About Us

Chuck Beck is a specialist in business intelligence and data warehousing. Prior to joining FRG, he was an IT manager at SAS world headquarters, where he oversaw the team responsible for the global implementation and support of SAS® Solutions, Data Warehousing & Reporting and Master Data Management. His team was recognized within SAS R&D circles as a representative benchmark of how real world customers use SAS® Business Intelligence Products. Chuck has broad experience across multiple industries including Banking, Investments, Insurance, Energy and Pharmaceuticals, always focusing in the finance, accounting, and market subject areas. Chuck received his undergraduate and master's degree in Economics from East Carolina University.

John Bell is a specialist in market, credit, and operational risk reporting and delivery. He has comprehensive knowledge of SAS software, with particular expertise in SAS® Credit Risk Management for Banking and FRG’s reporting solutions. Before becoming a partner with FRG he served as development manager for SAS® Credit Risk Management for Banking and Manager of the SAS Risk practice. He previously held management positions at Toshiba and CIT.

John has traveled the world as a consultant for risk management projects, focusing on developing and implementing advanced risk reporting platforms for energy firms, retail and investment banks, hedge funds, and international banks. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an MBA in finance from Lehigh University.

Valerie Cooper has extensive experience in Program and Project Management, Quality Assurance Management, and Resource Management. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with expertise in the Information Systems, Manufacturing, State and Local Government, Federal Government, and Healthcare industries. Valerie started her career as a developer before moving into leadership roles. In a leadership capacity, she has led teams internationally, relying on strong planning, communications, collaboration, and execution skills to overcome time zone and language barriers. She is an excellent communicator, able to interpret and bridge technology and business goals to move her teams towards solutions. She has a solid background in successful program implementations ranging from hosting migrations to software development.  Understanding the importance that solid testing and continual quality improvement to the overall success of projects, Valerie has also taken on Test Director and Test Management assignments along her career path.

Valerie joined FRG in 2015.  Prior to joining FRG, Valerie was a Program and Project Manager for HP.  She has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Virginia Tech, with a minor in Statistics.

Michael Forno has more than 25 years of experience in delivering risk management technology solutions. Mike has worked with some of the largest financial institutions in the world. His clients include banks, asset managers, hedge funds, energy traders, agribusiness companies, state pensions, and private endowments. With such a diverse client base, he has enjoyed implementing sound risk management principles and practices for regulatory reporting purposes, as well as internally lead risk oversight initiatives and enablement of better risk reward decision support.

A former manager and lead risk trainer at SAS Institute, Mike designed, developed and delivered the company’s first risk management training courses, and still contributes to its risk management curriculum. He currently specializes in market, credit and operational risk management, providing guidance and technical lead assistance for clients throughout North America and Europe. Mike has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in economics from North Carolina State University, where he also studied statistics and oceanography.

Dessa Glasser, Ph.D., is a Principal with a 30-year track record designing and implementing innovative solutions and organizations in risk, data, and analytics. She focuses on Data and regulatory solutions and also assists Virtual Clarity, Ltd. on data solutions for their clients. She was recently named an Independent Member of the Board of Directors for Oppenheimer Holdings Inc.

Dessa moved into the private sector after teaching at Rutgers University. At JPMorgan Chase, she launched firm-wide Capital Stress Testing Analytics then, as its first CDO, she built the Chief Data Office for Asset Management. She was Deputy Director of the Office of Financial Research for the US Treasury, supporting the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), implementing data, standards and analytic solutions, including the global Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). She established the Chief Risk Office for Bunge, serving as the first CRO. She also held senior positions at Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch, IBM, and KPMG.

Dessa has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Fordham University, and serves on the Advisory Board for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She has a B.S. in Business Administration from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Jonathan Leonardelli, FRM, is the Director of Business Analytics at FRG and specializes in credit, market, and operational risk. In addition to helping businesses investigate, identify, quantify, and take action on the risk in their portfolios, he also helps clients develop and implement processes to meet business needs or regulatory requirements.

As part of a small group within the firm, Jonathan helps shape AI policy, train staff, and set best practices for using AI in daily work and bringing it to clients. He has built AI agents and tools that support analytics work from data preparation through reporting. These include a data processing agent that prepares data for analysis by standardizing, transforming, subsetting, and applying business rules; AI-assisted workflows for model development and hypothesis testing; tools that create macroeconomic scenarios from a user’s prompt using open-source data; and a reporting agent that produces predefined and on-demand reports and surfaces data behaviors to the reviewer.

Since joining FRG, Jonathan has led multiple projects to successful completion using his leadership, modeling, and business knowledge. These projects span stress testing and regulatory areas such as CECL, IFRS9, CCAR, Basel, and IRRBB. Jonathan is a contributor to the FRG blog and has authored several white papers on topics such as the model development lifecycle and scenario building. He also actively engages in research and development at the firm, investigating areas such as the use of AI in model risk management and the climate’s impact on financial institutions.

Tim Weeks, FRM, is Managing Partner of FRG. Since taking the role in 2020, he has led the firm’s delivery organization and expanded its capacity to serve clients in banking, commodities, and the broader financial services industry.

Tim joined FRG in 2007 and has spent nearly two decades leading enterprise risk programs. He specializes in risk platform and data architecture, expertise built through extensive hands-on work delivering risk solutions. He has served as technical lead on credit risk, stress testing, and platform migration projects for banks and commodities firms.

Before becoming Managing Partner, Tim managed FRG’s teams of risk professionals and led long-standing client relationships, giving him a direct view of what clients need from a risk partner.