CEO and Founder

I’m Lola Garcia, Founder & CEO of Elevâre Consulting. I help small to mid-size financial services institutions elevate their risk posture and integrate AI risk management and governance into their risk frameworks and operational fabric—turning complexity into competitive advantage.

I bring more than 20 years of enterprise risk leadership across institutions ranging from $32B to $10T in assets, including Charles Schwab, First Interstate Bank, U.S. Bank, and JPMorgan Chase.

I previously served as a Managing Director at Charles Schwab, where I led first-line enterprise risk and transformation initiatives prior to—and through—the firm’s historic $26B acquisition of TD Ameritrade. 

At Charles Schwab, I was a first-line business lead for the enterprise-wide GRC transformation—migrating the organization from SIRIS to IBM OpenPages and maturing risk frameworks across a $10T institution. I also directed risk integration strategy during the TD Ameritrade acquisition—the largest broker-dealer merger in history—and designed Schwab’s first centralized, enterprise-wide process-mapping program, strengthening operational resilience and identifying the firm’s most important business processes.

As Head of Enterprise Risk Management at First Interstate Bank, I led a post-merger GRC transformation—centralizing seven critical risk programs into Archer and developing a multi-year maturity roadmap aligned with regulatory expectations and industry best practices.

These experiences taught me not only what works at enterprise scale—but what’s actually achievable for institutions without unlimited resources.

Decades in financial services have taught me that risk management is far more costly when it’s reactive rather than proactive. A strong risk culture isn’t bureaucracy—it’s the foundation of resilience, trust, and sustainable growth.

At its core, risk management is about integrity: protecting customers, employees, and shareholders while enabling informed and responsible growth.

I blend strategic rigor with emotional intelligence and cultural insight, because frameworks alone don’t create resilience—people do.

My commitment is simple: help organizations not only comply but thrive.

Let’s build something better—together.