Kevin D. Oden & Associates was founded to bring high-quality, cost-effective quantitative analysis, validation, development, and model risk advisory to the financial industry and beyond. Our team of industry-leading quantitative analysts and model risk managers solves the problems that matter most.
Hands-on experience in model development, validation, and model risk management across institutions of every size — from community banks to global systemics.
We work with the right people and organizations to provide clients with practical, cost-effective plans to address their problems.
We perform extensive research, find the most appropriate partnerships and tools, and leverage AI and ML to provide the best solutions.
Our team of quantitative analysts have experience working with financial institutions and regulators on four continents. With advanced degrees from UCLA, Sorbonne, MIT, Wharton, Tulane, and other leading institutions, we can handle your data science, model validation, and model development needs.
Kevin D. Oden, Ph.D. is the founder and Managing Partner. He has developed, validated, and published in a number of modeling areas, ranging from commodity, mortgage, and credit decisioning to model risk management and measurement. Before founding KDOA, Dr. Oden was the Benjamin Pierce Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University, where he specialized in differential geometry. He began his finance career at Goldman Sachs in 1997 and went on to hold executive positions at Wells Fargo, including EVP and Head of Operational Risk and Compliance.
Kevin holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from UCLA and bachelor degrees in science and business from Cleveland State University.
Maia Berkane is partner and Head of Research and Analytics for KDOA. She has more than 25 years of experience in the Banking and Finance industry. She has led model development efforts in asset management, mortgage prepayments, market risk management, and compliance with a focus on fair lending analytics. She has developed innovative approaches recognized as effective by the CFPB for fair lending analysis and review as well as techniques for handling missing data and regime shifts in market data analysis.
Maia holds a Ph.D. in Mathematical Statistics from Paris VI-Sorbonne.
Amul Bhatia is a partner and the Head of Product Development for KDOA. He previously founded Complify where he developed a model risk management platform and validation reporting system, RMSE. KDOA acquired Complify in January 2024. Prior to founding Complify, Amul served as Head of Model Risk Management at Varo Bank and Berkshire Bank and has experience in traditional banking, internal audit, and fintech. His experience building model risk management programs inspired him to create an automated solution to address the significant challenges in meeting model risk related regulatory requirements.
Amul has a M.S. in Data Science from Northwestern University.
Damien Krklinski is the Head of Technology for KDOA. He is an accomplished IT professional with more than 15 years of experience in managing IT infrastructure. He has worked for Fortune 500 companies such as Johnson and Johnson and Checkout.com. Damien's technical expertise lies in VMware, Windows Server, Office 365, and scaling start-up IT infrastructure. He is passionate about using technology to solve complex business challenges and has been instrumental in creating and maintaining KDOA's system environments as well as helping KDOA interface securely with its clients.
He holds a degree in Business Information Systems.
Misty Ritchie is a highly accomplished senior executive with over two decades of experience in the financial services industry, specializing in data science, machine learning, and strategic planning. As a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, she brings a data-driven approach to problem-solving and process improvement. Misty has experience developing and implementing machine learning, large language models, and generative AI solutions. She has held leadership positions across credit risk management, global compliance, shared services management, and quality and productivity at both Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
Misty holds a Ph.D. and MA in Sociology from the University of Georgia as well as a BA in both Sociology and Biology from the University of Rochester.
Diego Alvarez is an economist with 10+ years of experience in the financial industry. He has been focused on the validation of market and credit risk models with recent work on CECL, home mortgage, and integrated stress models. He also has experience as a market risk specialist in charge of the end-to-end process of the interest-rate Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall models. Diego has been teaching Economics since 2007.
He has a BS, MS in Economics from University of Buenos Aires and University of San Andres as well as a post-graduate degree in Quantitative Finance from University of CEMA.
Greg Brozak is a quantitative finance professional with 25+ years' experience in developing and validating financial and risk management models across a wide range of product types and risk factors. He has broad experience in model risk management and model governance and has led Model Development and Model Risk teams at large financial organizations.
Greg has a Ph.D. from Northeastern University, an MA from University of Buffalo, and a BS from Queen's College CUNY.
