July 20, 2025 • 22 mins
What does the future hold for bank risk and compliance professionals? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Krysti Cunningham of Security National Bank in Omaha, Nebraska — and winner of the 2025 Distinguished Service Award for Risk and Compliance — discusses:
- The technological transformation in risk and compliance at community and midsize banks.
- How technological change is driving the industry toward specialization.
- Applications for AI tools and LLMs in risk and compliance — and how to manage risks associated with this transformation.
- The importance of constant learning as a risk and compliance professional.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Krysti Cunningham (00:07):
I don't see AI at this point replacing people, but it's
gonna make our jobs easier and faster.
So I don't think you can use AI untilyou know what you want to use it for.
Is it for automating processes?
And I think that's where you've gotta sitand critically think, how could we use it?
Take the blinders off and say,how can I use this new technology?
Evan Sparks (00:33):
From the American Bankers Association, this is the
A BA Banking Journal podcast.
Welcome back.
I'm Evan Sparks.
Today's episode is presented by EnterpriseBanking with Interest Podcast, and
I'm delighted to be bringing you aconversation with Krysti Cunningham.
Krysti is Chief Risk Officer atSecurity National Bank in Omaha,
Nebraska, and she is also the winnerof the 2025 Distinguished Service
(00:55):
Award for Risk and Compliance, whichwas presented very recently at ABAs
Risk and Compliance Conference inIndianapolis in front of an audience of
many of Krysti's peers and colleagues.
So first of all, congratulations,Kristi, and welcome to the podcast.
Krysti Cunningham (01:08):
Thank you, Evan.
I'm very honored tohave received the award.
It's a very prestigious award work with alot of people and I owe a lot of people.
Thanks for nominatingme and voting me into.
Opinions that I'm gonna be speaking aboutrepresent myself, not necessarily that of
(01:29):
any of the institutions I've worked for.
Evan Sparks (01:31):
Alright.
Good to know.
And I'll start by just sharing anopinion of my own, which is, I love
coming to Omaha because I love your zoo.
And
Krysti Cunningham (01:39):
oh my gosh, isn't it awesome?
Evan Sparks (01:41):
It's so great.
I tell people that
Krysti Cunningham (01:43):
and they're like, wow.
And.
Evan Sparks (01:47):
So we did a, we were last there, we did a co, a COVID
summer road trip because we just hadto get out of DC and my kids love
the zoo, so we, we did the rainforestand the waterpark and all of that.
It was fantastic.
Krysti Cunningham (01:59):
Perfect.
And we're also home of the College WorldSeries, which is happening right now.
Evan Sparks (02:03):
Alright?
Yes, that's right.
So a lot of reasons to, good reasonsto go to Omaha least not, not least
of which is Security National Bank.
So Krysti, first of all, can you tell usa little bit more about your background in
banking and how you got into the industry?
And I'd just love to hear a littlebit more about your career path on
your way to the place you are today.
Krysti Cunningham (02:22):
You bet.
I started many, many years ago.
Gosh, I wanna say it was in, I, Ithink it's actually was in 95, 94, 95.
I was actually hired an individualthat I knew was president of a bank.
It's a small bank in central Nebraska.
Carl Ecker was president at that timeand hired me as a management trainee.
(02:45):
I'll tell you this gentleman, just letme kind of, let me go-- I learned the
ins and outs of the bank at that time.
You know, we had had a lot ofregulatory changes that come about from.
It was much more informal thancompliance and risk is today.
But I had the background to beable to learn in ag lending, some
(03:07):
commercial lending, deposit operationsjust about every facet of banking.
And then went on to manage the datacenter as they were purchasing additional
banks, doing mergers and acquisitions.
So just a great opportunityand then came to Omaha.
As the bank expanded to managerisk and from then it just been,
(03:30):
I've gone to midsize institutionand then I've been with.
I was here once I, for fiveyears, I left for about five, and
I've been back here for eight.
Evan Sparks (03:43):
So I'm, I'm curious, you know, in the, in all the years
you've been working in bank risk andin compliance, what, how have these
professions evolved and what's, youknow, what, what's exci what, what
excite what excites you about having acareer in risk and compliance right now?
Krysti Cunningham (03:59):
Oh gosh.
I just love it becauseit's always changing.
The industry changes, the productsand services our customers
change, our employees change.
It's just a constant change and evolution.
That's what I love about it, is reallytrying to figure out how do we service
our customers in the most efficient way.
While mitigating risk.
And for some people, for me, thatjust kind of comes naturally.
(04:21):
I love that.
I love working with customers,but please don't ever ask.
I can handle things, I can work withthem, I can get 'em what they need,
but I just am not a salesperson.
Evan Sparks (04:33):
Yeah, the and, you know, and, and one thing I, I'm curious,
you know, you, you've working in withyour perspective working in like small
banks, mid-size bank as well, and thethe technological transformation we've
seen, how has, how has technologychanged the practice of risk management
from your perspective over the timeyou've been in the banking industry?
Krysti Cunningham (04:54):
Well, a lot of it is the access to data.
We used to have to work, wait fornightly updates or quarterly updates
to be getting from a data processingcenter to be able to get information.
