About
FOUNDER & PRINCIPAL — RIOS APPLIED AI
Richard spent 14 years operating inside regulated financial services before he built Rios Applied AI — the risk controls, the compliance frameworks, the client relationships. He knows what a real audit trail has to hold up to, because he's been the one holding it up.
"I'm not translating AI for finance from the outside. I built the controls this industry runs on, then I built the systems that automate around them."
That operating history is what the methodology ladder is built from — not a framework borrowed from a generic AI playbook, but deployment patterns for the workflows he used to run himself: KYC/AML alert handling, equity-compensation processing, compliance operations.
The operating history
A global bank, Chicago
Governed Dodd-Frank Title VII swap reform, ISDA/CSA collateral documentation, and Basel III capital rules. Led rollout of a new collateral-management system, delivering $1M+ in annual operational savings and federally mandated audit trails.
A national loan-servicing firm, Chicago area
Defaulted federal student loan recovery inside Department of Education regulatory frameworks. Generated $2M+ in first-year revenue personally; promoted twice within 18 months; supervised a team of four counselors.
A top-tier global wealth management firm, Chicago
Built an enterprise advisory practice from a standing start to $100M+ in assets under management — 88.9% five-year revenue growth, 4.5x total production growth. Advised corporate plan sponsors on RSU vesting, option-exercise strategy, and concentrated-equity risk across executive participant populations.
Chicago
Designs and ships production agentic-AI systems for regulated, document-heavy workflows — the governance layer of institutional memory, risk registers, and human-in-the-loop decision frameworks that makes autonomous AI defensible in production. Operates a portfolio of demonstration systems on this architecture today.
B.S., FINANCE — UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO (2011) · SALESFORCE AGENTBLAZER CHAMPION (2026)
A FAIR QUESTION, ANSWERED DIRECTLY
Rios Applied AI is disclosed as a solo operation. Here's what happens to your systems and your data if Richard is unavailable.
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