Chief Risk Officer

Job description / Role

Chief Risk Officer - Jeddah, KSA

Our client is a widely reputable Non-Banking Financial Corporation in the SME finance business, with several branches across the UAE and KSA.

The Chief Risk Officer will build and maintain a comprehensive risk management infrastructure. The primary responsibilities for the role will include:
- The CRO will support the Board in implementation, review and approval of the risk governance framework, which includes the organisation’s risk culture, risk appetite and risk limits.
- Ensure all credit applications comply with internal policies, procedures and processes, and hence sanctioning credit proposals in compliance with the company’s credit policy.
- Managing and leading the Branch’s credit department to ensure effective credit risk management.
- The CRO will also function as the Secretary of the Credit and Risk Committee (CRC), and thus prepare the agenda, pack and minutes of the CRC Meetings.
- They will work closely with the business development team, to develop a proactive and credit-sound approach to doing business. In doing so, they will support new product development by taking a leading role on credit risk assessment and minimising the riskiness of the portfolio of assets.
- Review delinquent loan portfolio in conjunction with the Head of Collections, thereby working closely with the Collections team.
- The role also involves monitoring market trends and applying insight to credit policy and credit appetite. This extends to monitoring the portfolio and proactively steering the business to work within the set credit parameters.
- Will develop and implement Corporate Credit Policies e.g. Watch-list Policy, Provisioning Remedial & Write-Off Policy, Country Risk Policy and Industry / Sector Concentration Policy.
- Proactively work with the UAE credit team to transfer “best practices” to ensure efficiency in risk management.

Requirements

- Over 15 years of total experience within financial services with 3-5 years’ experience in a similar role with a Bank or a Non-Banking Financial Corporation in the GCC.
- A graduate degree/ a Masters/ MBA from a reputed organisation.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English; Arabic is a preference.
- Well networked with other financial services organisations and the local community.
- Good interpersonal skills in addition to stakeholder management and leadership experience.
- It is desirable that the candidate is familiar with lending in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and up to speed with sectoral knowledge.

About the Company

Michael Page is one of the world's leading professional recruitment consultancies, specializing in the placement of candidates in permanent, contract, temporary and interim positions with clients around the world.

The Group has operations in the UK, Continental Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas. In the Middle East we focus on the areas of:

Finance & Accounting Banking & Financial Services Procurement Property & Construction Engineering & Supply Chain Oil & Gas Technical and Engineering Human Resources Sales Marketing Technology Secretarial Executive Search Legal

The Group operates through 161 offices in 33 countries and employs over 5,000 employees worldwide.