Professor Kenneth Abbott recently retired from the position as America’s Chief Risk Officer at Barclays Bank. Prior to that he was Chief Operating Officer (COO) for all Firm Risk at Morgan Stanley, a position he held for over nine years.  While at Morgan Stanley he covered Commodities, Rates, FX, Retail and Emerging Markets businesses, and was CRO for Morgan Stanley’s buy-side activity.  

He also spent 14 years at Bankers Trust in a number of trading, research and risk management roles. He spent over 5 years at Bank of America in several senior Market Risk Management roles. Abbott currently sits on the Boards of the New Jersey Scholars Program, the Harvard Club of New Jersey, and CGU’s Financial Engineering Program, where he has recently been appointed as a Senior Fellow.

Ken Abbott has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard University; a Master of Arts in Economics and Master of Science in Statistics and Operations Research from New York University.  He is an avid musician, playing clarinet, saxophone, oboe, English horn, and tuba.

Taalib Shaah is Group Chief Risk Officer for Barclays, based in London. He is responsible for helping to define, set and manage the risk profile of the bank and leads the risk management organisation across the group. He is a member of the Group Executive Committee. 

Taalib joined Barclays in late 2014 as Chief Risk Officer for the Investment Bank and in 2017 assumed the role of Chief Risk Officer for Barclays International (BBPLC), responsible for the Corporate and Investment Bank, the Private Bank and the Cards & Payments business. He assumed his current role in October 2020. 

Prior to Barclays, Taalib spent four years at Citigroup where he was most recently Chief Risk Officer for Market Risk, Real Estate Credit, Treasury, Private Equity and Head of Model Validation. Previously, Taalib spent 17 years at Credit Suisse, working in various areas, including risk and the front office. He began his career at Ernst and Young. 

Taalib holds an MA in Engineering Science and Economics from Oxford University and is a Chartered Accountant.