Role Synopsis
We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Senior Director to lead its Risk team in the GCC region, focusing on Digital Payment Risks. This pivotal role will oversee risk management across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. The ideal candidate will be responsible for proactively identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks while providing strategic guidance to the payment ecosystem, in alignment with growth objectives. As a member of the CEMEA Risk Leadership Team, the Senior Director will play a vital role in shaping the risk management landscape by being an effective risk business partner to the Group Country Manager for the GCC Sub-region. The Head of Risk for GCC is expected to drive effective risk management practices, enabling cross-functional teams to handle Strategic, Regulatory, Compliance, and Third-Party risks efficiently. This leader will be responsible for maturing and advancing Risk roadmap initiatives and providing risk thought leadership for the GCC subregion. The role will also be a member of the GCC Leadership Team. Reporting directly to the Regional Risk Officer CEMEA, this high-impact and high-visibility leadership role requires frequent collaboration with senior internal stakeholders across the GCC and CEMEA region, including teams in Business, Finance, Operations, Controls, Processing, Government Engagements, Risk Value Added Services, Consultancy & Analytics and Risk. Importantly the position involves extensive external engagements with clients, partners, government and other payment industry stakeholders. The Senior Director will provide leadership and guidance to a team of risk managers supporting the GCC subregion.
Job Purpose
- Lead the team to ensure that interactions with clients, merchants, regulators, and other third parties on risk-related matters are well-informed, effective, and collectively moving the ecosystem towards a stronger state
- Build and leverage market knowledge and presence to ensure risk-related policies, programs, and frameworks are aligned with current and future business demands
- Engage clients, merchants, and other stakeholders to mitigate fraud and data compromise events, promote stronger authentication and data security, and help enforce external risk programs and policies
- Provide deep insights and support against a broader set of risk-related issues and activities, including client fraud and approval optimization, credit settlement risk, anti-money laundering, deployment of Risk Products, the use of third parties, and deployment of emerging technologies
- Promote effective and executive-level information flow around strategic, regulatory, and other risks to the enterprise, and minimize audit and compliance concerns
Key Responsibilities
- Ecosystem Risk Management: Provide deep insights into the country/sub-regional business environment, payment systems, and other risks to senior client executives operating in each market and serve as the trusted risk advisor to the leadership across all business functions
- Business Alignment: Align risk-related objectives and activities with business goals in the sub-region to optimize long-term growth, while ensuring that risk management strategies support and enhance the overall business strategy
- Risk Relationship Management: Engage key senior stakeholders, including clients, law enforcement, government, and other relevant entities, to secure support for goals address identified risks and foster strong relationships to facilitate risk management efforts
- Thought Leadership: Differentiate by demonstrating thought leadership on risk issues to senior payment system stakeholders Lead and orchestrate client meetings (e.g. sub-regional Risk Executive Councils, meetings) and industry forums (Risk Summits, government initiatives) of payment system stakeholders (e.g. clients, law enforcement, regulators, industry participants) to drive greater awareness and support for payment system risk strategy Positively influence regulations and risk/security-related practices to ensure a strong payment ecosystem and a growth environment for its clients, and the industry
- Communication: Deliver effective and executive-level communication and provide marketplace feedback regarding risk-related programs, policies, and other activities, while maintaining transparency and keeping all relevant parties informed about risk management initiatives and outcomes
Requirements
- Master’s degree required with 15+ years of progressive experience working in the financial services industry
- At least 5 years of senior leadership experience relevant to the domain
- Ability to influence at an executive level both internally and externally
- Excellent written, oral and presentation skills and an ability to synthesize complex and technical information into clear recommendations on course of action
- Highly meticulous with deep analytical skills and the ability to provide strong thought leadership
- Proven ability to identify, prioritize, lead multiple initiatives simultaneously, adapt to changes quickly, multitask and deliver quality under tight deadlines
- Strong leadership skills with experience in influencing, communicating and driving change through cross-functional teams, including the ability to build consensus across disparate views
- Experience in building and delivering effective executive-level communications
- This is a hybrid position The expectation of days in the office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager
- Has been on the leadership team of the Chief Risk Officer of a large financial institution, preferably in the GCC region or regions of similar maturity and diversity
- leading underwriting operations for SME, Retail or corporate lending for a large Financial Institution as the functional head for a minimum of 5 years, taking wing-to-wing accountability for application processing, credit decisions and disbursal
- Has held responsibility for at least 5 years for the credit risk policy function within SME, Retail or Corporate banking having had wing-to-wing responsibility for Underwriting, Portfolio Management and Collections
- Has exposure to board, audit and risk committees, having been accountable for presenting the portfolio performance to the board of the financial institution
- Through their tenure, has built a robust operating level understanding of Fraud risk, Operational Risk, Compliance, AML and KYC risk
- lead the implementation of programs for compliance with regulations in the lending domain
- Has been held accountable for regulatory compliance audits in the lending domain
*Only applicants meeting the strict criteria outlined above will be contacted as part of the shortlisting process.