Starling, an applied behavioral sciences technology company, has announced the appointment of Gary D. Cohn to its Risk & Governance Advisory Board. As Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council (2017-18), Cohn managed the U.S. economic policy agenda, stimulating economic expansion, job creation, and wage increases through historic tax and regulatory reform. Before serving in the White House, Cohn was President and Chief Operating Officer of Goldman Sachs, where he worked for more than 25 years. Since leaving government, he has been a highly sought-after advisor and angel investor in startups operating in the cybersecurity, blockchain, and medical technology sectors. Starling is Cohn’s first “regtech” investment.
Cohn joins prominent past-regulators and esteemed academic figures on Starling’s advisory team, among them, Siew Kai Choy, former Director of the Enterprise Data & Analytics Department at Singapore sovereign wealth fund, GIC.
“Having been involved in efforts to create a robust risk governance infrastructure at my former firm, I know first-hand how difficult it is,” Cohn said. “Starling is the only company I’ve seen that appears capable of providing reliable forward-looking metrics for nonfinancial risk governance and accountability, allowing for more meaningful horizontal reviews. That capability becomes all the more important in light of the current pandemic, which has dislocated our workforce, made the future of work less clear, and which makes misconduct within firms all the more damaging. I am excited to work with the Starling team as they advance new methods and bring them to the attention of policy-makers, regulators and risk managers worldwide.”
“Gary is a remarkable leader who brings Starling a uniquely valuable experience set,” said Starling Founder and CEO, Stephen Scott. “Having been a key leader at one of the world’s most important firms, Gary knows how difficult it is to manage cultural or behavioral risks. And having served at the pinnacle of the U.S. policy arena, Gary appreciates how important it is to bring a standard set of reliable and data-driven metrics to any regulatory agenda,” Scott added. “His counsel will be enormously valuable to us – now more than ever – and I am excited and grateful to have the opportunity to work closely with him.”
About Starling
A globally recognized Regtech pioneer, Starling is an applied behavioral sciences company that helps customers to create, preserve, and restore value. Combining machine learning and network science, Starling’s Predictive Behavioral Analytics platform allows managers to anticipate, and to shape, the behavior of employees and teams.
Starling reveals how relational trust dynamics within an organization impact business performance — predictably. Its proprietary algorithms generate actionable insights that allow leaders to optimize performance and to identify and mitigate culture and conduct risks before they cascade into crises.
Senior Regulatory Advisors include Tom Curry, former US Comptroller of the Currency and member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC); Rick Ketchum, former CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), past head of regulation for the NYSE, and former President of both the NASD and NASDAQ; and Martin Wheatley, inaugural CEO of the UK Financial Conduct Authority and past CEO of the Hong Kong Securities & Futures Commission.
Starling is also guided by a Scientific & Academic Advisory Board that includes John Seely Brown (former director of the Xerox PARC Research Lab), Nicholas Christakis (director of Yale’s Human Nature Lab), Karen Cook (director of Stanford’s Institute for Research in the Social Sciences), and Thomas Malone (director of MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence).
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