Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Corporate Risk Analyst

🎯 Role Definition

The Corporate Risk Analyst is responsible for identifying, quantifying, monitoring and reporting enterprise-level risks across credit, market, liquidity, operational, compliance and strategic domains. This role blends quantitative modeling, regulatory reporting, data analytics and stakeholder engagement to support risk-aware decision making across the organization. The Corporate Risk Analyst will design and validate risk models, conduct scenario and stress testing, maintain risk frameworks and KRIs, and translate technical insights into actionable recommendations for business leaders and the risk committee.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Financial Analyst (Credit/Lending)
Junior Risk Analyst / Risk Operations Analyst
Compliance Analyst or Internal Audit Associate

Advancement To:

Senior Corporate Risk Analyst
Risk Manager / Head of Risk Analytics
Director of Enterprise Risk Management
Chief Risk Officer (long-term)

Lateral Moves:

Credit Risk Analyst
Operational Risk Specialist
Regulatory Compliance Manager
Data Risk / Model Risk Analyst

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Conduct comprehensive enterprise risk assessments to identify material exposures across credit, market, liquidity, operational, compliance and strategic risk categories; quantify potential financial and non-financial impacts and prioritize remediation actions for management.
Develop, calibrate and validate quantitative risk models (e.g., probability of default, loss given default, expected loss, PD/LGD, VaR, stress-test frameworks) using Python, R, SAS or statistical packages and maintain model documentation and model risk governance.
Perform scenario analysis and stress testing—build macro-economic and idiosyncratic scenarios, run reverse stress tests, and produce management-ready scenario impact reports and capital adequacy assessments for executive review.
Monitor and report Key Risk Indicators (KRIs), risk appetite metrics and tolerance thresholds on a daily/weekly/monthly cadence; generate automated alerts for breaches and partner with business units to remediate and track corrective actions.
Prepare and deliver clear, executive-focused risk reports, dashboards and visualizations using Tableau, Power BI or Qlik, translating complex quantitative results into actionable recommendations for senior leadership and boards.
Conduct credit portfolio analytics including concentration risk analysis, limit monitoring, vintage and cohort analysis, and portfolio optimization to inform underwriting and capital allocation decisions.
Lead risk assessments and control design for new products, strategic initiatives, and business partnerships—perform pre-launch risk reviews, design mitigation strategies and ensure alignment with enterprise risk frameworks.
Review and assess operational control effectiveness by analyzing loss events, near-misses and control failures; perform root cause analysis and coordinate remediation plans until closure.
Support regulatory compliance and reporting obligations (Basel III/IV, CCAR/DFAST, IFRS 9/CECL, Dodd-Frank) by preparing required documentation, quantitative outputs and disclosures for regulators and auditors.
Maintain and evolve enterprise risk policies, procedures and standards; ensure risk frameworks remain aligned with industry best practices and regulatory expectations.
Conduct third-party and vendor risk assessments focused on operational resilience, business continuity, security controls and service-level risks; monitor remediation and contract-level risk acceptability.
Provide consultative risk input to product, treasury and finance teams on pricing, capital impacts, hedging and funding strategies; quantify trade-offs and advise on risk-adjusted returns.
Build and maintain robust risk data pipelines, data dictionaries and lineage documentation to ensure high-quality inputs into risk models and ensure reproducibility of risk calculations.
Coordinate with internal audit to remediate audit findings, provide evidence of control effectiveness and implement agreed corrective action plans in a timely manner.
Design and implement credit loss forecasting and provisioning methodologies compliant with accounting standards (CECL/IFRS 9); prepare supporting analysis for provisioning committees.
Measure and manage market and liquidity risk exposures, including maturity gap analysis, liquidity stress scenarios and contingency funding plans; inform treasury and ALM decisions.
Automate repeatable risk processes (reporting, limit checks, KRIs) using SQL, Python scripting, macros, or workflow tools to reduce operational risk and improve timeliness of insights.
Track regulatory and industry developments, assess potential impacts on products, capital, reporting and governance, and proactively propose required updates to policies and models.
Provide risk training, guidance and documentation to business units to increase risk awareness, promote adherence to risk appetite and improve interpretation of risk reports and dashboards.
Partner with data engineering and IT to prioritize enhancements to risk platforms, secure data sources, optimize performance of risk computations and ensure appropriate access controls for sensitive risk data.
Support due diligence and risk integration workstreams for mergers & acquisitions, strategic partnerships and investments by producing transactional risk assessments and integration risk mitigation plans.

