Careers in Risk

Nicholas Silitch began his career in 1980 as a summer intern at Bank of New York Mellon, while completing his economics degree at Colby College. After graduating, he joined the bank as a credit trainee in 1983 and spent 28 years there, serving in a variety of roles ranging from credit portfolio management and loan restructuring to investor relations, risk management and Basel compliance. He was eventually appointed chief risk officer of Bank of New York Mellon’s alternative investment services, broker dealer services and Pershing businesses.

He joined Prudential in 2010 as chief credit officer and head of investment risk management, overseeing the firm’s general account and other proprietary investment risks globally. In 2012, he was appointed chief risk officer, a position he held until his retirement at the end of 2022. In the latter role, he oversaw Prudential’s risk management infrastructure and risk profile across all business lines and risk types. Under his direction, the risk teams developed models, metrics and frameworks to ensure Prudential’s resilience over time and in a wide range of stress scenarios.

Ross Cuddeback joined the DWS Group in 2006. In his current role, Ross leads a team focused on investment, counterparty credit and liquidity risk managed on behalf of DWS clients. In addition, Ross is responsible for financial risk of DWS USA Corp. Prior to his current role, Ross served in Deutsche Bank's Corporate Investment Bank, where he was responsible for overseeing counterparty credit risk to hedge fund clients. Prior to joining, he worked at Barclays Capital within the Hedge Fund Credit Group, at Risk Capital Management, at a boutique energy risk management consultancy and at Crédit Agricole Indosuez within the Financial Institutions Credit Risk Management Department.

Derek is an investment professional specializing in portfolio construction and risk management. His current focus is on climate risk and climate solutions asset classes: farmland and timberland.

Derek has 18 years of experience in investment management and risk management. He has been with TIAA and Nuveen since 2015 and currently serves as Head of Climate Risk. Prior to joining TIAA and Nuveen, Derek was a Senior Equity Analyst covering natural resource sectors. He has held various roles including quantitative analyst, emerging markets specialist, and structured products analyst.  

Derek earned a bachelor’s in economics from Princeton University with a certificate in Finance and a certificate in Applied Computational Mathematics. He holds the FRM, CFA, SCR, and CAIA designations.

Dr. Christopher Donohue is the Managing Director of the GARP Benchmarking Initiative, a data utility for financial services companies to compare sensitive data. Previously, Chris led GARP’s Educational and Research Programs, where he was responsible for overseeing all of GARP’s educational and research programs, including the FRM and Energy Risk Professional (ERP®) programs. Previously, Chris was partner at a hedge fund, where he was responsible for the development of asset allocation tools for pension funds and automated trading systems. Prior to that, Chris was a Director in the Global Research Center at Deutsche Asset Management, where he led product research and development in the areas of asset liability management, asset allocation and consumption optimization for endowments and optimal portfolio management with transaction costs. As Director of Optimization Technology at Alphatech, a leading-edge technology and research defense contractor, he led algorithm development for intelligence aircraft path planning and sensor scheduling systems.