About Brian Varga

Brian brings over 20 years of industry experience across banking, capital markets, and investment management. His career in the financial services industry spanned banking, capital markets, and investment management. Presently, he leverages that experience as a management consultant to bring a panoramic, strategic view of market, operational, and regulatory risks supported by his background in capital markets and dual master’s degrees in risk management and analytic finance. He views risk and compliance matters through a true practitioner lens, providing his clients with actionable, sensible, practical solutions for their underlying businesses. He regularly assists banks with a broad array of risk management, compliance, regulatory, internal audit, quality assurance, and process implementation/improvement projects. 
Brian has the balanced perspective of a risk manager and a FINRA Series-24 supervisory business manager. He regularly opines on business controls, trade surveillance, risk models, liquidity, governance, credit risk measurement, regulatory reporting, risk assessments, and operating models. He brings a strong working knowledge of securities & commodities laws, broker-dealer regulations, and rules across jurisdictions (CFTC, SEC, SRO, FCA, & ESMA). Brian utilizes his program management and regulatory skills to deliver large-scale regulatory remediation projects by interacting with regulators, developing artifacts, partnering with stakeholders, and constructively challenging their work when needed. He brings an industry perspective on best practices and a deep understanding of regulatory expectations. 
Brian is a former member of the US Rowing Team who is passionate about developing, leading, and mentoring world-class teams to drive continuous improvement and deliver gold-medal solutions for risk, compliance, and internal audit functions.

MSRM, Master of Science, Risk Management

  • New York University, Stern School of Business

MBA, Master of Business Administration

  • University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

B.S., Business Administration

  • Villanova University

Certified Blockchain Solution Architect (CBSA) & Business Foundations (CBBF) endorsements     

  • Blockchain Training Alliance

Outstanding Client Service Award (2017-2023)

USA Rowing Team

  • National team member (1991-1992)

Select Skills

  1. First line of defense credibility needed to partner with risk and control owners effectively, ask insightful questions, and constructively challenge their work, when required.

  2. An industry-wide perspective from regulatory remediation and internal audit work across the industry, yielding a strong sense of where firms have got it right and where they have got it wrong.

  3. Understanding of what robust regulatory fitness looks like for closure packs, internal audit activities, work papers, supporting artifacts, and quality assurance efforts.

  4. Risk management expertise, including framework design, internal controls, and reporting, with broad knowledge of banking products across multiple business lines and geographies.

  5. Extreme attention to detail, ability to work effectively in fast-paced environments, and Board-level presentation capability.

Select Industry Experience

  1. Former Managing Director in Fixed Income, Currency, and Commodity divisions at banks with supervisory responsibility for global US Treasury and Primary Dealerships.

  2. Managing Partner of a multi-strategy hedge fund allocating capital across global markets.

  3. Held FINRA Series 3, 7, 24 & 63 licenses and served as senior regulatory representative with the NY Federal Reserve Bank.

  4. In-depth knowledge of cash & derivative products in global fixed income, commodity, equity & foreign exchange markets.

  5. Detailed understanding of the dynamic relationship between back-office, middle-office, and front-office functions and the important role these play in terms of market, operational, and regulatory risk.

  6. Ability to effectively liaise with front office risk owners with credibility as a former front office manager who understands the underlying business dynamics, products, competitive landscape, economics, and strategy within multiple lines of business.

Select Client Experience

  1. Led multiple FX Consent Order projects with a focus on sustainability, consistency, and alignment on “spirit and intent” to help ensure successful closure (US Banks).

  2. Assessed internal audit methodology against IIA Standards and regulatory guidance to identify gaps and design a target state methodology (Foreign Bank).

  3. Directed responses to regulatory inquiries, including management of remediation efforts and development of reports and artifacts communicating compliance with regulatory. orders (US Banks)

  4. Developed regulatory-focused training materials in line with regulatory expectations and conducted training of risk, compliance, and internal audit staff (Foreign Bank).

  5. Assessed and enhanced business procedures and compliance policies in accordance with regulatory requirements (US Bank).

  6. Managed a program-level implementation of a Change Management Center of Excellence (new 1b function) to identify, manage, and report on the risk introduced by change activities (Foreign Bank).

  7. Implemented a target operating model for lending operations, including operating procedures, related controls (US Bank).

  8. Led a team of 10 bank auditors to perform quality assurance work on annual control reviews, point-in-time audits, and thematic review work papers (US Bank).

  9. Performed testing of business controls to identify gaps, remediate issues, and align with industry best practices (US Bank).

  10. Conducted internal audit planning and managed a team of 5 bank resources to test compliance with trade reporting requirements under the CFTC Rewrite (Foreign Bank).

  11. Serves as an SME to develop and execute audit test strategies to assess the design of front-office controls and operating effectiveness of market abuse, trade, and e-comms surveillance (Foreign Bank).

  12. Facilitator for a Risk Committee panel discussion on value-at-risk (Oil and Gas Major).

  13. Implemented derivatives trade reporting capability in line with DTCC Swap Data Repository requirements (Foreign Bank).

  14. Developed control model framework to proactively identify regulatory trade reporting errors (US Bank).