Richard Lau
VP, Technology Audit at Canada Life
Old Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top School
Top expert inFull-stack JavaScript Development
Richard Lau is a seasoned technology audit executive with over 20 years of global experience in risk management, IT audit, and transformation across major financial centres including New York, Hong Kong, and Toronto. Currently VP, Technology Audit at Canada Life, he has led large-scale governance and resilience programs at top banks such as RBC, TD, and UBS, blending hands-on program management with strategic operating model design. His background in computer engineering and early systems work at IBM underpin a practical technical fluency that complements his audit and advisory skills. Uncommonly for an audit leader, he contributes to critical open-source infrastructure—working on Node.js, libuv and build tooling—where he’s fixed build, OpenSSL, and cross-platform issues, reflecting deep systems-level troubleshooting. That combination of technical contribution and enterprise audit leadership enables him to translate complex engineering risks into clear, actionable governance and control frameworks. He is a creative problem-solver known for driving measurable process improvements and stakeholder-aligned change in regulated financial environments.
12 years of coding experience
9 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Applied Science and Engineering Computer Engineering, Bachelor of Applied Science and Engineering Computer Engineering at University of Toronto
Github Skills (49)
javascript10
docker10
c-language10
test-driven-design10
npm10
system-programming10
multiplatform10
node-gyp10
scripting10
testing10
windows10
aix10
gyp10
test-framework10
build-system10
Programming languages (18)
Github contributions (5)
nodejs/build
Dec 2018 - Dec 2022
Better build and test infra for Node.
Role in this project:
DevOps Engineer
DevOps EngineerContributions:412 reviews, 171 commits, 485 PRs in 4 years
Contributions summary:Richard primarily contributed to the build and test infrastructure of the Node.js project. Their work included fixing build issues within the Jenkins environment, updating compiler selection scripts, and modifying Dockerfiles to upgrade OpenSSL versions and add new features. Furthermore, the user made changes to the Ansible configuration, addressing environment variables and adding container definitions for various environments.
javascriptinfratest-infranodejsnode
nodejs/citgm
Dec 2016 - Jul 2022
Canary in the Gold Mine
Role in this project:QA Engineer / Test Automation Engineer
QA Engineer / Test Automation EngineerContributions:62 reviews, 62 commits, 63 PRs in 5 years 8 months
Contributions summary:Richard primarily focused on improving the testing infrastructure and test coverage for the `nodejs/citgm` repository. Their contributions involved fixing existing test failures, particularly related to npm and yarn installations across different Node.js versions. They also implemented new tests for features, such as the scripts option in the lookup table, and improved the handling of timeout and cleanup errors. The user demonstrated expertise in identifying and resolving issues within the testing framework, ensuring its reliability and accuracy.
javascriptgoldcanarynpm-modulenodejs
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.