Chief Credit Officer

Job description / Role

A leading bank with operations across the MENA region and representative offices in Europe, the Americas and Asia are looking to bring on board a Chief Credit Officer for their headquarters in Manama, Bahrain. The CCO will be effectively acting as the number two to the Chief Risk Officer.

The role will require you to direct and oversee all credit risk related functions including the evaluation and approve/decline of all credit applications/ proposals, evaluation of the performance of the clients, effective monitoring and control of portfolio and its compliance and early identification of high risk accounts to minimize the loss.

CCO Designation and leadership responsibilities;
- Develop and formulate appropriate strategy and budget for Corporate, retail, Remedial and Credit Administration and forward to Group Head to review and approve
- Direct and oversee all corporate, retail, remedial and credit administration functions whilst preserving a high quality client portfolio
- Recommend enhancement of credit policies and procedures as required.
- Develop and manage a team including direct and indirect reports
- Develop mandate and scale including lending standards/ criterias and rules for high risk areas lending / sectors
- Oversee the effective monitoring and control of the portfolios and their compliance with policy
- Ensure adequacy the credit coverage and provisioning of relevant portfolios
- Conduct evaluation and approve/ decline of credit applications/ proposals and propose to Management Credit Risk Committee.
- Chair the Management Credit Risk Sub Committee
- Oversee the evaluation of the performance of the clients through analysis of business, industry, economic conditions, financials (balance sheet / financial ratios/ cash flows), projections etc
- Oversee the early identification of high risk accounts to minimize loss
- Oversee the liaison with internal and external stakeholders to optimize financial returns for the bank from the portfolio
- Oversee the liaison with Wholesale Banking, Personal Banking, Legal Counsel, Finance, Internal Audit and Shariah Supervision on credit related matters affecting the portfolio
- Maintain and foster close relationship with RMs/ HOCB and develop understanding of their risk analysis capabilities
- Support the Group head in handling various ad-hoc and special assignments requested by the CEO
- Perform any other tasks and special projects as directed by the Group head

Requirements

- University Degree/MBA with major in Finance (preferred).
- Minimum of 15 years experience in a senior credit risk role.
- Must possess strong managerial and credit skills.
- Able to assess risk and to exercise judgment concerning complex problems relating to lending transactions.
- Expertise in reviewing Loan Agreements and strong leadership skills in negotiating with business units and back office.
- In depth knowledge of corporate and retail banking, real estate and contracting credit, syndications and remedial credit.
- Strong communication and presentation skills

About the Company

AXIZ Consulting is based in the Dubai International Finance Centre and offers a bespoke, highly consultative recruitment service to local and international organisations across the GCC in both professional services and primary industries. Its founding two members come from a blend of executive search and contingent recruitment and they have taken some of the best practices of executive search and applied this to contingent recruitment in order to produce a service which offers maximum value to clients.

In order for us to build a successful company, we identified a core aim: to offer our clients a service that surpasses that of our competition. In order to do this, we have put into place both internal and external processes that ensure clients receive a consistent and professional service which gets the right results, in the right way.