Managing Director, Model and AI Risk Management, Risk Business Manager
Barclays
Lisa Farkovits is Managing Director and Global Head of Model Risk and AI Management, as well as Risk Business Manager, at Barclays. In the MRM role, she is responsible for the oversight, governance and validation of all of Barclays models used in every area of the firm, including responsibility for AI/ML risk. Additionally, as Business Manager, she is responsible for managing risk’s operational resources and expenses. Prior to this role, Lisa was Head of Capital and Leverage Management at Barclays. Over the course of her 25+ year career, Lisa has held a variety of roles in risk, finance, strategy, sales and trading, investment banking and wealth management, with responsibility for capital management, corporate acquisitions, client advisory, principal investments and structured transaction management. These experiences provide Lisa with an in-depth knowledge of the finance industry and global regulatory environment, fostered a leadership style where she focuses on ground up functional re-design.
Lisa attended MIT as a Ph.D. candidate in physical chemistry, and received a master’s degree in physical chemistry and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from UCLA.
Banking is operating within a period of massive disruption. AI is shifting from a support function to a decisioning layer, real-time payments are resetting the definition of liquidity and speed, and tokenization is beginning to reshape how value is issued, moved, and held on balance sheets. Yet too many institutions continue to treat these forces as future-state initiatives rather than present-tense competitive realities.
This panel challenges leaders to confront a harder question: whether their operating models are structurally capable of keeping pace. As fintech platforms and Big Tech increasingly function as infrastructure layers rather than competitors, and as regulatory frameworks evolve into strategic variables, the traditional boundaries of banking advantage are eroding.
The discussion will focus on where disruption is already operational, where incumbents are most exposed, and why the greatest risk is internal execution lag—and what every leader needs to do about it.