Interim Group Chief Risk Officer — Controls

Eighteen months, from rights to habit

Independent risk challenge begins as a right written on paper and succeeds only when it becomes a habit in the room. The calendar for this appointment follows that arc.

In the opening ninety days, the Audit Committee Chair and the Interim Group Chief Risk Officer should agree three things: the group's risk appetite, the risk function's right to challenge proposals independently, and the limits up to which local heads may decide. Without those written down, any challenge the risk function raises can be dismissed as opinion.

By around month nine that challenge should be applied to every major group proposal, and transfers of risk that nobody has agreed to own should be stopped before approval rather than discovered afterwards.

By month 18 the group's risk function should be challenging as a matter of course, embedded in how decisions are made, and a successor should be ready to lead it.

The authority behind the challenge

The role is an interim executive one, not an advisory post. Answering to the Audit Committee Chair, you will settle how group risk decisions are made and how much each local head may approve, and you will define what proof a request for funding, capacity or a control change must offer. Each commitment gets your verdict on whether it proceeds, waits or ends, and you block any plan that would leave exposure with a unit that never agreed to hold it. An investment case that does not deal with adoption, dependencies or the downside will be declined. You sign off the leadership team and how issues reach you, resolve disputes between the Audit Committee Chair and the heads of the businesses, and choose the intervals at which progress, overruns and unresolved questions go to the board.

In a cooperative or mutual, independent challenge has an added character. Members expect the organisation to be run prudently on their behalf, and risk decisions are ultimately accountable to them. A chief risk officer here protects the organisation's purpose as much as its balance sheet, and in healthcare services that purpose includes the safety and continuity of care.

A risk leader who builds the next one

In a cost transformation you reset who could decide, how money was released and how often performance was reviewed, and you have led through succession and turnaround in organisations of at least $510 million in revenue and 3,200 people, spread across seven or more countries. Risk judgement is needed at level 4; assurance testing, regulatory engagement and risk appetite are each needed at level 3. You have traced an exception to the budget that pays for it before letting it continue, and you can tell an audit committee chair what is unresolved without using that to put the conversation off.

Succession matters especially here. You will develop the people who carry the challenge forward, so that at month 18 it keeps happening whether or not you are in the room. If halting a commitment would require every country head's agreement first, or you want influence without accountability for the full 18 months, look elsewhere.

Who you will meet first

It begins with the Audit Committee Chair, on video and in confidence, during week one. The Board Chair sets you a case to work through in week two. In week three you sit down with the investment committee in person. Expect our view of each step, in writing, within three working days.