The SIFMA Podcast · Nov 3, 2026 · 36m · 27m saved
With Debbie Guild, EVP and Head of Technology at PNC Financial Services Group and Chair Emeritus of FS-ISAC · Brian Peretti, Founder and CEO of Everstream Advisors, previously Chief Technology Officer and Deputy Chief AI Officer at the US Treasury
Photo via SIFMA (YouTube)
Debbie Guild, head of technology at PNC Financial Services Group, and Brian Peretti, founder and CEO of Everstream Advisors, told The SIFMA Podcast that the goal of operational resilience is not to stop every outage. Most firms still plan around getting their own systems back up. Debbie and Brian argue the test is whether the services markets depend on keep running while the systems are down, at a moment when settlement cycles are shrinking toward round-the-clock trading.
"The objective isn't zero failure, it's preventing a failure from becoming a market event." — Debbie Guild
Debbie is chair emeritus of FS-ISAC, the financial industry's cyber-threat sharing group. Brian spent 22 years at the US Treasury, where his roles included chief technology officer and deputy chief AI officer.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 36 minutes of audio, 9 minutes of reading.
Here are the 9 arguments that matter.
Key Takeaways
The goal of resilience is keeping a failure from becoming a market event, not zero failures
Resilience has shifted from losing a component to losing a third party you depend on
A system that runs around the clock cannot rely on a nine-to-five recovery plan
An AI system can be fully available and still fail if someone talks it into the wrong action
Firms have rolled out AI faster than their governance of it has matured
AI lets a small group do what once took seven or eight specialists, Brian says
A backup plan that has to be found in a manual on a shelf will not help in a crisis
1. Service, Not Uptime
Todd Klessman, a managing director at SIFMA who covers cyber and technology, opened SIFMA's six-part Resilient Markets series by asking his guests how resilience differs from recovery, business continuity and incident response. Brian said critical functions have to "power through" a disruption so the people depending on them keep getting served.
Brian says resilience is about service while systems are down, not how fast they come back
"Resilience is not just whether or not the lights come back on, it's whether the essential services continue while the lights are out." — Brian Peretti
Debbie said firms should plan for every kind of hazard in one framework: cyberattacks, technology failures, extreme weather, geopolitical events and outages at third-party suppliers. The point is that clients keep their confidence that financial services will continue through all of them.