I mean, it's at our fingertips now, sowe have customers again, when I started
banking, didn't even have online banking.
In fact, we were still putting.
Loans into typewriters and typing 'em.
(05:17):
So being part of that to establish a loanplatform system for a bank was phenomenal.
And I think all of those things,knowing how things work manually and
having 'em digitalized and automatedreally helps from a risk perspective.
Right now, just coming into risk.
(05:39):
A lot of times if people don't havethat operational background, it's
really hard to get that holisticpicture to, you've been in the
bank a few years to understand, oh,here's how the interconnection is,
because everything's tied together.
So again, it is just the, that is really,I think some of the things of the risk
for tomorrow and today is really thefast movement of money, of payments.
(06:02):
Everything that's happeningis so fast sometimes it's
hard to keep up with things.
Evan Sparks (06:09):
No, I mean that's, you know, we, I was talking with
one of my colleagues here aboutthe, the possibility of you know.
AI agents in the future to be able tokind of, you know, make mo monetary,
make financial decisions on a customer'sbehalf that involve moving money around,
say, whether it's like chasing a rateor, you know, balancing, you know,
(06:29):
getting, optimizing bill pay to manageyour spreads or something like that.
You know, it's like to, to reducethat, the, whatever the float is that
you need in these, in these accountsand that's gonna change how you, how
bankers manage liquidity risk, right?
That's gonna change all of how banksmanage you know, ba balance, sheet
(06:51):
management, asset liability risk.
It's like, what are, what, what, whatare your thoughts on kind of how banks
are gonna be able to manage this stuffin the future as it only gets faster?
Krysti Cunningham (07:01):
We, you just have to have some real time performance indicators
and risk indicators that are happening.
So it's really now is the time aswe don't have a lot of regulatory
changes happening right now.
Right now, yes.
You know, it's gonna be here a fewmonths from now, or a few years from
now, but really we've gotta buckledown and make sure you have some strong
risk management programs that are.
(07:23):
Very forward thinking risk indicatorsor performance indicators, because you
cannot focus on everything at once.
You know, one of the other thingsI noticed as we're talking that
makes me think about is some of thechanges in the banking industry.
Previously, your community banks wereeverything to everyone and even your
(07:44):
larger banks for that too, right?
It's hard to be that because being ableto provide everything a consumer wants
and everything a business wants on realtime, fast moving isn't always possible.
And it may not be all C&I orcommercial real estate or.
(08:05):
So you've gotta really focus onyour strategic plan for your bank
and then prioritize some of that,those digital processes with it.
And that is really, I think that is achange in the banking industry is really
who are we as a bank, where do we wanna bein making sure things are getting matched
(08:25):
and our risk profiles are moving forward.
That was your bigger banks that weredoing that, your community banks, your
mid-size banks really were lookingand focusing more on compliance.
Yeah.
'cause those were starting tobe more of a concern when we had
the housing crisis happening.
So then it moved, evolved into ourmid-size banks, started adding chief
risk officers and now we're down tocommunity banks, regardless of size.
(08:49):
Have somebody doing that.
And you know, I.
Oh, probably 20 years ago wewere doing risk management.
We just didn't have it formalized.
And so I think your banks that continueto evolve and the banks that stayed in
business had that risk profiles that theywere monitoring, maybe informally today.
(09:14):
It's gotta be formal.
Evan Sparks (09:16):
Yeah.
Krysti Cunningham (09:16):
And so that, that would be my feedback, is you've gotta have
formal processes in place regardless of.
Evan Sparks (09:22):
I mean, I think about what, what is banking?
Banking, like the entire disciplineof banking, whether you're a lender
or a deposit taker, you are, man,it's all like the whole business
is risk is like risk management.
Risk risk.
That's what risk mitigation.
Risk analysis is.
This customer, the will this customerpay back the loan on time, you know,
(09:43):
what are, what's our projected default?
It's all, all of it is just about risk.
And so to say, you know, it's like.
You know, it makes sense that we haveneed though, some of these formal
processes to translate all of thisinformal, intuitive risk management
that bankers are doing throughout theday into something that everyone can
(10:03):
understand and report back to regulatorsand to the public about how we're, how,
you know, banks are keeping money safe.
Krysti Cunningham (10:12):
Yeah, and I think that's when the, I was
like, why did we have the CAMEL?
I mean, I know why we have CAMELratings and CAMEL, the sensitivity.
I remember when that was
Uniform process and expectationsfor all banks to be following.
So.
Some, you know, I have people say,oh my gosh, all the regulations,
(10:32):
but some of these things are good.
They keep our banking systems sound,but we need to be able to operate the
way according to our risk profiles.
And there's, that's where thechief risk officer comes into play.
Making sure we're stayingwithin the boundaries.
We have good risk tolerances and we'rereporting back to management and the
board because everybody has their role.
(10:54):
So it's really kind of puttingour arms around that and saying
what you should be thinking on.
You know, I'm coming back to earlier Iwas talking about some of the changes
in being everything to everyone.
One of the things that has reallyevolved is third party risk management.
