About the Author

Michelle Beck’s career in financial risk management began in 1986, when she marketed and traded derivative products for Bankers Trust Company in New York. She joined BT’s pioneering risk management group in London, and later adapted the bank’s risk framework for its asset management division in 1995. Michelle then led the bank’s risk management software-as-a-service business (RAROC 2020 / db RiskOffice) that provided risk reporting to pensions, asset managers and hedge funds, continuing after BT was acquired by Deutsche Bank. In 2003 she moved to Washington Mutual Bank in Seattle to head market and operational risk management, and experienced its demise in the financial crisis of 2008. She later served as the chief risk officer for Russell Investments, Nuveen Investments, and TIAA’s retirement and wealth management business unit. From 2021 to 2024 she served as a risk management fellow in the Analytics Office of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Investment Management. She has lived in Chicago since 2010.

Michelle earned an M.A. in Government from Harvard University and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Washington in Seattle. She has served on the board of trustees of the Global Association of Risk Professional (GARP), the CFA Society of Chicago, and was a member of the SEC’s Asset Management Advisory Committee (AMAC) in 2020.

Her other publications include the CFA Level 2 reading “Measuring and Managing Market Risk,” co-authored with Don Chance, Ph.D., published by the CFA Institute in 2016, and “Utilizing Downside Risk Measures,” CFA Institute Conference Proceedings, Third Quarter 2014.