Remediating model-control deficiencies under external audit

In detail

HSBC · October 2017 to December 2018 · Senior Project Manager, Model Controls Remediation (consultant)

Appointed on personal recommendation to fix significant deficiencies in pricing-model change controls across the primary trading systems, to a deadline the auditors were watching.

The challenge

Change controls on pricing models had been found deficient. The remediation had to satisfy external audit, meet SOX obligations and work across different trading platforms, including Sophis for Equities and Calypso for Credit.

What I did

• Ran daily stand-ups and show-and-tell sessions, with Jira dashboards giving the external audit teams weekly visibility.

• Personally completed the analysis and remediation of the IT change-process controls needed to meet the critical success criteria.

• Designed and implemented a new model-approval solution using Kanban, with automatic tracking of code changes from requirement to production deployment.

• Reconciled the models in use in the primary trading systems to the model-inventory golden source.

• Helped implement continuous integration and build tools across the Equities and Credit platforms.

Outcome

• Control gaps closed and further audit failures avoided.

• 3 FTE saved through the remediated change process.

• Automated controls in place to meet SOX obligations.

Skills: Audit remediation · SOX controls · Kanban · CI/CD adoption · Stakeholder management with auditors