Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Timeline
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MICHAEL RISTANO

Newark,DE

Summary

Successful risk management professional with 10+ years experience across multiple areas of issue management within the Discover enterprise. Extensive experience with regulatory agencies and highly regulated financial business, requiring solid operational discipline. Handled all critical remediation, including action plans, implementation strategy and execution. Experience monitoring risk and control environment for fragility and providing solutions to improve effectiveness and efficiency. Proven critical thinking skills through structured problem solving and process management system knowledge. Currently responsible for overseeing issue management for credit risk, across all lines of business within the enterprise, which includes card, personal loans and student loans.

Overview

10
10
years of professional experience

Work History

Principal Business Risk Control Specialist, Risk

Discover
Newark, De
10.2023 - Current
  • Ensured Models and Strategy team ran efficiently as the Interim Sr. Manager in early 2024.
  • Provides education and monitors employees on the requirements of company policies and standards related to risk and control ownership, the development and execution of new products and services, and control testing.
  • Primary role of team oversight; coaching, onboarding and the upskill of employees as direct reports
  • Ensures effective identification and implementation of controls to manage operational, financial, and compliance risks
  • Oversees timely completion of control design reviews and compliance risk assessments and monitors the risk and control environment for weakness and identifies solutions to improve effectiveness and efficiency of controls
  • Ensures a detailed escalation plan is in place for risk issues and leveraged when necessary
  • Completes complex projects in the areas of Exam Management, Control Workflow and Standardization Solutions, Business Continuity Planning, Corporate and Departmental Continuous Improvement
  • Develops continuous monitoring exception reports for critical business processes
  • Acts as subject matter expert on efficient processes to maintain an accurate library of risks and controls, while managing independent post-launch oversight of initiatives and report results to executive management

Lead Business Risk Control Specialist, Risk

Discover
Newark, De
07.2021 - 10.2023
  • Responsible for handling all forms of remediation within the Business Risk Team, while collaborating with the business units’ that support each issue to ensure we are mitigating risk to the company
  • Working closely with business partners, legal and compliance in order to assess issues that arise and coming to an understanding on what the remediation will look like for each issue that is encountered
  • Working alongside our analytics partners to ensure each project we work on together is handled with the utmost care and precision
  • Provide process improvements not only within our Business Risk Team, but cross functional process improvements between our team and the analytics team
  • Recognized as a team player and a leader amongst my peers
  • Maintains a working knowledge of applicable laws and regulations including, Fair Lending, Truth-In Lending, Telephone Consumer Privacy, Unfair, Deceptive, Abusive Acts or Practices (UDAAP) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Consent Order Training, when applicable
  • Nominated for an Excellence Award in Q1 2023.

Senior Consumer Complaints Specialist, EOCA

Discover
07.2017 - 07.2021
  • Handles all consumer complaints received through the regulatory channels for various lines of business while collaborating with key business partners to investigate the root cause and remediate consumer complaints if necessary
  • Working firsthand with customers, the legal department and individual business units’ enterprise wide, in order to provide a resolution or assessment to the customer and the applicable regulatory agency
  • Provides process improvement suggestions in order to assist the business units in identifying gaps in their processes and providing steps to remedy these gaps
  • Maintains a working knowledge of applicable laws and regulations including, Fair Lending, Truth-In Lending, Telephone Consumer Privacy, Unfair, Deceptive, Abusive Acts or Practices (UDAAP) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Consent Order Training, when applicable, in order to ensure any customer concerns that pose an operational risk or an adverse effect to the customer are identified and escalated appropriately
  • Team complaint SME for student loans and credit operations, with an expertise in the student loan business
  • Leading our Process Improvement Team (PIT) - When a peer finds an opportunity for improvement of a process through a customer complaint, it is forwarded to our team in order to engage the specific business unit for them to determine if the uncovered opportunity is something that needs to be corrected on their end
  • This process enhances the customer experience and helps us to enhance our business and mitigate risk
  • Consistently assists Card and Bank Business Units with process improvements and better understanding of frontline elevated review process
  • Successfully mentored several peers on a monthly basis who were subsequently promoted
  • Awarded EOCA QA Award for exceptional quality of cases
  • Awarded EOCA Prolific Quill Award several times for demonstrated team leadership
  • Awarded EOCA Kid Glove Award for exemplary case management and treatment of extremely complex cases
  • Excellence Award Winner

Associate, EOCA

Discover
03.2016 - 07.2017
  • Customer Advocate for all of Discover lines of business across the Enterprise
  • Managed escalated customer complaints regarding any type of problem or issue
  • Responded to telephone and written inquiries from customers, directed to Headquarters Senior Management, including the President
  • Responsible for assuring the utmost customer experience in evaluating complaints and inquiries and resolving them quickly and accurately
  • Through investigations identify opportunities for remediation and process improvements
  • Relied upon by management to mentor and train new hires
  • Ability to leverage key relationships with business partners to obtain research and resolution to customer complaints
  • Received Managers Choice five times for top performance on the Executive Team
  • Recognized as top performer in 2016 for quality
  • Received an Exceeds Expectations performance evaluation
  • Identified several process improvements through complaint handling
  • Assigned additional responsibilities handling high profile cases, including inquiries from the Better Business Bureau
  • President’s award nominee

Verification Analyst, Credit Operations

Discover
03.2015 - 03.2016
  • Previously responsible for reviewing and analyzing credit applications to determine the creditworthiness of the customers based upon pre-established credit policies and procedures in Discover’s New Accounts Department
  • Processed and analyzed application information and credit bureau files in order to garner a decision for the customer
  • Recognized by peers and management for extensive knowledge of policies and procedures
  • Ability to quickly adapt to a changing environment
  • Achieved Leaders award five times, which recognizes the top 10% in the department monthly
  • Achieved Legends award, which recognizes analysts with at least a 3.5 business rating for an entire quarter
  • Ranked #1 in Credit Operations for the months of January and February 2016, and received an Ace Award for an outstanding customer experience
  • Developed a rate screen job aide that is being used in the New Accounts training classes, as well as provided team members with a Call Flow to enable them to achieve success

Education

Bachelor of Business administration -

Wilmington Universtiy

Skills

  • Project Management
  • High Visibility/High Risk Remediation
  • Business Control Implementation/Monitoring
  • Exam Management
  • Root Cause Analysis/Effective Challenge
  • Ability and expertise working with Microsoft Office, Jira, Archer and Tableau

Timeline

Principal Business Risk Control Specialist, Risk

Discover
10.2023 - Current

Lead Business Risk Control Specialist, Risk

Discover
07.2021 - 10.2023

Senior Consumer Complaints Specialist, EOCA

Discover
07.2017 - 07.2021

Associate, EOCA

Discover
03.2016 - 07.2017

Verification Analyst, Credit Operations

Discover
03.2015 - 03.2016

Bachelor of Business administration -

Wilmington Universtiy

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MICHAEL RISTANO