Interim Regional Risk Director — Risk at Scale

One escalation model for three kinds of risk

Left alone, conduct, operational and financial risk each develop in isolation. Each has its own specialists, its own language and its own route to the top, which means a single event touching all three can be reported three times or not at all. The Interim Regional Risk Director will spend 24 months, answering to the Audit Committee Chair, bringing the three into one model of how risk is recognised, owned and escalated across the region.

A good single model does not erase the differences between disciplines. It agrees a common severity scale, a common definition of when a matter must leave the region, and one owner per event, regardless of which discipline spotted it first. Done well, it reduces the volume of reporting rather than adding to it, because the audit committee sees each issue once, in one shape, with one person answerable.

Executive authority over the regional risk framework

The appointment is interim and executive. You will build a single regional framework for risk decisions, with defined thresholds for local leaders, and specify the proof required before investment, capacity and controls are approved. Inherited commitments will go on, pause or end at your direction, and risk proposals lacking an accountable executive will not proceed. Investment that leaves take-up, operating dependencies or the downside unaddressed will be declined. You will approve the escalation route, settle conflicts with the operators before anything is funded, and run the rhythm by which progress and exceptions are reported.

Twenty-four months to an integrated view

By day ninety, conduct, operational and financial risks should be mapped into one regional escalation model, with thresholds for local leaders agreed. Around month nine the single model should be in use across markets, with every open risk exception assigned to someone accountable for it. By month 24 integrated risk reporting should reach the audit committee on a set cycle, and the model should hold without the interim director.

A risk leader for a scaling business

The risk functions you have led served businesses of at least $545 million in revenue and 1,500 people, operating in five countries. Scale-up is the most relevant experience, because growth is when risk frameworks are most tempted to fragment; buy-side M&A, and succession, complete the picture. The capability profile is risk judgement at level 4, alongside level 3 in risk appetite, in engaging with regulators, and in testing assurance. You should be able to tell a local exception the region truly needs from variation protected by history, and accept that your first win here might be a commitment you halted rather than one you launched, defended with evidence. The committee will also want to hear how you have kept specialists engaged while asking them to give up their own reporting lines.

Two chairs, a panel and the board

The Audit Committee Chair meets you first, privately over video, during week one. A third-week working session led by the Risk Committee Chair tests how you would reconcile the three risk disciplines in practice. In the fifth week you meet in person with executive leaders from each function, and the full board of directors concludes the process during the seventh week. Expect a response in writing to each stage within four working days.