Soubhagya Parija

Mr. Parija is a well-rounded finance and risk professional with energy and retail industry leadership experience. He has designed, developed, and implemented enterprise risk management frameworks in both public- and private-sector organizations. He has significant global experience in North America, Europe, and India.

Mr. Parija implemented an integrated commodity trading strategy at a major power utility, developed risk-appetite-based enterprise risk management frameworks, and has been responsible for reporting to the board.

Mr. Parija also led development of a comprehensive and consistent risk management framework for 11 international markets and 12 compliance risk areas for Walmart's international division. The unique assessment process combines data and collective wisdom of experts (forecasters).

In his most recent role as the chief risk officer at FirstEnergy Corp., he led a team of risk professionals to completely revamp the enterprise and operational risk management program with a clear focus on digitization and analytics.

Mr. Parija contributes to thought leadership in the emerging risk management frontiers by participating in various panel discussions and speaking engagements at universities, professional conferences, and workshops.

Mr. Parija served on the board of directors of RIMS, the risk management society, from 2016 through 2020. Currently, he serves on the Chief Risk Officer Commercial Advisory Council of George Mason University and is an active member of the Risk Council at Temple University.

He has a master's degree in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and a master of business administration degree in finance from Indiana University. Most recently, he completed the Harvard Business Analytics Program at Harvard Business School.

He enjoys his current role of consulting and advising both government and private-sector entities on risk management. He lives in the Bay Area near San Francisco, California, where he pursues his hobby of photography in his spare time.