Evan Sparks (11:12):
Mm-hmm.
Krysti Cunningham (11:14):
So your community banks, and even your
bigger banks, we don't havethat expertise anymore in house.
So we get into, we've gottarely on a third party.
We gotta know if they have a fourth party.
We have to know how they use ai.
We have to know that theyhave our customer data.
Are they following everythingthey need to be following?
Sorry.
Got back to that for you.
Evan Sparks (11:35):
Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's fantastic and helpful.
You were talking about all the thingsthat we kind of outsource in this
industry now to gain additional functions.
And then of course, we manage thoserisks associated with, with working
with all of these third parties.
You know, one of the thingsI think, I think about.
Coming up in terms of like careersin banking, is careers in anything
(11:58):
everyone is talking about?
What is the impact of of generativeAI solutions on these entry level
jobs or on these you know, analyst?
Knowledge worker type jobs, right.
Jobs like mine, honestly.
You know, and I I work, you know, we'rekind of a, I work at the intersection
of of journalism and policy and, youknow, is chat GPT gonna be better at
(12:19):
my, better at doing my job than I am?
I hope not.
At least not for Nat for the time being.
But the que you know.
It, you know, there's a, itis kind of a truism out there.
You know, AI might not replace jobs,but a AI is going to replace the
people who know how to use it are gonnareplace people who dunno how to use it.
Right.
Do you have any thoughts on kind ofhow I. Where, how we can, the banks can
(12:43):
accelerate, and particularly in ri, inthe risk and compliance areas, accelerate
their use of some of these tools in orderto ba in, make themselves as individual
workers more productive and get andadvance their, you know, gonna boost
the bottom lines of their organization.
Yeah.
In terms of, you know, getting,getting more efficient.
Krysti Cunningham (13:00):
So one of my key things is Chief,
how what are doing, we longer need?
We still don't need to do 'em todaybecause that risk is no longer there.
So that's again, looking at the risk.
When I think about aithough, it's kind of funny.
(13:21):
We were at the ABA RCC conference in2024, and everyone in the banking industry
was saying, yeah, no, that's only thebig banks that are gonna be doing that.
They've got the staff to dealwith AI the rest of this year in
2025, less than 12 months later.
Everybody's like, Hey, do youhave your policy set on it?
(13:41):
How are you doing it?
What are you doing with it?
And I think that's really one ofthe first things that you need to
understand is how does your bank use ai?
A lot of times our financial crimesmonitoring has, it, it's risk.
It's it's risk based.
It's formed into transaction monitoring.
It's real time on what's happening.
It's building scenarios.
(14:02):
However, then we have our largelanguage and we're using ChatGPT.
You've gotta understand, are you private?
It's private, so now I canstart using it within my bank.
Otherwise, I can't be reallybe using it out in the real
world because I can't be puttingconfidential information out there.
So you've gotta understand how yourbank's doing it and if they're not, to
(14:26):
me, it's our role to help educate 'em.
If we're not there, we're behindand we need to get caught up because
saying we're not gonna use ai.
Our employees are probablyusing chat offline somewhere.
You know, as opposed tousing, like we use co-pilot.
Yeah.
But really it saves so much time.
(14:47):
Like when you're looking to findout things the thing I found
is I don't like it per minute.
It'll come back and it'll saythings for, we'll use it on our
teams calls to do our minutes.
You need that interaction to comeback and say, no, this is wrong.
Or here's this, I, I treat it asa new employee or as an employee.
(15:08):
Whenever I'm typing something in, itdoes not know what I really wanna know.
Here's what I'm thinking.
So you have to continue toevolve with it, and then it
learns how you wanna do things.
I don't see at this point, itreplacing people, but it's gonna
make our jobs easier and faster.
Like I'm envisioning it.
(15:29):
Maybe we have loan memos.
We'll put those in to see dowe have fair wind concerns in
how things are being written?
We, you have to tell it what you want andthen give it what you want it to look at.
Evan Sparks (15:39):
Yeah.
Krysti Cunningham (15:40):
So
I don't think you can use AI untilyou know what you want to use it for.
Is it for automating processes?
And I think that's where you've gotta sitand critically think, how could we use it?
Take, take the blinders off and say,how can I use this new technology?
I,
Evan Sparks (15:59):
mm-hmm.
Krysti Cunningham (16:00):
And at this point, I have to have human
interaction with it to validate.
Evan Sparks (16:05):
So in addition to thinking through, you know, that human interaction,
you, you know, you've got, we, we have allthese employees in the, you know, coming.
Into our industry, and perhapswe're gonna be asking them to
do different things within theindustry as the technology evolves.
What is your, what are your, what'syour advice for people who aspire
(16:28):
to careers and risk and compliance?
What is the you know, when, when youmentor, you know, early career people
in, in your field, what's, what's theadvice you give to them about how to
build their career and build their talentsin, in this as part of the industry?
Krysti Cunningham (16:43):
So, you know, some of the things is
collaboration with key stakeholders.
That is so important that helps todrive efficiencies and understand what
the, their strategic influence is.
How do I And, and maybe as your,sorry, I'm gonna go back on that.
