Private and Alternative Assets: Workshop on Total Portfolio Management

Senior Advisor, Institutional Investor Risk, Global Association of Risk Professionals; Lecturer, Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies

Kristen Walters is a recognized Chief Risk Officer (CRO) and leader in the financial services sector across both buy-side firms (asset managers, hedge funds and asset owners) and large trading and commercial banks with breadth and depth in public and private markets. 

She is currently Senior Advisor, Institutional Investor Risk at the Global Association of Risk Professionals, and a Lecturer at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies. Previously, she was the first stand-alone CRO of Canadian Pension Plan Investments, the world’s 6th largest pension fund, where she enhanced governance, controls, transparency, and board reporting. Prior to CPP Investments, Kristen was the first stand-alone CRO of Natixis Investment Managers (with $1.4 trillion in AUM and ~25 global asset management subsidiaries) where she introduced risk oversight and built a supporting team “de novo” during COVID. 

Prior roles included 11 years at BlackRock working directly for the CRO and founding partner to evolve BlackRock’s investment and enterprise risk frameworks, systems, analytics, and reporting. Kristen also worked for Goldman Sachs leading “firm-wide” market risk and provided daily analysis across the trading platform to senior management during the 2008 financial crisis. Earlier in her career she held risk roles at PIMCO, Barclays Capital and KPMG. She started her career in Supervision and Regulation at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston during the 1990s banking crisis. Ms. Walters holds a BBA in Accounting with honors from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an MBA with Distinction from Babson College, Wellesley, MA).

Managing Director, APTimum

With over 15 years of specialization in Investment Risk Management, Karim began his career as a Risk Manager at Credit Agricole Indosuez Luxembourg, where he monitored Multi Asset Class portfolios risk for both Private Banking and Asset Management divisions.

Since joining APTimum in 2010 - a risk measurement service company and the official FIS-APT representative for French-speaking markets - Karim provides technical and methodological support for Market and Liquidity risk calculations. He plays a crucial role in helping clients enhance investment processes through risk analysis, stress testing, simulation, and optimization. His responsibilities also include conducting independent risk analysis for institutional clients, supervising risk analysis teams, and implementing APT risk software with performance attribution modules.

Complementing his industry work, Karim actively contributes to academia as a Visiting Lecturer at IAE Nancy School of Management (since 2022) and Université Paris Dauphine-PSL (since 2019), where he teaches Risk Management with APT and Financial Risk Management, integrating both theory and practical application.

Karim's academic credentials include a Post Graduate Program in Financial Markets and Econometrics from Queen's University and a Financial Markets program from NEOMA Business School, both completed in 2007. He is also a CFA® Charterholder and holds both FRM and GFR certifications.