Interim Regional Risk Director — Integrated Risk Model

Three disciplines, one way up

Most insurers keep three separate ledgers of concern, conduct, operational and financial risk, each with its own team, its own scoring scale and its own committee. That separation suits the specialists and costs a board dearly, because it ends up seeing the same underlying problem three times in three vocabularies, or not at all. The interim director is appointed to join them into a single escalation model.

Why one model is harder than it sounds

The disciplines differ in more than language. Financial risk is quantified; operational risk is partly quantified; conduct risk is often judged case by case. A single model has to let a claims-handling failure, a reserving question and a mis-selling concern compete for the board's attention on fair terms, without forcing them onto one false scale. Setting the thresholds is most of the design work, and the part most likely to be argued over.

Powers the seat carries

The seat holds executive authority. You will design the regional rules on who decides what, making clear where national risk heads may decide without escalating, and settle what a request must show before money, people or control changes are approved. You will determine which inherited commitments go on, are paused or are closed. You will block proposals that leave exposure parked with no named holder, and decline investment cases that are vague about their users, their dependencies or how bad the downside could be. You will sign off the regional leadership line-up and how matters are raised, arbitrate when directors and business heads pull in different directions, and decide how frequently the board receives progress, breaches and unresolved choices.

Twenty-four months, measured three times

Within the first ninety days, the single model should be agreed, carrying thresholds and accountable owners across all three disciplines. Around month nine, exceptions from conduct, operational and financial risk should be arriving through that one model rather than three, and inherited commitments should have been confirmed, paused or closed. At month 24 the model should be built into the board's own reporting, and the regional risk function should run it without interim leadership.

Frameworks that held through change

Revenue of $680 million or more, at least 1,000 people and a presence in five or more countries describe the kind of organisation in which you have held a senior risk seat. Your experience of geographic expansion, M&A buy-side work and succession should have shown you how risk frameworks fracture when businesses are added or leaders change. Level 4 risk judgement is expected, with level 3 across assurance testing, regulatory engagement and the setting of risk appetite. You can separate a local exception that is genuinely necessary from one protected by history. You are also comfortable that your first visible win may be something you ended rather than something you started, and you can show the evidence for it.

From the board's first call to its final say

Your first contact is the Board of Directors, over a confidential video link in week one. The Risk Committee Chair follows in week three with a working exercise on thresholds. In week five, a panel of executives spanning every function meets you in person; the seventh week returns you to the full board. Our response arrives in writing within four working days of each meeting.