Can you cut that out?
Evan Sparks (17:02):
Yeah, sure.
Krysti Cunningham (17:03):
Okay.
Maybe as we're talking,professional growth and impact.
I would say continuous learning.
You have to understand your bank.
What is your bank's purpose?
You've gotta understand the industry.
You need to spend time outside of workdoing that because when you're at work,
you're learning a job, you're doingthings that you need to, but you've
(17:23):
gotta have that inquisitive mind.
Everything.
Other things I would thinkwould be doing the right thing.
Trust your instinct.
And always prioritizeintegrity and ethical behavior.
Those are some thingsthat are very important.
Taking holistic approach.
You've gotta be adaptable to bein risk management and compliance.
(17:47):
It is just you.
You have to be adaptable.
Nothing is the same every day, butyou've gotta be able to stay on task.
What is your learning ability?
What is your, what makes youcomfortable as a person, we always do
like a zero risk or we've done someof these other personality profiles.
(18:08):
You've gotta look at that and don'ttry to be something that you're not.
That make sense?
What I'm, what I'm saying to you onthat, or am I clear off your question?
Evan Sparks (18:18):
Abso, absolutely.
So the one other question I had foryou is, you know, obviously you've
been involved with the industry a lotbeyond just working in the bank, working
with, you know, a, b, a and other.
And, and, and of, andthe broader industry.
Can you talk a little bit about thevalue that, that kind of volunteering
and serving in different ways acrossthe industry has helped your career
(18:40):
develop as a chief risk officer?
Krysti Cunningham (18:42):
Oh yeah.
I mean, I, kind of coming back toyour other question previously, it's
that continuous learning I learn whenpeople come and ask me questions.
I learn and it's like, oh,I never thought about it.
Looking at it that way.
And you look at it alittle bit differently.
So volunteering.
I've worked with the Nebraska BankersAssociation, Kansas Banking Schools
(19:03):
of Banking for many, many years.
And again, coming back to that, you'realways learning something when you
listen to what others have to say.
Working on with the A, b, A andvolunteering with them, you get
from small community to mega.
We're all the same.
When it comes to compliance.
(19:24):
We have the same rules to followwhen it comes to risk management.
We have a lot of the same risk,but it's the prioritization
based on what our bank offers.
So I think that volunteeringnot only helps me convey.
My knowledge to someone elseor my experiences, but I'm also
continuously learning from them too.
(19:45):
I think it's really important to stay upwith through a, BA. I've done my CRCM,
my CERP, that was an exceptional program.
Getting into risk management.
Both of those were things, Hey, I kindof know, I know these things, but it
really gives you a different perspectiveon some things that you thought you
knew is really good with those things.
Evan Sparks (20:08):
Fantastic.
Krysti Cunningham (20:09):
So it's fun.
Evan Sparks (20:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know.
I lo, I lo I, I don't oftenget to come to the Risk and
Compliance Conference, but I do.
When I do, I love it because there'sso many dedicated people, they're
so passionate about this fieldthat I think, you know, on the
outside sounds pretty dry, but then.
They managed to makeit really interesting.
And I think there's so many sessionsthat I go to and I'm like, this is a
(20:34):
real intellectual challenge to understandthis issue and to try and sort it
out and to apply all of the differentcompeting things that are going on here.
So
Krysti Cunningham (20:42):
how can anybody ever think that risk and compliance is dry?
You've gotta come toone of our conferences.
They're pretty wild.
We get a little crazy, but.
You know, we're all therefor the same purpose.
And sometimes I think one of myother things of advice for people
wanting to get into risk managementor compliance is really making
(21:05):
sure you have that holistic view.
It's really easy to get caught up and havetunnel vision of everything that's wrong.
And I always go back to my, my whensomebody will come to me and it's
like, oh my gosh, this guy's falling.
So what?
Is that gonna keep, is thatgonna fail the bank tomorrow?
Mm-hmm.
(21:25):
Is it gonna fail the bank in a month?
So if not, so what?
Let's figure out how we fixit and let's move forward.
If it's major.
All hands on board.
We're gonna address this.
We're gonna escalateas soon as we have to.
But otherwise, you know, so what?
But it is, you know, our cyber risk.
Today we talked a little bit about ai.
(21:46):
Cyber cyber risk.
That's one of the scary things is we'vegotta be able to stay up with that.
And again, our employees, we'vegotta get them trained on those.
Evan Sparks (21:56):
Krysti, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me today
about your career and all the, theamazing opportunities that we have.
And I wanna say thank you to you for allthe volunteering and service that you
have done with a BA, Nebraska Bankersand, and throughout the industry over
the, over the course of your career.
And I think this, this has beena great conversation and I hope
it's an inspiration to the nextgeneration of risk and compliance
(22:18):
professionals for the industry.
Krysti Cunningham: Well, thank you so much. (22:20):
undefined
It's, it's an honor to be on this.
I'm so, I am so proud of being awardedwith the Distinguished Service Award.
And thank you for your time.
I mean, I could just go on andon for hours about this stuff.
Evan Sparks (22:33):
Well, we'll have to have you back another time to talk through things.
