Climate-Financial-Risk Board Adviser

The mandate

The bank has climate scenarios and financed-emissions measures, but credit committees cannot explain how those outputs should change tenor, covenant, collateral, sector concentration or client engagement. Long-horizon pathways are translated into point estimates whose precision exceeds their evidence. The board’s standing question is which near-term financial decisions are justified now, which require better client data and which should remain monitored uncertainties rather than hidden inside a composite score.

The adviser will review monthly portfolio and scenario evidence, meet credit and model owners before committees, attend four Stockholm sessions and lead one sector laboratory. The cadence will challenge transition channels, physical hazards, client adaptation, pass-through, collateral value, insurance availability, sector correlation, scenario range, time horizon and management action. Advice will focus on decision use and uncertainty, not selecting a preferred climate pathway.

The appointment runs for ten months through the risk-appetite and sector strategy cycles. Renewal requires a fresh board minute naming a new decision question after management has demonstrated climate-informed choices in two material portfolios. The advisory seat should close when internal risk governance can distinguish evidence, assumption and judgement, not remain a standing endorsement of climate models.

The adviser has no line authority and assumes no executive responsibility for credit approval, risk appetite, model validation, scenario selection, capital, collateral, client strategy, sustainability claims or disclosure. Designated officers retain those accountabilities. The adviser may challenge false precision and record dissent but cannot prescribe a client outcome or certify regulatory compliance.

Conflicts must be disclosed involving banks, borrowers, energy and industrial companies, model providers, data firms, insurers, investors and advocacy organisations. Sector or client recusal applies to material relationships. The adviser accepts no product referral or transaction fee and will not use confidential borrower transition plans outside the engagement.

Why the board wants this voice

Sustainability teams see transition ambition, credit teams see current repayment and model teams see scenario outputs, leaving directors to reconcile different horizons and uncertainty. External debate also pushes toward false certainty or total inaction. The board wants an experienced financial-risk voice who can identify causal channels, ask what evidence could change a decision and resist converting an exploratory scenario into an unsupported forecast.

What you will own

• Challenge pathways from policy, technology, demand and hazard change into borrower cash, asset value and repayment.
• Examine client transition plans for governance, funded action, dependency, economics, milestones and evidence of implementation.
• Test collateral and insurance assumptions under physical hazard, market repricing, obsolescence and correlated sector stress.
• Review scenario use across credit terms, sector appetite, concentration, monitoring, engagement and capital planning.
• Distinguish observed data, client representation, external scenario, model transformation, judgement and unresolved uncertainty.
• Give directors proportionate act, condition, investigate, monitor or decline choices without collapsing them into one score.
• Leave a board challenge framework linking climate channel, horizon, evidence, decision, owner and review trigger.

Candidate qualifications

• Has led climate-financial-risk decisions in commercial banking across credit, collateral, concentration and capital governance.
• Understands transition and physical channels, borrower adaptation, sector correlation, insurance availability, collateral repricing and time-horizon mismatch across credit portfolios.
• Can challenge long-horizon scenario precision while identifying justified near-term credit and portfolio actions.
• Has assessed client transition plans beyond targets, disclosures and financed-emissions metrics by testing funded actions, dependencies and operating milestones.
• Works credibly with credit officers, sector bankers, economists, model risk, sustainability and board directors.
• Preserves formal approval and validation authority while expressing uncertainty in actionable decision language.

Non-negotiables

• Can attend all Stockholm risk sessions and the sector-portfolio laboratory during the ten-month appointment.
• Will disclose bank, borrower, investor, model, data, insurance and advocacy relationships before portfolio access.
• Brings climate risk translated into credit decisions; sustainability reporting or scenario production alone is insufficient.
• Will not certify models, disclosures or client transition claims or accept transaction-linked compensation.

1. 49 words maximum. Which climate variable is most often presented with false precision in a credit decision?
2. 49 words maximum. How would you test whether a borrower transition plan changes repayment risk?
3. 49 words maximum. What client or sector relationship would require your recusal?