Maria Cristina Mardani

About Maria Cristina Mardani

I lead the advancement of responsible AI systems adoption, ensuring that analytical practices meet the highest standards of transparency, explainability, fairness, human oversight, and robust data governance. My work is aligned with the EU AI Act and key regulatory frameworks such as SR 11-7 and PRA SS1/23, enabling both regulatory compliance and sustainable business value at scale. I bring a strong conviction shaped by repeated industry lessons, that models often appear reliable under normal conditions, but their weaknesses are only revealed under stress, when assumptions, validation, and controls are truly tested. This is why I take a governance-led approach, grounded in rigorous governance, independent challenge, and disciplined oversight treating model risk not as a purely technical issue, but as a systemic risk that requires end-to-end accountability. This perspective is critical as we scale AI/ML, GenAI, and emerging agentic AI, where complexity, autonomy, and speed amplify both impact and risk. I drive the consistent adoption of the Group GenAI governance lifecycle across Lines of Business from PoC to production reducing silos, strengthening alignment, and ensuring clear accountability. Through close partnership with Accountable Executives and model stakeholders, I lead risk forums that proactively surface emerging risks, enable informed decision-making, and ensure disciplined execution of controls and regulatory priorities, fully aligned with the bank’s Model Risk Management policies and standards. Key Competencies: AI Risk Management (EU AI Act) GenAI Governance & Lifecycle Oversight (PoC, Pilot, Production) Model Risk Management (SR 11-7, PRA SS1/23) Model & AI Performance Monitoring Risk Appetite & Controls Execution Algorithmic Bias & Explainability Stakeholder Engagement & Executive Communication Simplification of Complex Risk Concepts Continuous Improvement & Strategic Thinking Bilingual: English & Spanish

Experience

1. Sr Model Risk Manager - Bank Model Governance

   Barclays

   May 2021 — Present

Education

• Universidad de La Sabana

  Bachelor of Science (BS), Business Administration

• Raritan Valley Community College

  AS. in Science and Mathematics

• Kean University

  Master of Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Computing

• Questrom School of Business, Boston University

  Master of Business Administration, Risk Management and Digital Innovation

Skills

• Banking
• Logistic Regression
• Risk Management
• Portfolio Management
• Risk Analytics
• Tableau
• Statistical Modeling
• Teradata
• Market Risk
• Forecasting
• Visual Basic for Applications (Vba)
• Big Data
• Analytics
• Oracle
• Data Mining
• Business Analytics
• Financial Modeling
• Quantitative Analytics
• Sas
• Etl
• Extract, Transform, Load (Etl)
• Analysis
• Predictive Analytics
• Unix
• Data Modeling
• Predictive Modeling
• Credit Risk
• Vba
• Sas Programming
• Basel Ii
• Agile Project Management
• Data Analysis
• Machine Learning
• Financial Risk
• Segmentation
• Business Intelligence