Adviser — Board Risk Reporting and Early-Warning Indicators

Diagnose the current reporting

Review which measures arrive too late, which conceal concentrations and which lack a clear response. Examine data quality and the effort required to produce the pack. Identify gaps between credit, collateral, liquidity and operational reporting that prevent a complete view of the portfolio.

Indicator design

Recommend leading indicators tied to actual failure modes: delayed settlement, repeated documentation exceptions, stock discrepancies, limit pressure and weakening collateral headroom. Define thresholds with management, including when judgement should override a mechanical signal. Show trends, context and the action owner rather than relying on colour coding alone.

Each indicator should have a definition, data owner, update frequency and an intended response. The adviser should challenge measures that improve simply because reporting is delayed or exceptions are reclassified. Show ageing and recurrence as well as current counts, and connect material movements to management action. A board pack should make it possible to see whether exposure is worsening despite remedial activity. Test the design using an adverse case to establish whether the warning would have arrived early enough to influence a decision.

Qualified candidates

Candidates should have commodity-risk expertise and experience producing or challenging board-level reporting. They need strong analytical and communication skills, with an understanding of how poor data can make an indicator misleading. Experience using warnings to change a decision is essential.

Handover to the reporting owners

Deliver definitions, data ownership, escalation logic and sample reports tested against historical or anonymised adverse cases. Candidates should explain how they would prevent a dashboard from appearing healthy while overdue exceptions accumulate. The adviser improves the reporting system; management and the board retain responsibility for decisions and risk acceptance.