So thank you so much for beingon and for our listeners, you can
find this in previous episodes ataba.com/banking journal podcast.
You can also find us on any of yourfavorite podcast apps or platforms.
Just search for a BA Banking journalpodcast, and click subscribe.
We'll be back with you again very soon.
I don't see AI at this point replacing people, but it's
gonna make our jobs easier and faster.
So I don't think you can use AI untilyou know what you want to use it for.
Is it for automating processes?
And I think that's where you've gotta sitand critically think, how could we use it?
Take the blinders off and say,how can I use this new technology?
Evan Sparks (00:33):
From the American Bankers Association, this is the
A BA Banking Journal podcast.
Welcome back.
I'm Evan Sparks.
Today's episode is presented by EnterpriseBanking with Interest Podcast, and
I'm delighted to be bringing you aconversation with Krysti Cunningham.
Krysti is Chief Risk Officer atSecurity National Bank in Omaha,
Nebraska, and she is also the winnerof the 2025 Distinguished Service
(00:55):
Award for Risk and Compliance, whichwas presented very recently at ABAs
Risk and Compliance Conference inIndianapolis in front of an audience of
many of Krysti's peers and colleagues.
So first of all, congratulations,Kristi, and welcome to the podcast.
Krysti Cunningham (01:08):
Thank you, Evan.
I'm very honored tohave received the award.
It's a very prestigious award work with alot of people and I owe a lot of people.
Thanks for nominatingme and voting me into.
Opinions that I'm gonna be speaking aboutrepresent myself, not necessarily that of
(01:29):
any of the institutions I've worked for.
Evan Sparks (01:31):
Alright.
Good to know.
And I'll start by just sharing anopinion of my own, which is, I love
coming to Omaha because I love your zoo.
And
Krysti Cunningham (01:39):
oh my gosh, isn't it awesome?
Evan Sparks (01:41):
It's so great.
I tell people that
Krysti Cunningham (01:43):
and they're like, wow.
And.
Evan Sparks (01:47):
So we did a, we were last there, we did a co, a COVID
summer road trip because we just hadto get out of DC and my kids love
the zoo, so we, we did the rainforestand the waterpark and all of that.
It was fantastic.
Krysti Cunningham (01:59):
Perfect.
And we're also home of the College WorldSeries, which is happening right now.
Evan Sparks (02:03):
Alright?
Yes, that's right.
So a lot of reasons to, good reasonsto go to Omaha least not, not least
of which is Security National Bank.
So Krysti, first of all, can you tell usa little bit more about your background in
banking and how you got into the industry?
And I'd just love to hear a littlebit more about your career path on
your way to the place you are today.
Krysti Cunningham (02:22):
You bet.
I started many, many years ago.
Gosh, I wanna say it was in, I, Ithink it's actually was in 95, 94, 95.
I was actually hired an individualthat I knew was president of a bank.
It's a small bank in central Nebraska.
Carl Ecker was president at that timeand hired me as a management trainee.
(02:45):
I'll tell you this gentleman, just letme kind of, let me go-- I learned the
ins and outs of the bank at that time.
You know, we had had a lot ofregulatory changes that come about from.
It was much more informal thancompliance and risk is today.
But I had the background to beable to learn in ag lending, some
(03:07):
commercial lending, deposit operationsjust about every facet of banking.
And then went on to manage the datacenter as they were purchasing additional
banks, doing mergers and acquisitions.
So just a great opportunityand then came to Omaha.
As the bank expanded to managerisk and from then it just been,
(03:30):
I've gone to midsize institutionand then I've been with.
I was here once I, for fiveyears, I left for about five, and
I've been back here for eight.
Evan Sparks (03:43):
So I'm, I'm curious, you know, in the, in all the years
you've been working in bank risk andin compliance, what, how have these
professions evolved and what's, youknow, what, what's exci what, what
excite what excites you about having acareer in risk and compliance right now?
Krysti Cunningham (03:59):
Oh gosh.
I just love it becauseit's always changing.
The industry changes, the productsand services our customers
change, our employees change.
It's just a constant change and evolution.
That's what I love about it, is reallytrying to figure out how do we service
our customers in the most efficient way.
While mitigating risk.
And for some people, for me, thatjust kind of comes naturally.
(04:21):
I love that.
I love working with customers,but please don't ever ask.
I can handle things, I can work withthem, I can get 'em what they need,
but I just am not a salesperson.
Evan Sparks (04:33):
Yeah, the and, you know, and, and one thing I, I'm curious,
you know, you, you've working in withyour perspective working in like small
banks, mid-size bank as well, and thethe technological transformation we've
seen, how has, how has technologychanged the practice of risk management
from your perspective over the timeyou've been in the banking industry?
Krysti Cunningham (04:54):
Well, a lot of it is the access to data.
We used to have to work, wait fornightly updates or quarterly updates
to be getting from a data processingcenter to be able to get information.
I mean, it's at our fingertips now, sowe have customers again, when I started
banking, didn't even have online banking.
In fact, we were still putting.
Loans into typewriters and typing 'em.
(05:17):
So being part of that to establish a loanplatform system for a bank was phenomenal.
