Director, Business Controls

Director, Business Controls

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In this position, reporting directly to the Business Unit Managing Director, you will centralise the management and oversight of the controls environment for all business/ support areas within Funding Circle.

You will primarily work alongside Funding Circle Senior Management (Business Unit MDs and Global Support Heads) to monitor and improve gaps/enhancements in the current control environment.

This is a key role for the business in the current fast paced, growing and evolving environment. The candidate will have the ability to shape the role going forwards.

The focus will be:

• Being a trusted Business Unit leader and decision maker  
• Represent Business Unit  interests vis a vis control/audit/regulatory initiatives and activities
• Execute and implement business control priorities and strategy
• Control environment improvements,  progress and reporting

As Director, Business Control your key responsibilities will be:

• Managing  the end to end control environment spanning business execution, client-facing teams, and support functions.
• Assume responsibility for decision making about key controls from a BU perspective, program management and reporting of the Business Control agenda across the region to the BU MD.
• Be essential to making risk versus reward decisions (on behalf of the Business MD) seamlessly and quickly in consideration of enterprise-wide interests.
• Drive process change to improve the control environment within the Business Unit 1st Line of Defense.  
• The BCS will help champion the Business Control mandate and act as a critical partner to Enterprise  Risk Management and Compliance  to embed applicable practices in the 1st Line.

• Orchestrate and facilitate full business control management
• Partner with all functions supporting the business to identify gaps and opportunities;
• Ensure that business priorities and resources are aligned to remediate control gaps.
• Work across teams to provide the Business Unit MD with a holistic view of the business risk and control environment .
• Develop business specific procedures documentation to comply with relevant policies and standards.
• Review and approve relevant Business Unit specific exceptions e.g. fee waivers, client refunds, etc.
• Control and regulatory management
• Act as Business Unit representative in control forums / steering groups.
• Key point of contact for managing  internal and external audits, regulatory reviews.
• Operational Risk
• Execute the Business Unit 1st line of defense operational risk program (Risk and Control Self Assessments, operational risk event reporting, issue management, operational losses, Key Risk Indicators, etc.).  
• Project management – manage Business Unit specific control improvement projects as required.

You’ve been there and done this…

Core Competencies

• Proven ability to partner and lead senior management to collaborate to shape and managing the overall senior leadership risk and control agenda.  
• Strong understanding of controls, risk-based prioritization, and subsequent application to different processes and businesses.
• Demonstrated relationship building skills both internally and externally.
• Strong analytical, problem solving and process re-engineering skills.
• Analytical / agile mindset with the ability to aggregate information and report in a timely manner.
• A team builder with a collaborative, proactive and responsive mindset.
• Strong personal organizational skills with the ability to deliver under pressure with tight deadlines accompanied by excellent written and oral communication skills with evidence of attention to detail.
• Experience with business control, auditing, operational risk and/or control/compliance testing would be preferred.

Professional / Technical Skills

• Experience within financial service industry, preferably in a lending environment.
• Experience in a previous Business Control role and function for at least 3 years* and helped build out the business control function.
• Experience within a control discipline e.g, Accounting / Finance / Operations / Risk / Compliance / Audit.
• Solid familiarity with Risk Management, Operations and awareness of key Risk and Compliance concepts – Risk & Control Self Assessments (RC
• SAs), Loss event reporting, Key Risk Indicators (KRIs), Key Control Indicators (KCIs) and Scenario Analysis.
• Excellent and proven written communication skills in Microsoft Office – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Visio.
• Project Management.
• Supplier Risk Management.
• Change Risk Management.
• Governance Risk & Compliance (GRC) systems.
• Six Sigma / Lean / Process Excellence background a plus.

* The stated experience level is a guide and does not preclude applications from candidates with more or less experience, provided the requisite skills can be demonstrated.