in KPMG’s Risk Consulting practice specialising in Risk, Remediation and Regulatory Conduct issues. Additionally, he is KPMG’s Financial Services Industry Lead for the Audit, Assurance and Risk Consulting division.
With some 30 years experience in Financial Services risk and regulation domain, he leads mostly high profile/sensitive and complex risk, conduct and regulatory compliance related projects and remediation programmes for his banking and insurance clients.
During his career he has been at the forefront investigating and remediating some of the largest failures in risk management in Australia including matters associated with Interest rate (BBSW/LIBOR) manipulation , AML/CTF breaches and failures, bribery and corruption scandals, fraud, royal commissions (AWB Food-for-Wheat, Building & Construction Industry, HIH).
His extensive real-world experience in investigating and remediating non-financial risk failures of an operational, compliance and conduct nature means he is well positioned to provide both strategic yet practical advice to his clients.
Guy Harding
Chief Risk Officer, NGM Group
Guy Harding is a banking professional with a diverse career spanning several decades. His early career was with Midland Bank, where he worked in corporate, commercial and retail banking. During this time, he spent some time in a Corporate Intensive Care unit, where he gained valuable experience in turnaround management.
In the early 1990s, Guy moved to TSB as they established their Commercial business, where he supervised an array of branches along the South coast of England from Hastings to Brighton. He then transferred to TSB’s Head Office, where he was responsible for Group Credit Policy after its purchase of Hill Samuel.
Around 1998, Guy joined Prudential Banking and assisted with the formation of Egg, a new direct banking business. In 2001, he was tasked with securing a UK banking licence for AMP and subsequently migrated to Australia, where he was appointed as Global CRO.
In 2003, Guy moved to Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) as GM for Risk Strategy and was involved in setting up the Australian RMA Chapter. He later served as CRO for Business and Private Banking before being appointed as CRO for International business based in Hong Kong.
In 2018, Guy was appointed as CRO for 86 400, a digital bank, and tasked with acquiring a new banking licence. Following the successful sale of 86 400 to NAB, he joined Newcastle Permanent as CRO and subsequently became CRO of Newcastle Greater Mutual following the March 2023 merger with Greater Bank.
Throughout his career, Guy has demonstrated a strong track record in risk management, turnaround management, and strategic planning. He is highly respected in the banking industry and has played a key role in the development of several successful banking businesses.
David O’Brien
Group General Manager, Risk Metrics & Measurements, ANZ Banking Group
David is Group GM Risk Metrics & Measurement at ANZ, with responsibility for provisioning and RWA calculations, credit risk models, risk systems & information delivery and enterprise risk & stress testing.
David joined ANZ in 1997 and since that time has held senior risk roles in Australian Retail Mortgages, Global Markets, Consumer Finance and Group Treasury.
David holds a Bachelor of Science and a PhD in mathematics from the University of Melbourne. He has been a member of RMA Australia since 2006.
Megan Holt
Partner, Financial Services, Consulting, Ernst & Young
Megan brings over 15 years of experience assisting financial institutions improve their risk management operations and execute on regulatory initiatives.
Michael Vainauskas
Chief Risk Officer Australia, Pepper Money
Michael joined Pepper as the Chief Risk Officer (CRO) in August 2020. In this role, he is responsible for risk management, including compliance across Australia & New Zealand.
Michael has over 30 years of experience in financial services and over 20 years in risk management, having previously worked for Perpetual Limited, CBA, Westpac Banking Corporation, St George Bank, AGC Finance and Household Finance. He has worked in Indonesia and the United States and has had risk responsibility for other offshore locations.
Michael holds a Master of Business in Finance and is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).