And I think all of those things,knowing how things work manually and
having 'em digitalized and automatedreally helps from a risk perspective.
Right now, just coming into risk.
(05:39):
A lot of times if people don't havethat operational background, it's
really hard to get that holisticpicture to, you've been in the
bank a few years to understand, oh,here's how the interconnection is,
because everything's tied together.
So again, it is just the, that is really,I think some of the things of the risk
for tomorrow and today is really thefast movement of money, of payments.
(06:02):
Everything that's happeningis so fast sometimes it's
hard to keep up with things.
Evan Sparks (06:09):
No, I mean that's, you know, we, I was talking with
one of my colleagues here aboutthe, the possibility of you know.
AI agents in the future to be able tokind of, you know, make mo monetary,
make financial decisions on a customer'sbehalf that involve moving money around,
say, whether it's like chasing a rateor, you know, balancing, you know,
(06:29):
getting, optimizing bill pay to manageyour spreads or something like that.
You know, it's like to, to reducethat, the, whatever the float is that
you need in these, in these accountsand that's gonna change how you, how
bankers manage liquidity risk, right?
That's gonna change all of how banksmanage you know, ba balance, sheet
(06:51):
management, asset liability risk.
It's like, what are, what, what, whatare your thoughts on kind of how banks
are gonna be able to manage this stuffin the future as it only gets faster?
Krysti Cunningham (07:01):
We, you just have to have some real time performance indicators
and risk indicators that are happening.
So it's really now is the time aswe don't have a lot of regulatory
changes happening right now.
Right now, yes.
You know, it's gonna be here a fewmonths from now, or a few years from
now, but really we've gotta buckledown and make sure you have some strong
risk management programs that are.
(07:23):
Very forward thinking risk indicatorsor performance indicators, because you
cannot focus on everything at once.
You know, one of the other thingsI noticed as we're talking that
makes me think about is some of thechanges in the banking industry.
Previously, your community banks wereeverything to everyone and even your
(07:44):
larger banks for that too, right?
It's hard to be that because being ableto provide everything a consumer wants
and everything a business wants on realtime, fast moving isn't always possible.
And it may not be all C&I orcommercial real estate or.
(08:05):
So you've gotta really focus onyour strategic plan for your bank
and then prioritize some of that,those digital processes with it.
And that is really, I think that is achange in the banking industry is really
who are we as a bank, where do we wanna bein making sure things are getting matched
(08:25):
and our risk profiles are moving forward.
That was your bigger banks that weredoing that, your community banks, your
mid-size banks really were lookingand focusing more on compliance.
Yeah.
'cause those were starting tobe more of a concern when we had
the housing crisis happening.
So then it moved, evolved into ourmid-size banks, started adding chief
risk officers and now we're down tocommunity banks, regardless of size.
(08:49):
Have somebody doing that.
And you know, I.
Oh, probably 20 years ago wewere doing risk management.
We just didn't have it formalized.
And so I think your banks that continueto evolve and the banks that stayed in
business had that risk profiles that theywere monitoring, maybe informally today.
(09:14):
It's gotta be formal.
Evan Sparks (09:16):
Yeah.
Krysti Cunningham (09:16):
And so that, that would be my feedback, is you've gotta have
formal processes in place regardless of.
Evan Sparks (09:22):
I mean, I think about what, what is banking?
Banking, like the entire disciplineof banking, whether you're a lender
or a deposit taker, you are, man,it's all like the whole business
is risk is like risk management.
Risk risk.
That's what risk mitigation.
Risk analysis is.
This customer, the will this customerpay back the loan on time, you know,
(09:43):
what are, what's our projected default?
It's all, all of it is just about risk.
And so to say, you know, it's like.
You know, it makes sense that we haveneed though, some of these formal
processes to translate all of thisinformal, intuitive risk management
that bankers are doing throughout theday into something that everyone can
(10:03):
understand and report back to regulatorsand to the public about how we're, how,
you know, banks are keeping money safe.
Krysti Cunningham (10:12):
Yeah, and I think that's when the, I was
like, why did we have the CAMEL?
I mean, I know why we have CAMELratings and CAMEL, the sensitivity.
I remember when that was
Uniform process and expectationsfor all banks to be following.
So.
Some, you know, I have people say,oh my gosh, all the regulations,
(10:32):
but some of these things are good.
They keep our banking systems sound,but we need to be able to operate the
way according to our risk profiles.
And there's, that's where thechief risk officer comes into play.
Making sure we're stayingwithin the boundaries.
We have good risk tolerances and we'rereporting back to management and the
board because everybody has their role.
(10:54):
So it's really kind of puttingour arms around that and saying
what you should be thinking on.
You know, I'm coming back to earlier Iwas talking about some of the changes
in being everything to everyone.
One of the things that has reallyevolved is third party risk management.
Evan Sparks (11:12):
Mm-hmm.
Krysti Cunningham (11:14):
So your community banks, and even your
bigger banks, we don't havethat expertise anymore in house.
So we get into, we've gottarely on a third party.
We gotta know if they have a fourth party.
We have to know how they use ai.
