Head of Risk & Compliance

Role Overview

This senior leadership position is responsible for embedding a disciplined credit risk culture across the country’s operations, ensuring every business decision balances growth ambitions with regulatory and financial soundness. Day to day, you will oversee the end-to-end risk framework—from setting risk appetite to monitoring portfolio health—while collaborating with business lines to translate commercial strategies into measurable risk profiles. Your work directly safeguards the institution’s capital adequacy and reputation, making risk a strategic enabler rather than a constraint.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and enforce enterprise-wide credit risk policies and procedures, covering origination, underwriting, portfolio management, and collections.
• Define and communicate a clear risk appetite statement for the country, ensuring it aligns with board-approved limits and market conditions.
• Establish a risk governance framework that integrates operational, credit, market, liquidity, and compliance risks into one cohesive oversight structure.
• Lead the measurement and modelling of credit risk exposures, providing analytical insight to support pricing, provisioning, and capital allocation decisions.
• Oversee Anti-Money Laundering and terrorist financing controls across all business areas, ensuring consistent adherence to regulatory expectations.
• Proactively identify emerging risks—such as shifts in macroeconomic conditions or regulatory changes—and translate them into actionable risk mitigants.
• Drive the periodic review and update of risk-related corporate policies, including portfolio valuation, business continuity, information security, and limit breach escalation.
• Foster direct ownership of critical risks among line managers through clear reporting, training, and accountability mechanisms.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting, economics, risk management, business administration, or law (master’s degree strongly preferred).
• Minimum of 10 years of experience in risk management, policies, and regulations within the financial or banking sector.
• At least 5 years in a senior management role, with demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams and drive strategic risk initiatives.
• Professional risk management certification such as CIRM, CRCM, ICM, or equivalent.
• Deep knowledge of financial and banking sector regulations, market trends, and the practical implications of enterprise risk (credit, operational, liquidity, market).
• Proven expertise in portfolio risk management techniques, including loan book quality, deposit composition, and credit line usage analysis.
• Solid understanding of operational risk areas such as transformation risk assessments, human capital and IT risk identification.
• Experience implementing Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) strategies and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) activities.
• Working knowledge of consumer and commercial lending origination, portfolio management strategies, pension plan investments, and capital markets (money markets, securitisation, fixed income, interest rate risks).
• Strong leadership, delegation, and project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously.
• Excellent problem-solving abilities, from structuring complex issues to generating actionable recommendations.
• Superb communication and stakeholder management skills, capable of building trusted relationships with regulatory bodies and government authorities.