Northam Enterprise and Operational Risk Lead

About the role

We're looking for a Risk Lead to manage the North America Enterprise and Operational Risk Management team, driving the implementation and day-to-day management of our Enterprise and Operational risk management frameworks across our US and Canada entities.

This role is responsible for driving the control mapping exercise, the design and implementation of control monitoring, risk appetite statements, and KRIs. It will also drive the issue management process, ensuring a culture of proactive self-identification and accountability for remediation. Additionally, this role will help Product Managers launch new products faster and safely by identifying key risks and building scalable controls.

Responsibilities

• Manage, coach, and mentor a team of four risk management professionals.
• Partner and influence senior regional stakeholders across Product, Engineering, Operations, Banking, and Compliance to embed the risk function and risk management program.
• Lead the implementation and ongoing management of our Enterprise and Operational Risk Management frameworks across the US and Canada entities, including ensuring compliance with relevant regulations, embedding the risk and control self-assessment process, and issues management.
• Conduct in-depth reviews to identify risks and complete control mapping across our most material processes, and help design scalable controls and a control monitoring & testing program.
• Lead the development and implementation of risk appetite statements, risk tolerance thresholds, and key risk indicators, and work with data analysts and Product managers to create monitoring dashboards.
• Support first-line teams in documenting, solutioning, and prioritizing control gaps.
• Provide ongoing oversight of issue remediation activities, including regulatory remediation, using our risk management tool (Audit Board) to ensure appropriate risk-focused prioritization, and help validate closure of remediated issues, including advising on risk acceptance where appropriate.
• Analyze incidents and produce actionable insights.
• Partner with ‘first-line’ teams across the business to support the launch of new products by ensuring key risks are identified and mitigated with the right balance of pre-launch and post-launch checks, focusing on shipping quality products at pace.
• Coordinate the quarterly residual risk assessment process across the risk taxonomy, including loss and incident reporting, to inform our regional risk profile for reporting to local and global risk committees and local boards.
• Promote and help embed a proactive risk culture, making risk meaningful and relevant to everyone at Wise.

Qualifications

• Experience managing, coaching, and mentoring a team.
• Worked in the financial services, banking, or fintech sector.
• Keen interest and proven experience in payment services, operational controls, and reporting.
• Working knowledge of the OCC regulatory regime relating to enterprise and operational risk management; regulatory remediation experience is a plus.
• Understanding of Federal Reserve Bank payment rails and scheme rules is a plus.
• Experience in enterprise risk and operational risk management, risk and control self-assessments, and risk reporting.
• Ability to go deep and understand complex operational processes, identify risks, and controls.
• Experience designing and implementing control monitoring, risk appetite statements, and KRIs.
• Comfortable with AI, data analysis, and data-driven problem-solving; SQL, Looker, and Superset experience is a plus.
• Experience with payment products, ACH payment rails, and payment operations is a bonus.
• Experience in new product risk assessments, operational risk event analysis, and finding innovative solutions.
• Strong problem-solving, decision-making, and analytical skills to navigate complex situations and make data-driven decisions.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, proficient at drafting concise executive-style narratives for risk committees and board reporting.
• Curious and collaborative—great at asking incisive questions to pick things up and act on them quickly.