We have to know that theyhave our customer data.
Are they following everythingthey need to be following?
Sorry.
Got back to that for you.
Evan Sparks (11:35):
Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's fantastic and helpful.
You were talking about all the thingsthat we kind of outsource in this
industry now to gain additional functions.
And then of course, we manage thoserisks associated with, with working
with all of these third parties.
You know, one of the thingsI think, I think about.
Coming up in terms of like careersin banking, is careers in anything
(11:58):
everyone is talking about?
What is the impact of of generativeAI solutions on these entry level
jobs or on these you know, analyst?
Knowledge worker type jobs, right.
Jobs like mine, honestly.
You know, and I I work, you know, we'rekind of a, I work at the intersection
of of journalism and policy and, youknow, is chat GPT gonna be better at
(12:19):
my, better at doing my job than I am?
I hope not.
At least not for Nat for the time being.
But the que you know.
It, you know, there's a, itis kind of a truism out there.
You know, AI might not replace jobs,but a AI is going to replace the
people who know how to use it are gonnareplace people who dunno how to use it.
Right.
Do you have any thoughts on kind ofhow I. Where, how we can, the banks can
(12:43):
accelerate, and particularly in ri, inthe risk and compliance areas, accelerate
their use of some of these tools in orderto ba in, make themselves as individual
workers more productive and get andadvance their, you know, gonna boost
the bottom lines of their organization.
Yeah.
In terms of, you know, getting,getting more efficient.
Krysti Cunningham (13:00):
So one of my key things is Chief,
how what are doing, we longer need?
We still don't need to do 'em todaybecause that risk is no longer there.
So that's again, looking at the risk.
When I think about aithough, it's kind of funny.
(13:21):
We were at the ABA RCC conference in2024, and everyone in the banking industry
was saying, yeah, no, that's only thebig banks that are gonna be doing that.
They've got the staff to dealwith AI the rest of this year in
2025, less than 12 months later.
Everybody's like, Hey, do youhave your policy set on it?
(13:41):
How are you doing it?
What are you doing with it?
And I think that's really one ofthe first things that you need to
understand is how does your bank use ai?
A lot of times our financial crimesmonitoring has, it, it's risk.
It's it's risk based.
It's formed into transaction monitoring.
It's real time on what's happening.
It's building scenarios.
(14:02):
However, then we have our largelanguage and we're using ChatGPT.
You've gotta understand, are you private?
It's private, so now I canstart using it within my bank.
Otherwise, I can't be reallybe using it out in the real
world because I can't be puttingconfidential information out there.
So you've gotta understand how yourbank's doing it and if they're not, to
(14:26):
me, it's our role to help educate 'em.
If we're not there, we're behindand we need to get caught up because
saying we're not gonna use ai.
Our employees are probablyusing chat offline somewhere.
You know, as opposed tousing, like we use co-pilot.
Yeah.
But really it saves so much time.
(14:47):
Like when you're looking to findout things the thing I found
is I don't like it per minute.
It'll come back and it'll saythings for, we'll use it on our
teams calls to do our minutes.
You need that interaction to comeback and say, no, this is wrong.
Or here's this, I, I treat it asa new employee or as an employee.
(15:08):
Whenever I'm typing something in, itdoes not know what I really wanna know.
Here's what I'm thinking.
So you have to continue toevolve with it, and then it
learns how you wanna do things.
I don't see at this point, itreplacing people, but it's gonna
make our jobs easier and faster.
Like I'm envisioning it.
(15:29):
Maybe we have loan memos.
We'll put those in to see dowe have fair wind concerns in
how things are being written?
We, you have to tell it what you want andthen give it what you want it to look at.
Evan Sparks (15:39):
Yeah.
Krysti Cunningham (15:40):
So
I don't think you can use AI untilyou know what you want to use it for.
Is it for automating processes?
And I think that's where you've gotta sitand critically think, how could we use it?
Take, take the blinders off and say,how can I use this new technology?
I,
Evan Sparks (15:59):
mm-hmm.
Krysti Cunningham (16:00):
And at this point, I have to have human
interaction with it to validate.
Evan Sparks (16:05):
So in addition to thinking through, you know, that human interaction,
you, you know, you've got, we, we have allthese employees in the, you know, coming.
Into our industry, and perhapswe're gonna be asking them to
do different things within theindustry as the technology evolves.
What is your, what are your, what'syour advice for people who aspire
(16:28):
to careers and risk and compliance?
What is the you know, when, when youmentor, you know, early career people
in, in your field, what's, what's theadvice you give to them about how to
build their career and build their talentsin, in this as part of the industry?
Krysti Cunningham (16:43):
So, you know, some of the things is
collaboration with key stakeholders.
That is so important that helps todrive efficiencies and understand what
the, their strategic influence is.
How do I And, and maybe as your,sorry, I'm gonna go back on that.
Can you cut that out?
Evan Sparks (17:02):
Yeah, sure.
Krysti Cunningham (17:03):
Okay.
Maybe as we're talking,professional growth and impact.
I would say continuous learning.
You have to understand your bank.
What is your bank's purpose?
You've gotta understand the industry.
