Operational Risk Lead (Financial Services) Full Time NEW

Following a successful contract win in late 2023 from one of the UK’s largest and most trusted financial service providers, we provide both contact centre and administrative solutions to help assist its 25 million customers. Specifically, we are supporting the end-to-end customer journey, right from the moment a customer is looking to open an account with the provider, to the time they need to get in touch to make any amendments or close an account. Whatever the type of query, we are there to assist them in whatever way we can; either online, by phone or by post and in doing so, delivering the best experience.

As a member of the Risk & Compliance management team, you’ll support developing a culture which is both customer and outcome obsessed, by motivating, supporting, coaching, and leading a team to exceed, rather than meet expectations in all they do.

You’ll play a key role in leading and supporting the implementation and strengthening of the Operational Risk and Operational Risk frameworks and policies. You’ll play a key role in enhancing and enabling the overall service using:

• Industry and regulatory expertise in Operational Risk / Operational Risk Frameworks in order to:
• Maximise data (analytics, performance measures, external benchmarks) in order to;
• Maximise our operational efficiency (Risk monitoring and reporting) and;
• Improving the customer experience (through feedback, insight on the products and propositions, and development and delivery of a customer journey focused Risk & Control Self-Assessment) and then;
• Coordinating the required change (through pilots, projects and programmes)

You’ll already have experience leading, diverse and talented teams across multiple locations in relation to Operational Risk. Achieving key targets and KRI’s will be second nature to you, however our belief is that you’ll do this through developing and engaging your teams in the right way, which is why you will also thrive on making things better not only for customers, but our colleagues working for us; ultimately striving to deliver top quartile employee engagement scores

The role is critical in delivering second line risk management oversight activities. You’ll promote a culture of sound risk awareness, aligning strategic business objectives to our risk appetite, and support the development and delivery of our Risk Management Framework (RMF).

As the Operational Risk Lead you will lead and manage the day-to-day focus on Operational Risk ensuring consistent frameworks and structure is in place to systematically identify, measure, mitigate, report, monitor and manage Operational Risks

You’ll lead the second line Operational Risk capability providing proactive and well-informed oversight of Operational Risks (arising from inadequate or failed process, people and systems, or from events), reviewing and challenging risk management approaches operated by the first line. You’ll test and confirm how effective the first line’s risk and control management activity is, as part of continual oversight and sometimes specialist investigations.

The Operational Risk Lead will also support the daily processes and activities that alert management about new issues and risk evolution while also managing the day-to-day operations and resources of the Operational risk team. The role will be responsible for:

This is a hybrid variable role with some travel to an office in the North West or North East of the UK.

What you will be doing:

• Development, review, and implementation of the Operational Risk / Operational Risk Framework strategy (including policy, standards and framework) including alignment to the requirements of the client
• Review and feed into the Risk Management Framework and ensure continued alignment to regulatory and client requirements
• Build strong and purposeful relationships across the Risk & Compliance management team, with key stakeholders across Sopra Steria and the client and assess best practise and become a trusted partner
• The Operational Risk Lead is responsible for ensuring the Risk & Control Self-Assessment (RSCA) and Control Testing process is appropriately designed, implemented, embedded and adhered to across the operations – aligning to regulatory and contractual requirements
• Aggregation, assessment and reporting on the execution of RCSA and Control Testing results via review, challenge and oversight. Support risk and control owners and first line risk in the development, review, and overall execution of the Risk & Control Self-Assessment and Control Testing processes
• Lead efforts to embed and oversee operational resilience ensuring critical business services can withstand and recover from disruptions, with a focus on regulatory compliance and industry standards
• Develop, implement and embed incident response protocols and framework. Oversee incident management ensuring timely resolution, root cause analysis, and the implementation of preventative measures to enhance operational resilience and the customer experience
• Oversee operational risk practices to ensure they meet best practice and industry standards. Prepare detailed reports where improvements or weaknesses are identified and agree actions for the business to resolve
• Work with, support and challenge the Account Leadership team in relation to risk management oversight and ensuring risk requirements are documented, reported and overseen
• Motivate, support, inspire and coach the team within your remit to deliver exceptional levels of customer experience and performance, ensuring all KPI’s, Critical SLA’s and targets are achieved without compromise to quality and poor customer outcomes.

What you’ll bring:

• Strong understanding of Risk Management Framework principles within a Financial Services organisation.
• Strong understanding of Operational Risk principles within a Financial Services organisation.
• Highly analytical with the ability to process and summarise large volumes of complex data from multiple sources and present it in an insightful and compelling way that enables decision making.
• Leadership ability – able to contribute to, build and deliver on strategies.
• Strong customer experience focus – able to develop and deliver step change in performance.
• Management of senior stakeholders in both a client and multi supplier model.
• Proactive mindset. Go above and beyond to serve as a trusted adviser for your stakeholders and Clients.
• Passionate about delivering exceptional levels of stakeholder/customer experience.
• Commercially aware – understands the importance of balancing stakeholder/client/customer and business needs.

It would be great if you had:

• Business / Risk Governance experience within Financial Services

If you are interested in this role but not sure if your skills and experience are exactly what we’re looking for, please do apply, we’d love to hear from you!

Employment Type: Full-time, Permanent

Location: Hybrid, some North West and North East UK office presence needed

Security Clearance Level: SC

Internal Recruiter: Adrian

Salary: Up to £75k

Benefits: £6,600 car allowance, bonus, 25 days annual leave with the option to buy additional days, private medical, life assurance, pension, and generous flexible benefits fund

Although this role is advertised as full-time, we believe that flexibility at work can promote work/life balance, increase your motivation, reduce stress and improves performance and productivity. We support different ways of working and can offer a range of flexible working arrangements. So, if you’re interested and need to work flexibly, we encourage you to apply and talk to us about what might be possible.

Loved reading about this job and want to know more about us?

Our Specialist Private Sector team are experienced in a range of different markets including Banking, Insurance, Retail, Travel, Transport and Utilities. We help our customers develop, deliver and operationalise their digital transformation strategies. We work in true partnership with our customer, gaining a deep understanding of their business and technology issues.

Our capabilities and credentials across Private Sector markets enable the design, delivery and management of business transformation programmes. We help our clients respond to changing customer demands, keep ahead of the competition, and safeguard their systems from evolving business and technology risks.

The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected, you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found by [https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn].

We embrace difference as a source of creativity, innovation and competitive advantage and are striving to become a more diverse organisation. We welcome applications from people with a diverse variety of backgrounds and identities. We are committed to equality of opportunity for all and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation or marital status. We have partnered with Vercida, the UK’s largest diversity and inclusion focused careers site, where all our vacancies are available in an accessible format.
If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, to enable you to perform to the best of your ability, please let us know when completing your application. We participate in the Disability Confident scheme and are committed to offering an interview to any candidate with a disability, who meets the minimum criteria for the role. If you believe this could apply to you, please let us know when completing your application.