Director – Settlement Risk Oversight

Job purpose

Systemic Risk in CLS is defined as Impact of an internal breakdown of infrastructure/ processes, and/or the risk that the impact of the failure of a participant to meet its obligations, may spread to other participants or markets, leading to disruption, or degradation of the effectiveness and/or efficiency of the intermediation function, significantly threatening the stability of, or leading to a loss of confidence in, broader financial markets and the real economy.

CLS’ Systemic Risk office that has been created to reflect CLS’ recognition of the critical role it plays as a Designated Financial Market Utility (‘DFMU’) and its role in the ecosystem to identify, measure, monitor and escalate potential systemic risks. The Settlement Risk Oversight function sits within the Systemic Risk office in CLS.

The jobholder will have a pivotal role in this team by formalizing and establishing the settlement risk framework, its processes, reporting and engagement model with internal and external stakeholders and ecosystem participants. These include but are not limited to Settlement Members, Central Banks, IBM, SWIFT, Business Partners, Nostro Agents, Liquidity Providers, Third Parties, Global FMIs and Non-settlement service participants.

Essential Function / major duties and responsibilities of the job

Strategic

•         Support the Head of Systemic Risk and CRO (and leads where applicable) in the on-going risk dialogue with the external stakeholders and ecosystem participants

•         Lead and direct the Settlement Risk function by providing credible 2LoD challenge and oversight to the live execution of CLSSettlement, processing and data services.

•         Lead discussions with external stakeholders and ecosystem participants to establish and communicate risk appetite, risk management policies and procedures, and work to establish, maintain and continuously improve risk management capabilities, tools and techniques

•         Lead education sessions with external stakeholders on Risk mitigation across FX markets in order to protect the FX ecosystem

•         Identify emerging systemic risks and develops mitigating actions in partnership with internal and external subject matter experts:

-       Provide thought leadership in developing industry wide solutions to address systemic risk issues that include but are not limited to funding, liquidity, resilience, failure management, recovery & resolution 

•         Provide input to risk assessments for new and existing products and services of CLS, and the impact to the ecosystem

•         Contribute to the development of white papers and other educational materials on systemic risk issues

•         Identify opportunities for process improvements to deliver increasing operational efficiencies

•         Collaborate with key internal stakeholders and business units (Sales, Product, Operations and Legal) and Senior Management Committees

Operational

•         Lead the live monitoring and oversight, from 2LoD perspective, of the CLSSettlement, CLSClearedFX, CLSNow and CLSNet services

•         Perform the Crisis Support role as per requirements during Crisis events. The Crisis Support role is to provide the Crisis Lead with the deep, highly specialized knowledge necessary to make any informed decisions; and to provide on-going support and feedback throughout the Crisis situation.

•         Responsible for the monitoring of Operations and IT's compliance with their policies, performance measures and standards, with a view to ensuring that the service is operated in a manner consistent with CLS's Risk design

•         Primary Risk Management point of call for any Failure Management activity providing high level expertise and ensuring that incidents are managed to resolution

•         Monitoring of FX volatilities and financial markets developments in order to support recommendations to CLS Bank as to the appropriateness of applied haircuts

•         Analytical work that contributes to the running of daily internal and external reporting for the purpose of disseminating key operational and risk information

•         Ownership of the Settlement Risk Models (LNPP, PPT and FINCH) ensuring efficient execution of the Model Ongoing Monitoring plans and any enhancements are implemented to comply with the risk regime of CLS, and the assessment of the corresponding impact to the ecosystem

•         Facilitate and contribute to CLS's Enterprise Risk Management framework and reporting

•         Responsible for decision making on behalf of Risk, via the Project Readiness Board, on the readiness of any deployment/delivery to the JAS and/or Production environments

•         Represent Settlement Risk in all relevant projects to analyze the risks and potential changes to any Settlement Risk processes or Risk design. In addition, perform a 2LoD role providing input and challenge to risk assessments and project governance.

•         Lead the engagement model with ecosystem participants by interfacing with external stakeholders to establish and communicate risk management policies, processes, risk appetite and limits

-       Development of risk bilateral schedule in collaboration with Product and Sales

-       Development of  material in conjunction with internal stakeholders to incorporate new and emerging risk themes and the assessment of the risk footprint of the external stakeholder in CLS

•         Development of analytics and reporting of systemic risk metrics that include but are not limited to In/Out swap capacity, Nostro concentration, member incidents, third party activity concentration, pay in call trials

•         Ensures that systems enhancements, applications, models and algorithms are implemented to comply with the risk regime of CLS, and the assessment of the corresponding impacts to the ecosystem

•         Enhance and maintain a system of internal controls as expected from a DFMU

•         When applicable, provide support to the Settlement Risk team in the following activities:

-       Monitoring and oversight from 2LoD of the CLSSettlement and other services

-       Assisting with the monitoring of FX volatility and relevant market developments

-       Development and distribution of settlement risk reports

-       Assisting in the development of the crisis management framework, documentation and education

Leadership

•         The role has 2 direct reports – Vice President and Assistant Vice President 

•         Provide leadership in the enhancement of CLS’ Settlement Risk framework and take initiative in driving engagement and actions with ecosystem participants

•         Supervise junior members of the team, including coaching and training, driving consistency and ‘added value’.

•         Establish positive working relationships with senior stakeholders across the business.

Competencies required for successful job performance

In order to carry out the duties of the position effectively, the individual will need to possess the following attributes:

·         Demonstrate strategic mindset, link individual activities to the wider landscape to see the big picture.

·         Challenge the status quo, be a catalyst for change, driving and cultivating innovative thinking to solve complex problems. Ability to ‘speak up’, break down barriers and provide constructive challenge.

·         Attention to detail is essential, must demonstrate high standards to control and risk oversight.

·         Take professional pride in making a difference, being proactive and delivering best in class solutions, creating long term value by addressing root cause issues.

·         Build effective working relationships with internal and external stakeholders, negotiating effectively to bring different viewpoints together as appropriate.

·         Manage ambiguity, operating effectively and decisively to navigate a path forward.

·         Excellent verbal and written communication skills with ability to adapt to the audience (junior/senior, internal/external) to be effective and meaningful, breaking down complex problems in an easy-to-understand manner.

-     Ability to articulate effectively to audience with varying levels of subject matter expertise

·         Ability to work independently without close supervision with strong discipline to quality review own analysis/results for accuracy and theoretical soundness.

·         Ability to diagnose/define the issue at hand and identify information/data required to perform the necessary analysis.

·         Makes decisions that have moderate and at times high impact within a function, producing positive or negative effect for efficiencies, delays, and contribute to financial gain or expense.

·         Delivers, directs, and facilitates communication within CLS and amongst settlement members, RTGS operators, third parties, global FMIs and other ecosystem participants, where applicable. Provides thought leadership to develop industry solutions

•         University Degree (B.A / B.S) – essential

•         Post Graduate Degree– desirable

•         Experience in Treasury, Liquidity Risk, Balance Sheet / Asset Liability Management, Operational Risk or Credit Risk would be beneficial but not essential