Penny Cagan

Managing Director, Head of Operational Risk Governance at MUFG Union Bank

Penny is a Managing Director with MUFG Union Bank, where she currently is head of the Operational Risk Governance practice.  Operational Risk & Regulation magazine awarded Penny three awards for her contribution to the field of operational risk, including a special industry award in 2011. Penny has published widely, including authoring the chapter on Risk and Control Self Assessments for the PRMIA Operational Risk Manager Handbook.

Penny has more than 30 years of risk management, compliance, controls and research experience, including managing risk and compliance functions in large financial institutions. Penny has experience with both developing and implementing risk and control frameworks, including the convergence among risk disciplines. Penny previously worked for a big four consulting firm where she led a conduct risk and sales practices campaign, with focus on conduct risk assessments and the development of frameworks, and the strategy for alignment of non-financial risk disciplines.

Penny is recognized as an industry leader in the field of operational risk, and earlier in her career brought an operational risk database to market. She is considered a pioneer in applying operational risk case studies as a diagnostic tool for assessing the effectiveness of an institution’s control environment. She also developed one of the industry’s early risk taxonomies in the 1990s that served as the foundation for many schemas currently in use today.