Jucheng (Jim) Zhao

Jim Zhao has twenty years in financial services and eleven auditing machine-learning and credit models. He led model audit at Fannie Mae through 2025, covering approximately 200 models across credit, allowance, fair value, servicing, and AI/ML applications under continuous FHFA examination — work that was itself examined as it was performed.

Earlier he owned firm-wide model risk management standards at Charles Schwab — policy, model tiering, and the validation requirements every model owner worked to. He has held model risk management and governance roles at Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and U.S. Bank, and has engaged directly with FHFA, Federal Reserve, and OCC examiners on model control effectiveness and validation adequacy.

He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of California, Davis and an M.S. in Statistics. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst and a certified AI Governance Professional (AIGP) through the IAPP, and is PECB-certified as Senior Lead Auditor, Senior Lead Implementer, and Trainer for ISO/IEC 42001. He completed the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School.

He is retained by litigation counsel on matters turning on model fairness, re-identification, and whether a model performed as represented; by risk and compliance officers at lenders and seller-servicers; and by audit executives building their own capability to test models.