You need to spend time outside of workdoing that because when you're at work,
you're learning a job, you're doingthings that you need to, but you've
(17:23):
gotta have that inquisitive mind.
Everything.
Other things I would thinkwould be doing the right thing.
Trust your instinct.
And always prioritizeintegrity and ethical behavior.
Those are some thingsthat are very important.
Taking holistic approach.
You've gotta be adaptable to bein risk management and compliance.
(17:47):
It is just you.
You have to be adaptable.
Nothing is the same every day, butyou've gotta be able to stay on task.
What is your learning ability?
What is your, what makes youcomfortable as a person, we always do
like a zero risk or we've done someof these other personality profiles.
(18:08):
You've gotta look at that and don'ttry to be something that you're not.
That make sense?
What I'm, what I'm saying to you onthat, or am I clear off your question?
Evan Sparks (18:18):
Abso, absolutely.
So the one other question I had foryou is, you know, obviously you've
been involved with the industry a lotbeyond just working in the bank, working
with, you know, a, b, a and other.
And, and, and of, andthe broader industry.
Can you talk a little bit about thevalue that, that kind of volunteering
and serving in different ways acrossthe industry has helped your career
(18:40):
develop as a chief risk officer?
Krysti Cunningham (18:42):
Oh yeah.
I mean, I, kind of coming back toyour other question previously, it's
that continuous learning I learn whenpeople come and ask me questions.
I learn and it's like, oh,I never thought about it.
Looking at it that way.
And you look at it alittle bit differently.
So volunteering.
I've worked with the Nebraska BankersAssociation, Kansas Banking Schools
(19:03):
of Banking for many, many years.
And again, coming back to that, you'realways learning something when you
listen to what others have to say.
Working on with the A, b, A andvolunteering with them, you get
from small community to mega.
We're all the same.
When it comes to compliance.
(19:24):
We have the same rules to followwhen it comes to risk management.
We have a lot of the same risk,but it's the prioritization
based on what our bank offers.
So I think that volunteeringnot only helps me convey.
My knowledge to someone elseor my experiences, but I'm also
continuously learning from them too.
(19:45):
I think it's really important to stay upwith through a, BA. I've done my CRCM,
my CERP, that was an exceptional program.
Getting into risk management.
Both of those were things, Hey, I kindof know, I know these things, but it
really gives you a different perspectiveon some things that you thought you
knew is really good with those things.
Evan Sparks (20:08):
Fantastic.
Krysti Cunningham (20:09):
So it's fun.
Evan Sparks (20:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know.
I lo, I lo I, I don't oftenget to come to the Risk and
Compliance Conference, but I do.
When I do, I love it because there'sso many dedicated people, they're
so passionate about this fieldthat I think, you know, on the
outside sounds pretty dry, but then.
They managed to makeit really interesting.
And I think there's so many sessionsthat I go to and I'm like, this is a
(20:34):
real intellectual challenge to understandthis issue and to try and sort it
out and to apply all of the differentcompeting things that are going on here.
So
Krysti Cunningham (20:42):
how can anybody ever think that risk and compliance is dry?
You've gotta come toone of our conferences.
They're pretty wild.
We get a little crazy, but.
You know, we're all therefor the same purpose.
And sometimes I think one of myother things of advice for people
wanting to get into risk managementor compliance is really making
(21:05):
sure you have that holistic view.
It's really easy to get caught up and havetunnel vision of everything that's wrong.
And I always go back to my, my whensomebody will come to me and it's
like, oh my gosh, this guy's falling.
So what?
Is that gonna keep, is thatgonna fail the bank tomorrow?
Mm-hmm.
(21:25):
Is it gonna fail the bank in a month?
So if not, so what?
Let's figure out how we fixit and let's move forward.
If it's major.
All hands on board.
We're gonna address this.
We're gonna escalateas soon as we have to.
But otherwise, you know, so what?
But it is, you know, our cyber risk.
Today we talked a little bit about ai.
(21:46):
Cyber cyber risk.
That's one of the scary things is we'vegotta be able to stay up with that.
And again, our employees, we'vegotta get them trained on those.
Evan Sparks (21:56):
Krysti, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me today
about your career and all the, theamazing opportunities that we have.
And I wanna say thank you to you for allthe volunteering and service that you
have done with a BA, Nebraska Bankersand, and throughout the industry over
the, over the course of your career.
And I think this, this has beena great conversation and I hope
it's an inspiration to the nextgeneration of risk and compliance
(22:18):
professionals for the industry.
Krysti Cunningham: Well, thank you so much. (22:20):
undefined
It's, it's an honor to be on this.
I'm so, I am so proud of being awardedwith the Distinguished Service Award.
And thank you for your time.
I mean, I could just go on andon for hours about this stuff.
Evan Sparks (22:33):
Well, we'll have to have you back another time to talk through things.
So thank you so much for beingon and for our listeners, you can
find this in previous episodes ataba.com/banking journal podcast.
You can also find us on any of yourfavorite podcast apps or platforms.
Just search for a BA Banking journalpodcast, and click subscribe.
We'll be back with you again very soon.
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