Group Head of Internal Audit, Risk and Compliance

Bespoke Professionals

Bahrain

Ref: MP910-437

Job description / Role

Employment: Full Time

The main responsibility of the Group Head of Audit, Risk and Compliance is to support the Audit, Risk and Compliance (Board) Committee and the Group Managing Director & CEO in providing assurance on the ongoing adequacy and effectiveness of key controls established to mitigate risks within the core operational processes and functional areas that support service delivery.

This includes reviewing the Group’s internal controls; operational, financial & commercial compliance; and reputational and potential risks while ensuring policies and procedures are up to date resulting in minimum risk and costs with increased profits.

MAIN DUTIES

Audit Planning/Design
- Develop a control assurance framework and Group annual audit plan using input from the individual audit team and stakeholders to identify priorities and resource requirements for the year, covering all Group activities.
- Meet Managers to discuss needs and propose audits, to build stakeholder requirements into Group departmental plans.
- Ensure plan is developed to meet the Audit, Risk & Compliance Committee’s (ARCC) expectations.
- Schedule and assign audits to the Audit Group members, ensuring effective and efficient use of resources.
- Ensure quality control of the Group team’s audit plans on an ongoing basis by reviewing and approving plans as they are developed and communicated.
- Ensure annual audit plans have contingency built in, to provide unexpected audits as they may surface. Delivery of planned and ad-hoc risk based audit work, providing management with timely reports that provide opinions on the control environment, and in particular the effectiveness of key controls that ensure our capability to comply with legal, regulatory, industry, and corporate standards.

Conducting Audits
- Oversee and provide quality control for the Group departmental audits, to ensure departmental mandate and business goals are met and that professional standards are maintained at all times.
- Ensure completion of audit assignments to provide independent, objective assurance to the ARCC.
- Develop the Group team’s engagement with and support of major business change programmes, thus ensuring that appropriate consideration of risk and control is given to all changes.

Risk Management
- Build relationships with leaders across the Group to understand issues and identify areas for improvement for the Group as a whole, including close liaison with accounting and finance staff members to identify risks explicit to corporate reporting mechanisms.
- Support and encourage supervised team members to be proactive in identifying opportunities to share best practice with the Managers to improve the control environment.
- Develop risk policies and procedures and establish appropriate risk metrics and reporting. Implement such procedures for the identification, classification, assessment and mitigation of key risks.
- Develop new methodologies to improve the audit process, making it “easier” for the Group to request audits and implement recommendations.
- Production of a risk-based plan of assurance reviews covering the services offered by the Group.
- Identifying risks and controls encompassing all areas of the business, evaluating the adequacy of designed controls ensuring they are correct and consistent, whilst providing assistance to the business in meeting regulatory requirements.
- Implementing processes to ensure that records are maintained for operational risk events that occur and for financial losses experienced.
- Keep abreast of developments in Corporate Governance practices and advise the business accordingly.
- Monitor and where appropriate, verify actions taken to address issues identified to ensure all matters, including updating of policy and procedure documentation has been addressed effectively.
- Supporting the product development process through the evaluation of risks associated with new products and services.

Compliance
- Ensure that the group organization operates within a clearly defined Group Compliance framework.
- Proactively advise the ARCC and Senior Management on acting in a compliant manner, both from a strategic and an operational perspective.
- Supporting the ARCC and Senior Management by informing them about relevant compliance subjects such as:
- Significant developments and/or changes in laws, regulations and established good business practices;
- Significant internal developments from a compliance perspective which may have an impact on the risk profile of a subsidiary or group-wide;
- Overall results of the operational and compliance risk management process and monitoring activities; and
- Significant developments and/or changes in the organization of the Compliance Function.
- Develop, implement, and enforce internal compliance policies and standards group-wide.
- Support the ARCC and Senior Management in promoting and maintaining a culture of compliance and ethics consistent with the Group’s Business Code of Conduct.
- Develop effective lines of communication with the ARCC, Senior Management and compliance functions group-wide.
- Develop policies and programs that encourage managers and employees to report suspected fraud and other improprieties without fear of retaliation.
- Advise on compliance and operational risk matters relating to new products and initiatives.
- Ensure all staff are effectively trained on AML.
- Monitor the level of AML compliance within the branch networks and identify any additional training needs.
- Monitor and investigate suspicious transactions.
- Run thorough checks on customers and transactions and develop a strategy to combat terrorism financing.
- Perform any other duty as advised by the ARCC.

Reporting
- Ensure final reports are issued with all recommendations agreed and accepted by the Group MD & CEO and the Audit team. Review these reports to ensure alignment to Compliance before presentation to ARCC.
- Report to the ARCC at the required intervals on Internal Audit assignments including planned reviews, investigations, risk advisory work and any other ad-hoc activity as required.

People Management & Development
- Manage and oversee team performance through performance planning, coaching and performance reviews.
- Hold direct reports accountable for managing and developing their assignments to ensure the Group’s goals are achieved.
- Provide ongoing feedback to the team to ensure they develop the skills and competencies required for effective planning and individual professional and personal career growth.
- Motivate and inspire the team by providing them with the information and tools they need to do their jobs well and meet expectations.
- Deal with performance issues, discipline as necessary and address poor standards; ensuring department targets are not compromised.
- Manage the head count, recruiting and deploying resources as required, to ensure the department’s budget is balanced and the right mix of skills and strengths are being leveraged as effectively as possible.

Requirements

- Masters in Finance (MBA) from an internationally recognized university.
- Internationally recognized accounting/auditing qualification like ACCA/ Chartered Accounting/ CIA/ CISA.
- Anti-Money Laundering Diploma or equivalent.
- Minimum 7-10 years work experience with at least 5 years experience in a financial institution. Must also have in-depth knowledge of different regulatory environments, regulatory compliance requirements and risk management principles.

Other skills required for the job:
- Knowledge of current auditing practices, compliance regulations and trends
- Supervision and managerial skills
- Analysis and planning skills
- Negotiation and convincing skills
- Leadership and organizing skills
- Interpersonal / communication skills
- Ability to work unsupervised, in a fast paced team

About the Company

Bespoke Professionals was established in the Kingdom of Bahrain in early 2012 and now has offices in Bahrain and Dubai. We are a specialist legal executive search firm who have placed lawyers and support staff in the leading law firms and multinational companies in the GCC and wider Middle East region.

We pride ourselves on delivering a value-added introduction service that achieves the goals of both client and candidate, and so take great care to absorb every last detail when learning about our clients and candidates, so as to ensure a mutually beneficial match.

The majority of our focus is in the Legal sector, working very closely with UK, US and local law firms in the Middle East and in the Asia Pacific region, on a contingent and retained basis. We also exclusively recruit and headhunt for a number of banks, telecoms, and energy firms on legal and compliance mandates.

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