Prof. Mark Nasila is the Chief Data and Analytics Officer of FirstRand Risk, and a Singularity University Faculty for Artificial Intelligence, Data science and Data strategies. He is also a steering committee member of the National Institute for Theoretical Physics and Computational Sciences (NITheCS), a research fellow at Stellenbosch University and a Professor of practice in Artificial intelligence at the University of Johannesburg. As an experienced AI and data science expert, he ensures the techniques and methodologies he introduces into FNB are at the forefront of where banking is headed, both locally and internationally. He is the developer and the brain behind an AI system FNB has harnessed to reimagine its risk management and forensic due diligence processes. Prof. Nasila has presented at local and international conferences, such as the:

• Business-Tech Digital Banking Conference – SA
• Chief Data & Analytics Officer forums in South Africa and the UK
• European Simulation & Modelling Conference.
• SingularityU South Africa Summit: Singularity University

He has published and written opinion pieces in Business Day, Mail & Guardian, TechCentral, Daily Maverick, CIO Talk Network, CIO.com, Corinium Intelligence and the European Simulation & Modelling Association. He holds a PhD in Mathematical Statistics from the Nelson Mandela University, and is also an alumni of the SingularityU South Africa Executive programme. He was named one of the Corinium Global Intelligence ‘2020 Global Top 100 Innovators in data and analytics’, He was named the 2022 Southern Africa Finnovator (Financial Services Innovator) of the year by Exibex at the FINNOVEX 2022 awards, as well as the recipient of the Excellence in Data & Analytics 2022 award at the DigiBank Summit