Enterprise Risk  ·  Governance  ·  Compliance  ·  Executive Leadership

Helping Executive Leadership Strengthen, Transform, and Sustain More Resilient Organizations

For more than two decades, Alison Stokes has partnered with executive leadership to help organizations navigate complexity, strengthen governance, manage enterprise risk, modernize compliance, and enable responsible growth.

Her experience spans both the first and second lines of defense, providing a unique perspective that integrates business strategy, enterprise risk, governance, regulatory strategy, operational resilience, and consumer protection into executive decision-making.

Executive Leadership Portfolio

Enterprise Decision-Making
Integrating risk, governance, compliance, and strategy
Enterprise Risk
Risk Management
Operational Risk
Third-Party Risk
Business Continuity
Issues Management
Governance
Governance Frameworks
Executive Reporting
Board Reporting
Policy Governance
AI Governance
Compliance
CMS Architecture
Regulatory Change
Testing & Monitoring
Examinations
Policies & Procedures
Strategic Partnership
Executive Leadership
Product & Sales
Capital Markets
Credit Risk
Technology & Legal
Enterprise Transformation
Modernization
Operational Excellence
AI Governance
Technology Enablement
Program Maturity
Responsible Growth
Organizational Resilience
Regulatory Confidence

Helping executive leadership make better enterprise decisions.

Executive Impact

How I Partner With Leadership Teams

01
Assess
Identify enterprise risks, evaluate strategic initiatives, and anticipate regulatory, operational, and consumer impacts before they become business problems.
02
Strengthen
Improve governance, policies, compliance operations, reporting, testing, complaints management, and enterprise risk capabilities.
03
Enable
Partner with executive leadership, Product, Sales, Marketing, Technology, Capital Markets, Credit Risk, Operations, and Legal to support responsible growth and sound decision-making.
04
Transform
Modernize Enterprise Risk, Governance, Compliance, AI Governance, Operational Excellence, and Regulatory programs to support organizational growth and resilience.
05
Sustain
Build long-term organizational resilience through continuous improvement, executive reporting, examinations, audits, remediation, business continuity, and operational risk management.

Enterprise Leadership Portfolio

Ten Domains of Executive Capability

Built across the nation's most scrutinized financial institutions. Each domain reflects sustained executive-level engagement, not peripheral exposure.

01
Enterprise Risk
02
Governance
03
Compliance
04
Strategic Business Partnership
05
Operational Excellence
06
Regulatory Strategy
07
Consumer Financial Services
08
Financial Crime, Privacy & Data Protection
09
Technology & AI Governance
10
Enterprise Transformation

Career

Career in Enterprise Leadership

A career built across the nation's most regulated financial organizations, deepening the capacity to lead, transform, and sustain.

Director, Compliance Operations: North America
Experian
Recruited to build and mature North American Compliance Operations in response to heightened audit scrutiny. Led Project Odyssey, a multi-workstream compliance modernization initiative designed to remediate inherited governance gaps, rebuild testing discipline, modernize workflow execution, elevate executive reporting, and establish a scalable future-state operating framework for North American Compliance Assurance.
Director / Senior Vice President (SVP)
Compliance Manager, Consumer Lending
MUFG Union Bank / U.S. Bank  ·  13 Years
Principal first-line regulatory advisor across large-scale consumer lending operations: fair lending governance, product and technology compliance, policy design, issue management, marketing review, capital markets advisory, and regulator-facing examination readiness across a large-scale consumer lending portfolio.
CFO / Treasurer
Hufnagel Bioethics Foundation
Provided executive governance, financial stewardship, and fiduciary oversight as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer for a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing bioethics through education, research, and public engagement.
Assistant Vice President (AVP), Senior Compliance Officer
JPMorgan Chase
Second-line compliance partner for residential lending and credit card business lines. Fair lending oversight, control design, CRA governance, and regulatory advisory across consumer financial products.
Assistant Vice President (AVP), Loan Operations Manager
Washington Mutual Bank
Foundational leadership in mortgage loan operations across origination, underwriting, funding, and servicing, providing the operational grounding for every compliance and risk leadership role that followed.
Residential Lending Manager
TREO Funding
Residential lending operations management supporting the full mortgage lifecycle.
Executive Advisor
A. Stokes Consulting, LLC
Maintains an independent advisory practice providing selective guidance on enterprise risk, governance, compliance, regulatory strategy, and program transformation. Engagements are undertaken periodically and may continue alongside an executive leadership role, subject to applicable employer approval and conflict-of-interest requirements.

Published Work

Insights & Thought Leadership

Active commentary on the regulatory, governance, and AI-era compliance issues shaping the financial services industry.

Executive Validation

Third-Party Confirmation of What the Record Shows

OCC Fair Lending Examination Outcome

The OCC stated that we did not treat Hispanics differently and met FHA requirements. Our processes are consistent and they did not see variances in our processing. Thank you for all of your efforts and dedication, as well as your amazing partnership.

DC
Diana C.
Regulatory Business Control Group Manager
Regulatory Rigor & Operational Leadership

Your thorough approach, grounded in actual regulatory citations, is a model for how to deal with many such issues. This is the sort of work that elevates the company and allows all parties to focus on real risks rather than creating self-inflicted spirals.

MH
Michael H.
Head of Retail Lending Operations
First-Line Analytical Independence

In my 25+ years of working with Compliance professionals, Alison stands above them all. She does not lean on the second-line compliance team to do her job. Instead, she conducts her own analysis of each regulatory question and provides it to second-line when their concurrence is needed. Anyone who hires her will be extremely grateful they did.

HB
Heather Brieske, CRCM
VP, Sr. Risk & Compliance Manager

Connect

Begin the Conversation

Open to executive leadership opportunities, board advisory conversations, and select strategic engagements where enterprise risk, governance, and compliance leadership matters.