Secondary Functions

Respond to ad-hoc data and analytics requests from senior stakeholders, including business performance and risk trend deep dives.
Maintain and version control risk model code, test scripts, and performance benchmarks in collaboration with model risk management.
Support the risk governance calendar by preparing materials for risk committee meetings and tracking action items to completion.
Participate in cross-functional projects (finance, legal, compliance, IT) to embed risk considerations into enterprise initiatives and system implementations.
Assist with vendor selection, configuration and testing of third-party risk tools, analytics platforms and stress-testing engines.
Maintain a repository of risk-related documentation, policies, meeting minutes and decision logs for transparency and auditability.
Help prepare responses to regulator inquiries, supervisory exams and information requests; coordinate collection of required evidence and sign-offs.
Continuously monitor and improve data quality controls and reconciliation processes between source systems and risk reporting outputs.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) frameworks and risk taxonomy development
Credit risk analytics and credit portfolio management (PD/LGD, provisioning)
Market risk measurement (VaR, sensitivity analysis) and liquidity risk assessment
Stress testing and scenario analysis for capital and liquidity planning
Regulatory knowledge: Basel III/IV, CCAR/DFAST, IFRS 9, CECL, and industry supervisory expectations
Statistical modeling and quantitative methods: regression, time-series, survival analysis
Programming & query languages: SQL, Python, R, and experience with SAS or MATLAB a plus
Advanced Excel modeling, VBA and automation of routine calculations
Data visualization and dashboarding: Tableau, Power BI, Qlik or similar tools
Model validation and model governance practices, including backtesting and benchmarking
Financial statement analysis and understanding of accounting impacts on risk metrics
Familiarity with GRC platforms, risk registers, and vendor risk assessment tools
Experience with data pipelines, ETL concepts and basic knowledge of data engineering
Basic machine learning techniques for predictive analytics and anomaly detection

Soft Skills

Strong analytical thinking and structured problem-solving with attention to detail
Clear written and verbal communication skills; ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
Stakeholder management and the ability to influence cross-functional teams and senior leaders
Project management and ability to prioritize multiple concurrent deliverables under tight deadlines
Critical thinking and independent judgment with a strong sense of ownership and accountability
Collaboration and teamwork: able to work closely with finance, IT, legal and business units
Adaptability to evolving regulatory and business requirements in a fast-paced environment
Presentation skills and comfort delivering findings to senior management and risk committees
Ethical judgment and commitment to compliance, transparency and data confidentiality

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, Data Science or related quantitative field.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree (MS/MSc) in Finance, Financial Engineering, Risk Management, Statistics, Economics or an MBA.
Professional credentials such as FRM (Financial Risk Manager), CFA, PRM or relevant certifications in risk, data analytics or regulatory reporting are highly desirable.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Finance
Economics
Statistics / Applied Mathematics
Data Science / Computer Science
Engineering (Industrial, Systems, Financial)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–6 years in risk, credit analytics, financial modeling, audit, or regulatory reporting roles (varies by seniority).

Preferred:

3+ years of hands-on experience in corporate/enterprise risk management within a banking, financial services, insurance or large corporate environment.
Demonstrated experience building and validating risk models, performing stress testing, and supporting regulatory submissions.
Proven track record of creating executive-ready reports and dashboards for senior management and boards.
Experience partnering with data/IT teams to improve risk data infrastructure and reporting automation.