Heather Kadavy, CERP, CBVM, CFSSP

Leader Bio

Heather Kadavy worked at Union Bank and Trust Company for nearly 34 years with a career focus on Operational Risk Management. As her Bank’s Board of Directors designee, she has managed and evolved several major programs including Third Party Risk Management, Information Security, Physical Security, Safety, Business Recovery, Model Risk Management, and Enterprise Risk Management. She developed and implemented training programs for thousands of employees, had oversight of over a thousand third party relationships, due diligence reviews and contract management activities.

Heather has been married for over 20 years to her husband, Patrick, and has a daughter and son both attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In her spare time, Heather enjoys spending time with friends and family, volunteering, doing puzzles, and baking. She is an avid Vikings football and Lakers basketball fan.

Leadership Challenges

Heather persevered through a previously male dominated industry (e.g., Finance, Physical Security, Information Security, IT, Cyber Security, Business Recovery, and Third Party Risk Management) by addressing complex operational risk areas within an enterprise risk management framework by building one-on-one collaborative relationships with business owners and serving as their expert resource. When it comes to complex topics, Heather found that business unit priorities were typically sales and client-centric support-focused goals. Operational risk management frameworks, documentation, and practices were not part of individual training programs and were often silos with one individual. As an Operational Risk Management translator, educator, and collaborative partner, Heather found a niche that equated to success which allowed her to bypass old silo practices and allow for not only 'train the trainer,' but 'train their successors,' spreading the alignment and understanding of risk management vocabulary, framework, and practices which allowed for continual improvement.

Key Takeaways

"As Third Party Risk Practitioners, our approach to relationship-building and collaboration outweigh systems and platforms when assisting the first line of defense in understanding the “why” and “how” with their role in overall risk management," Heather noted.

Heather’s favorite part about TPRM is the collaboration that comes when working with teams and seeing the “ah ha” light come on when parties new to TPRM see the enterprise risk view of a third party relationship.

Fun Fact

Heather loves writing poetry and sends out a new poem each Christmas to over 500 friends and family members.