Position : Chief Risk Officer (CRO)

Level : Senior Manager (M4) and Above

Job Summary

The Chief Risk Officer (CRO) is a Board-facing strategic executive responsible for providing independent oversight and leadership of the Bank’s enterprise-wide risk management and risk strategy. The CRO leads the Integrated Risk Management Framework (IRMF), ensuring effective identification, assessment, monitoring, and mitigation of material risks in line with the Bank’s risk appetite, strategic objectives, and regulatory requirements.

As the Head of Risk Management and Member-Secretary of the Board-level Risk Management Committee (RMC), CRO provides independent risk advice to the Board and Senior Management and oversees key areas including capital and stress testing, digital and cyber risk, climate and emerging risks, model governance, and operational resilience, while promoting a strong risk culture and supporting sustainable business growth.

Key Responsibilities

1. Risk Governance, Strategy & Board Advisory

• Develop, lead and continuously enhance the Bank’s long- term Enterprise Risk Strategy, IRMF, and Risk Appetite Framework, aligned with the Board approved Risk Appetite, Risk Tolerance, and three lines of defense model.
• Advise the Board and Senior Management on strategic and emerging risks, including risk implications of business plans and major business initiatives, and provide independent challenge where appropriate.
• Establish and monitor risk limits, KRIs, dashboards, escalation and breach management frameworks, ensuring alignment with the Bank’s risk profile and regulatory requirements.
• Review and enhance risk policies and control frameworks and provide periodic enterprise risk and emerging risk reports to the Board.

2. Credit Risk Leadership

• Provide strategic oversight of credit risk, portfolio quality, sector and concentration risk, counterparty risk, sovereign exposure, and climate-related credit risk.
• Oversee credit risk models, credit scorecards, early warning systems, watch list governance, NPA forecasting, recovery trend analysis and portfolio risk optimization.
• Monitor the overall risk profile, asset quality, and portfolio concentration and strengthen risk analytics and emerging risk identification.

3. Market, Liquidity & Treasury Risk

• Oversee Interest Rate Risk in Banking Book (IRRBB), foreign exchange, investment, Asset-Liability Management (ALM) and liquidity risks, transfer pricing risk including contingency funding and behavioral modelling.
• Ensure effective macroeconomic scenario analysis and stress testing of market and liquidity exposures.
• Provide oversight of compliance, AML/CFT, and information security risks as part of the Bank’s enterprise-wide risk framework.

4. Operational Resilience & Non-Financial Risk

• Establish oversight frameworks for operational resilience, business continuity, disaster recovery, third-party/outsourcing, fraud, conduct, reputation, physical security, and crisis management risks.

5. Digital, Technology & Cyber Risk

• Provide independent oversight of cyber, information security, cloud, digital banking, data governance / privacy, Artificial Intelligence, model, FinTech partnership, and technology investment risks.
• Establish appropriate governance for technology and AI-enabled risk models.

6. Climate, ESG & Emerging Risks

• Lead the development of the Bank’s climate and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) risk management framework, covering physical and transition risks, green financing, sustainability considerations, and climate stress testing.
• Identify and assess emerging risks that may affect the Bank’s resilience and long-term sustainability.

7. Capital & Balance Sheet Management

• Provide oversight of ICAAP, capital forecasting, capital and reverse stress testing, recovery planning, economic capital, Risk Adjusted Return on Capital (RAROC), and risk-based pricing to ensure adequate capital and risk-adjusted returns.
• Ensure alignment of capital with the Bank’s overall risk profile.

8. Model Risk Management

• Establish and oversee the Bank’s Model Risk Management Framework covering model governance, validation, performance monitoring, and periodic review.
• Oversee IFRS 9/ECL, credit, scorecard, stress-testing, and AI models, ensuring robust methodologies, assumptions, and outputs.
• Ensure independent validation, backtesting, sensitivity analysis, and timely remediation of model-related findings, with appropriate integration into risk reporting, provisioning, capital planning, and ICAAP.

9. Enterprise - wide Risk Reporting

• Ensure timely and comprehensive risk reporting to the Board and Senior Management through risk dashboards, heat maps, emerging risk reports, scenario analysis, top 20 Enterprise Risks and forward-looking enterprise risk outlooks to support strategic and business decisions.

10. Regulatory & Supervisory Engagement

• Lead regulatory and supervisory engagement, ensuring compliance with applicable NRB directives and laws, effective coordination with regulators and auditors, and timely and accurate regulatory risk reporting, including Basel and resolution planning requirements.
• Represent the Bank in relevant regulatory and industry forums and ensure effective management of supervisory reviews and inspections.

11. Risk Culture & Awareness

• Promote a strong enterprise-wide risk culture through risk culture assessments, training, certification, conduct risk programmes, appropriate incentive alignment, speak-up mechanisms, and risk awareness initiatives.
• Drive risk awareness, accountability, and appropriate risk-taking behaviour across the Bank and support organizational transformation and cross-functional collaboration.

12. Cross-functional Governance

• Provide leadership and/or participate in relevant risk governance forums, including Executive Risk, Operational Risk, Market Risk, Model Risk, New Product Approval, Information Security, ALCO, Credit, Credit Control, Compliance, AML/CFT, and IT Steering Committees, as applicable.
• Ensure strong coordination between business, support, and control functions and build appropriate capabilities, systems, and talent within the risk function.
• Evaluate credit proposals, new products, strategic initiatives, and major business decisions from an independent risk perspective and ensure appropriate risk mitigation measures are in place.

13. Performance Management

• Establish measurable risk management outcomes, including maintaining risk within Board-approved appetite, strengthening early warning and stress-testing capabilities, reducing material operational losses, ensuring timely closure of audit and regulatory observations, and maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements.

14. Risk Management Committee -Member-Secretary

• Act as Member-Secretary of the Board-level Risk Management Committee (RMC).
• Coordinate RMC meetings, including agenda preparation, circulation of relevant risk reports and materials, and effective communication with Committee members.
• Ensure effective Board-level risk reporting and communication and monitor and track implementation of decisions and directives of the RMC.

Qualification & Experience

• Master’s Degree in Finance, Economics, Statistics, Mathematics, Risk Management, Banking, Business Administration, or related discipline from a recognized University/Institution.
• Minimum 15 years of banking experience, with at least 8 years in progressively senior risk management/leadership roles.
• Currently serving in a senior risk leadership role in Risk Review, Monitoring and Management, such as Head of Credit Risk, Chief Risk Officer (CRO), or Deputy CRO.
• Candidates with Professional certifications such as Financial / Professional Risk Manager (FRM/ PRM), CFA, CA & Cybersecurity Risk will be given preference.
• Demonstrated experience interacting with Boards, regulators, auditors, and rating agencies.
• Proven experience in enterprise risk management, Basel implementation, ICAAP, IFRS 9/ECL, stress testing, model governance, and digital risk.
• Experience leading large cross-functional teams and driving enterprise-wide risk transformation.