Estella Chu has provided a broad range of risk management services to large financial institutions related to risk governance, limits setting, financial instruments valuation, risk modeling, risk reporting, and Basel II/III regulatory compliance services. She is specialized in quantitative modeling technical and data validation applicable for market risk, credit risk, and counterparty credit risk.
Estella has a BE in Computer Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and an MBA in Finance/IT from Indiana University.
Maria Belen Lico has experience in US and European financial regulatory model risk management. She has 9+ years of experience validating and performing periodic performance review of statistical models for financial institutions as well as providing advisory regarding model performance ongoing monitoring best practices. She has validated and provided advisory over a wide range of models covering Asset and Liability Management, Credit Scoring, CECL/IFRS 9, and Capital Stress Testing.
Belen holds a BS in Economics from the University of Buenos Aires. She is a candidate for a MS in Econometrics from the University of Torcuato di Tella.
Carolina Biagini Majorel is a seasoned economist with 17+ years of experience in the financial industry. Her expertise lies in model risk management, encompassing risk modeling, validation, and model governance. She is responsible for managing and overseeing model risk teams that perform econometric modeling, model validation, statistical and financial analysis, data analytics, and model documentation.
Carolina has a BS in Economics from the National University of Rosario and a MS in Economics from the University of Torcuato di Tella. She also completed a post graduate certificate in Quantitative Finance from the University of CEMA.
Pablo Macri has 20+ years' experience in the Financial Industry, Academia, and Research in Finance and Physical Sciences. In Finance, he has primarily focused on Risk Management, Risk/Derivative Pricing Systems, and Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence development. Pablo has recently led validation projects for Asset/Liability Management, Bank Secrecy Act/Anti Money Laundering, and Fraud models based on Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and other cutting-edge analytics.
Pablo has a Ph.D. and MS in Physics from Balseiro Institute in Argentina.
Manu Maurette, Ph.D., is an experienced validation team manager with 10+ years in risk management. After several years of research in Differential Equations, Manu started working in Quantitative Finance and Model Risk Management. During his years as an analyst, his work focused on the validation, development, and testing of pricing and risk models including curve building and volatility surface algorithms.
Manu has a BS in Applied Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Buenos Aires.
Leonard Mills has over 30 years' experience in model development and validation. Prior to joining KDOA, he worked at the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, and Wells Fargo as well as consulting with a variety of financial institutions.
He has a BS in Mathematics from Hampden-Sydney College and Ph.D. in Econometrics from Tulane University.
Richard Minkah is a statistician with a passion for analyzing data and information in finance. His specialization is modeling and forecasting unusually large/small values (e.g. large price movements, large claims, market crashes) that can cause disruption in the financial markets.
Richard has a BS in Statistics and Computer Science from the University of Ghana, MS in Financial Mathematics from Uppsala University in Sweden, and a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Ghana.
Gaston Romeo has 15+ years of experience in quantitative solutions, mathematical modelling, numerical simulation, artificial intelligence, data science and programming endeavors for top tier financial institutions and global analytics companies. He has led multiple projects within the banking industry as part of Model Validation, Corporate Model Risk and Front Office Group.
Gaston received a Ph.D. in High Energy Physics from University of Buenos Aires, working for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN as part of the ATLAS Detector in Geneva, Switzerland.
Agus Sudjianto is a highly accomplished risk management and quantitative methods expert with extensive experience in the financial services industry. He is currently the Senior Vice President of Risk and Technology at H2O.ai as well as serving as Executive in Residence for the School of Data Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Agus retired from Wells Fargo in 2024. At Wells Fargo he was an Executive Vice President and Head of Corporate Model Risk, where he served for over 11 years. During his tenure, Agus was instrumental in developing and governing risk models across various risk disciplines, ensuring regulatory compliance, and chairing the Model Governance Committee. Before Wells Fargo, Agus held significant positions at Lloyds Banking Group as Director of Analytics and Modeling, and at Bank of America as Executive and Head of Quantitative Risk.
He holds a Ph.D. in Engineering from Wayne State University and a Master's in System Design & Management from MIT.
Whether you need a single validation or a complete MRM program, we're here to help.