Chief Risk Officer (M/F) at Baobab Nigeria

Baobab Formerly Microcred, is the leading digital financial inclusion group focusing on serving individuals, micro and small businesses in Africa and China. Founded in 2005 as Microcred, today Baobab has over 700,000 customers and 3,800 employees operating in Burkina Faso, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia and Zimbabwe. The group is headquartered in Paris and has centralised a number of back office functions to Dakar, Senegal.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Chief Risk Officer (M/F)

Location: Nigeria

Job Summary

• As a member of the Executive Committee, the Chief Risk Officer identifies, quantifies and manages all the risks facing the company; helps minimize potential losses and achieve full profit potential of opportunities; and oversees the risk management activities and reinforces the risk management consciousness of the entire organization.

Job Purpose
The Chief Risk Officer (“CRO”) is directly responsible for managing all aspects of risk management. As a member of Executive Committee, the CRO is accountable to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for the effective management of enterprise risks through leadership of the Risk function:

• Ensuring Credit, Market, Funding, Fraud and Operational risks are effectively managed and escalated to the CEO.
• Ensuring the Risk team articulates requirements to support the strategic ambitions whilst operating with the risk appetite framework set for the business through adherence to credit policy and standard frameworks.
• Ensuring the Risk team adds value using expert lending and collection experience to support business in delivering to client expectations and operations teams through early engagement in shaping and structuring transactions.
• Building and maintaining a strong partnership approach and collaborative culture with all key stakeholders and functions, specifically Operations, Finance, and IT.
• Driving process improvements, efficiencies, and simplification of the organizational design.
• Ensuring that resources are managed in an efficient and cost effective manner to improve business and client satisfaction.

Delegation:

• The Affiliate CEO delegates authority to the affiliate CRO for executive leadership of the Risk Function to deliver the Risk Strategy for the affiliate, according to the Risk roles and responsibility and Chart of Loan Approval approved by the Board of Directors.
• The Affiliate CRO may sub-delegate this authority as deemed fit, as long as the sub-delegation is recorded. However, the Affiliate CRO remains responsible for ensuring appropriate supervision where any authority is delegated.
• The role holder is also empowered to manage costs and headcount within the budgets allocated to the function.

Job Responsibilities

• Credit Risk Management: Review and approve loans according to the Chart of Loan approval; coordinate all recovery activities including through legal actions; control pre-disbursement conditions and loan contracts through the network of client advisors in the branches; frequently tracks credit risk indicators (approval rates, time to decision, vintage quality, PAR, losses …) and establish frequent reviews with team and stakeholders.
• Report on the affiliate risk position: Present the affiliate risk position to the affiliate CEO and Management Committee, the Group CRO, and the Risk Committee, including material concentration of risk highlighting market imbalances, and other external or outlook risks that could impact the Risk Appetite or Risk Profile of affiliate, under normal and stressed scenarios. Ensure the affiliate risk profile is appropriate to the external environment in the markets in which it operates.
• Strategy and Plan: In conjunction with the affiliate CEO, defines and sets affiliate’s Risk Appetite and Risk Profile for the local business that underpins Microcred strategy and business plans. Actively contributes to the Business Plan process (BP) and provides clear direction on the affiliate’s strategic goals, translating and prioritizing them into business and performance measures.
• Monitor and provide oversight, advice and challenge: Provide appropriate guidance, challenge and advice to the affiliate CEO and executive management on all risks that they own and that they have accountability to manage. Specifically for Market, Credit, Funding and Operational risk and all associated Key Risks.
• Leadership and Execution: Lead, manage and organize all risk resources to achieve the execution of the Microcred strategy, approved Risk plan, and adherence to Policies.
• Group Policies: Be accountable for the oversight of all enterprise risks. Oversee the implementation of risk control frameworks, policies and business standards aligned with Group policies and procedures in Credit, Market, Funding, and Operational risk. Monitor and report through the risk assessment process on the consistent application and effectiveness policies and business standards across the affiliate.
• Internal control: In partnership with the Compliance function, designs and implements an effective system of controls. This should include a clear organization structure, formal system of delegations of authority and accountability and a framework of supervision ensuring:
  • Microcred Policies are implemented and consistently applied within the affiliate;
  • All risks arising from any affiliate activities / services are proactively identified, assessed, controlled, reported, managed and challenged on a normal and stressed scenario basis and contingency plans are developed as appropriate;
  • Processes and controls are designed to comply with Policies to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.
  • The Risk Function is aligned to the affiliate’s system of internal control, operates as designed and effectively manages all risk types in accordance with Microcred Policies.
• Enterprise Risk Management Framework (ERMF): Implement the ERMF (if and when developed by Group Risk team) for the management and oversight of all Enterprise Risks across the affiliate.
• Segregation of Roles & Duties: Responsible for ensuring that effective segregation of all significant roles and duties exists in the Risk Function.
• People & Organization: Lead, manage and develop Risk Function resources aligned to the affiliate in the most effective and efficient manner to execute the Risk Function’s Plan, including:
• Building a culture to deliver performance consistent with the values;
• Direct involvement in all Risk Function appointments and setting competencies for the roles;
• Designing remuneration structures for all Risk Function employees aligned to the affiliate remuneration guidelines;
• Defining performance objectives and remuneration structures for the Risk Function employees aligned to the affiliate guidelines and designed to achieve a balance between risk, individual reward and the long term objectives of Microcred;
• Inputting into the performance management process for Risk Function employees;
• Defining leadership, talent development and succession plans for main Risk Function employees.
• Citizenship and Reputation: Maintains effective relationships and deal openly with all key stakeholders, taking into account their needs and taking decisions which, in the long term, are positive for customers and clients, shareholders, colleagues and the communities in which Affiliate operates.
• Risk Culture: Responsible for embedding a clearly articulated risk culture within the Risk Function which reflects a constructive Risk management approach:
• Exercise independent and expert judgement;
• Exercise reasonable skill, care and diligence;
• Promote the success of the company;
• Avoid conflicts of interest and demonstrates high integrity.

Profile

• Graduate from an International Business School (Master's level), with at least 5 to 10 years of relevant experience in the field of Risk Management preferably in an international organization, in the domain of finance or financial services.

Technical Skills:

• Excellent knowledge of Secured / Unsecured lending and collections principles and its strategy ideally across Banking, Corporate and Retail customer segments
• Broad risk management knowledge including fraud and operational risk Management and the ability to lead risk governance and control through recognized frameworks;
• Strong decisive leadership through the credit risk cycle;
• Demonstrated ability to develop portfolio analytics and use them to support decision-making
• Excellent knowledge of financial planning and project / change management processes

Personal Skills:

• Fluent in English
• The highest ethical and professional standards
• Strong analytical and decision-making skills
• Demonstrated effective leadership, team building and coaching skills
• Demonstrated ability to motivate people, assess and develop employee skills
• Excellent planning and organizational skills
• Demonstrated ability to use logic, reasoning, and critical thinking in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems
• Ability to work with teams and lead decision-making processes in a team environment
• Ability to interact with Senior staff within an organization as well as teams in a foreign HQ

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online