The Location Operational Risk and Resilience Lead will hold a pivotal second-line oversight and advisory position, instrumental in proactively developing, enhancing, and maintaining robust frameworks for operational risk, operational resilience, business continuity, and supplier risk management across your designated operational footprint. This critical role is essential for fortifying the organisation's defences against disruptions and ensuring unwavering adherence to internal policies, industry leading practices, and a dynamic regulatory environment. This role will specifically navigate and ensure compliance with key directives, including the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), European Banking Authority (EBA) guidelines, and all emerging local legislation.

• Strong demonstrable experience in a second-line operational risk, operational resilience, business continuity, or related role within the financial services sector.
• In-depth knowledge of European resilience regulations and standards, including DORA, EBA guidelines, and NIST frameworks.
• Demonstrated experience with risk management frameworks and methodologies, including three lines of defence, risk maps, and thematic reviews.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with IT and operational teams across various geographic locations, providing constructive challenge and expert advice.
• Experience in leading or significantly contributing to supplier risk management frameworks, particularly concerning critical third parties and outsourced services.

Additional Information:

The Company is committed to diversity and equality of opportunity for all and is opposed to any form of less favorable treatment or harassment on the grounds of race, religion or belief, sex, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or disability.

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1.

Operational Risk Management:

• Serve as a critical second-line advisor, providing expert guidance and constructive challenge to the First Line of Defence (1LOD) across the entire operational risk lifecycle.
• Provide robust second-line oversight of the RCSA (Risk and Control Self-Assessment) process, ensuring the accurate assessment and classification of risks and controls for the designated location.
• Oversee and actively track the execution of operational risk mitigation action plans, driving them to timely completion. This includes validating their effectiveness in achieving satisfactory risk reduction and ensuring stringent alignment with the overarching Operational Risk Management Framework.
• Proactively monitor and analyse the external environment and evolving regulatory landscape, including critical frameworks such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and European Banking Authority (EBA) guidelines.
• Review and constructively challenge key organisational change initiatives within FCE and the impact on designated locations.
• Ensure the robust maintenance of the Operational Risk Management System (GRC), guaranteeing the accuracy and completeness of risk data capture and the reliability of reporting outputs.
• Provide second-line oversight and independently assess the effectiveness of First Line of Defence operational control testing specific to the location.
• Contribute to the development and refinement of location specific operational risk policies, standards, and procedures to ensure they remain current, effective, and aligned with FCE and regulatory requirements.

2.

Operational Resilience & Business Continuity:

• Drive the implementation and ongoing adherence to operational resilience regulations and standards, including DORA, EBA guidelines, NIST frameworks, and local regulatory requirements.
• Champion location-wide understanding of Operational Resilience.
• Deliver effective coordination of all resilience-related activities across the designated location such as comprehensive self-assessments and attestations, Critical and Important Functions (CIF) identification, robust business impact threshold setting, detailed process mapping and workshop facilitation.
• Lead coordination and provide robust second-line oversight for Business Continuity (BC) planning and resilience testing programmes across all designated FCE geographic locations. Drive the Identification, recommendation, and execution of Business Continuity (BC) enhancement actions.
• Oversee and validate the timely maintenance and accuracy of Business Impact Analysis (BIAs) across the location.

3.

Supplier Risk Management:

• Lead second-line oversight and assurance of the local Supplier Risk Management Framework across all designated locations. This includes reviewing, challenging, and assuring the effectiveness of processes related to material outsourced services, critical supplier management, the development of robust exit plans, and the comprehensive oversight of sub-outsourcing arrangements.
• Support the integration of comprehensive supplier risk assessments and management practices directly into operational resilience and business continuity planning.

4.

Governance & Reporting:

• Provide insightful second line operational risk opinions on emerging risks such as, Supplier Risk, BC, Pandemic, and Resilience to relevant Location governance forums, ensuring appropriate utilisation of escalation processes.
• Oversee and ensure the integrity and timely submission of internal and local regulatory reporting requirements including but not limited to ensuring the annual DORA Register of Information is maintained and validated.
• Oversee the timely and effective mitigation of operational risk events, ensuring that all risk events are properly documented in the GRC system and that Major ICT incident cost and loss aggregations are accurately recorded and reported annually in line with DORA requirements.
• Support the effectiveness of Operational Risk related Governance Committees by orchestrating the timely submission of high-quality meeting materials.
• Lead the development, implementation, and continuous reporting of Key Risk Indicator (KRIs) to provide early warning of escalating operational and resilience risks. Oversee the KRI reports and dashboards, ensuring their effective utilisation to enable timely intervention across the location.