Technical Director

Control Office Technical Director

London/Hybrid

12 month contract

Day rate from £1000 via Umbrella Company

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My client is one of the largest financial institutions headquartered in Japan, with an established presence across all consumer and corporate banking businesses. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, they offer a diverse range of financial services, including commercial banking, leasing, securities, credit card, consumer finance and other services.

They are looking for a Control Technical Director to join their Operations Planning Department/EMEA Control Office team on an initial 12-month contract. You will be working Monday to Friday, standard office hours with out of hours requirement in line with business needs. The role is hybrid working being in the office 2-3 days a week.

Purpose of Job

The purpose of the Control Office Technical Director is to support the execution of the Control Office agenda, including but not limited to:

• Developing an approach to conducting \’Read Across\’ in accordance with set parameters
• Developing an approach for conducting \’Lessons Learned\’ consistently across the organisation.
• Supporting projects with technical control requirements.
• Developing an approach to monitoring risk culture.

Accountabilities & Responsibilities

• Leading and overseeing risk owners, control owners and other relevant senior management within the Department to ensure that (i) all risks are identified, assessed and managed, and (ii) the control environment is robust, comprehensive, and effective. This should be achieved in the context of the business strategy and risk appetite and in line with applicable laws and regulations, internal policies, procedures, and limits.
• Ensuring robust and comprehensive governance of risk and controls within the Department. This includes supporting the 1LoD risk governance framework, providing insightful, timely and accurate data and analysis and contributing to governance meetings.
• Providing independent and insightful analysis of the risk and control environment within the Department. For example, analyse key risk indicators, key control indicators, risk ratings, control ratings, issues, events, audit findings etc. to identify trends and thematic weaknesses (e.g., unmitigated risks or ineffective controls) that require addressing. Provide guidance on how best to address these concerns.
• Leading rigorous investigations of Operational Events to ensure that root cause is identified and solutions to prevent reoccurrence are identified and implemented (where appropriate). Similarly, support the \”read across\” of issues and Operational Events so that learnings from a weakness identified in one area are applied to all areas.
• Conducting deep dive \”Risk Reviews\” to assess how robustly and comprehensively risks are mitigated and/or investigate potential weaknesses in the control framework. For example, this could involve an assessment of the design and operating effectiveness of controls in an end-to-end process or in a complete customer journey.
• Driving remediation of weaknesses in the control environment (for example, issues identified by Risk Reviews or Audit findings)
• Supporting the Control Assurance team in their work to (i) assess the operating effectiveness of controls through control testing, and (ii) assess the effectiveness of risk identification and mitigation through thematic risk reviews.
• Leading initiatives to assess and enhance the risk culture within the 1LoD.
• Collaborating with 2LoD on the implementation of risk policy and risk frameworks and assist them in executing their responsibilities to provide oversight of the 1LoD.
• Supporting and mentoring junior control officers to develop their skills and knowledge in risk management and control environments.

Knowledge, Skills, Experience & Qualifications

• Risk Management:
  Extensive understanding of risk management frameworks and control environments.
• Business Knowledge:
  Deep knowledge of Commercial and Investment Banking products and services – and the end-to-end processes and infrastructure required to deliver these products and services to customers. Significant experience in identifying and addressing deficiencies in risk management and/or control operation across the full product lifecycle and/or end-to-end processes.
• Market Best Practice:
  Strong understanding and awareness of market-standard approaches for risk mitigation and control design and execution. Familiarity with relevant regulation and regulatory expectation across EMEA.
• Stakeholder Management:
  Proven ability to build positive working relationships with senior stakeholders (e.g. Department Head), able to become a \”trusted advisor\” whilst maintaining the ability to provide robust challenge.
• Communication:
  Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Able to communicate effectively at all levels of the organisation. Able to convey complex topics simply and to articulate issues in a way that eases decision making and drives action

Specific requirements:

• Experience:
  Extensive experience in a 1LOD, risk management and/or control office function in a major financial institution.
• Education:
  Highly numerate with a strong analytical skill set. Educated to degree level in a relevant discipline (e.g., finance, accounting, mathematics, physics, engineering).
• Industry Knowledge:
  Broad and deep industry knowledge encompassing Commercial Banking and Investment Banking.

Challenges

The Non-Financial Risk Framework and Three Lines of Defence operating model in the organisations EMEA region are relatively immature (when compared to Tier 1 Banks). The EMEA Control Office is being created to support the implementation and embedding of an updated Non-Financial Risk Framework and to support a sustainable enhancement in the risk management culture in the First Line of Defence across the region.

Candidates must show evidence of the above in their CV to be considered.

Please be advised if you haven\’t heard from us within 48 hours then unfortunately your application has not been successful on this occasion, we may however keep your details on file for any suitable future vacancies and contact you.

We use generative AI tools to support our candidate screening process. This helps us ensure a fair, consistent, and efficient experience for all applicants. Rest assured, all final decisions are made by our hiring team, and your application will be reviewed with care and attention.