Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Corporate Risk Manager

🎯 Role Definition

The Corporate Risk Manager leads identification, measurement, mitigation and reporting of enterprise risks across the organization. This role establishes and maintains the ERM framework, designs and enforces risk policies, quantifies exposures (operational, credit, market, liquidity, conduct and strategic), develops Key Risk Indicators (KRIs), and delivers clear, actionable reporting to senior management and the Board. The Corporate Risk Manager partners with business units, finance, legal, compliance and internal audit to embed risk-aware decision-making, ensure regulatory compliance, and drive continuous improvement in risk controls and governance.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Risk Analyst / Senior Risk Analyst
Credit Risk Analyst or Market Risk Analyst
Internal Audit Senior or Compliance Officer

Advancement To:

Head of Risk / Director of Risk Management
Chief Risk Officer (CRO)
VP of Enterprise Risk Management / Chief Compliance & Risk Officer

Lateral Moves:

Operational Resilience Manager
Compliance or Regulatory Affairs Lead
Treasury or Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Design, implement and continuously refine the enterprise risk management (ERM) framework, ensuring alignment with industry standards (COSO, ISO 31000) and the organization’s strategic objectives.
Lead enterprise-wide risk identification and assessment exercises, including facilitation of risk workshops with business unit leaders to capture emerging, strategic and operational risks.
Develop, maintain and report on the organization’s risk appetite and tolerance statements; translate appetite into actionable limits, thresholds and governance controls.
Build and maintain a consolidated risk register, ensuring all risks are assessed for likelihood, impact and velocity, and that mitigation plans and owners are clearly tracked.
Design and implement Key Risk Indicators (KRIs) and thresholds across risk domains; automate monitoring and escalation workflows to senior management and the Board.
Prepare high-quality risk reporting, including executive-level risk dashboards, Board risk pack materials, trend analysis, scenario summaries and root-cause assessments.
Conduct quantitative risk assessment and stress testing, including scenario analysis, sensitivity testing and reverse stress tests for operational, liquidity, credit and market exposures.
Oversee the execution of risk control self-assessments (RCSAs), control testing and remediation tracking in collaboration with control owners and internal audit.
Drive operational risk management initiatives, including incident reporting, loss event analysis, remediation oversight and continuous control improvement.
Evaluate and quantify enterprise-level financial exposures by building/reviewing models for credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk and capital impact analyses.
Lead vendor and third-party risk assessments, due diligence and ongoing monitoring programs to mitigate outsourcing, supply chain and concentration risks.
Serve as the primary liaison with regulators and external auditors on risk-related matters, ensuring timely and accurate responses to inquiries, exams and regulatory changes.
Advise on new product and business initiatives by performing risk assessments during product lifecycle events, M&A due diligence, and major strategic projects.
Establish, manage and enhance risk policies, standards and procedures to ensure consistent risk governance and compliance with internal and external requirements (SOX, Basel, local regulations).
Collaborate with IT and data teams to enhance risk data architecture, data quality, reporting automation and analytics for more accurate, timely risk measurement.
Lead remediation and mitigation programs to reduce identified risk exposures; monitor progress, report status, and re-assess residual risk after mitigation actions.
Manage the risk management operating model, including risk committees, governance forums, meeting cadence, and escalation protocols to senior leadership and the Board risk committee.
Provide coaching, training and awareness programs to embed risk culture across the organization; design materials and workshops for non-risk audiences.
Oversee insurance strategy and placement analyses, coordinating with brokers to optimize coverage for enterprise risks and financial exposures.
Maintain a robust incident and crisis response capability, including business continuity planning (BCP) and participation in operational resilience exercises and scenario rehearsals.
Validate and challenge credit, market and model risk assumptions used by front-line units, ensuring independent review and model governance standards are met.
Manage a portfolio of risk projects (technology, process redesign, remediation) and, where appropriate, lead cross-functional project teams and change initiatives to implement risk solutions.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc risk analytics requests and deliver exploratory data analysis to surface trends and root causes for senior stakeholders.
Contribute to the organization’s risk data strategy, metadata governance and roadmap to improve risk reporting fidelity and automation.
Collaborate with business units to translate risk assessment findings into engineering, IT and process improvement requirements.
Participate in agile project teams and sprint planning for risk technology implementations (GRC tools, dashboards, analytics platforms).
Coordinate with internal audit to align testing schedules, share control frameworks and accelerate remediation closure.
Deliver periodic training for frontline staff on risk identification, incident reporting and mitigation best practices.
Represent risk interests in vendor selection and contract review to ensure appropriate risk controls and SLAs are embedded.
Monitor regulatory developments and industry trends; produce timely briefings and recommended action plans for leadership.
Support M&A and strategic transactions by performing comprehensive risk due diligence and integration planning.
Maintain and update risk-related documentation, playbooks, process maps and standard operating procedures.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) frameworks: demonstrable experience implementing and operating COSO, ISO 31000 or comparable ERM frameworks.
Risk assessment and quantification: ability to design risk scoring methodologies, probability-impact matrices, and loss expectancy calculations.
Stress testing and scenario analysis: develop, run and interpret stress tests for liquidity, market and credit exposures.
Financial modeling and analytics: advanced Excel, financial statement analysis, and experience building risk models to estimate P&L and capital impacts.
Risk reporting and visualization: experience producing executive dashboards using Power BI, Tableau or equivalent and building Board-level risk packs.
Regulatory knowledge: practical experience with Basel, SOX, Dodd-Frank, GDPR (as applicable), and other relevant regulatory regimes.
Control testing and RCSA: experience coordinating and executing risk control self-assessments and remediation tracking.
Third-party & vendor risk management: ability to conduct vendor due diligence, risk-scoring and ongoing monitoring.
GRC and risk tools: hands-on experience with Governance, Risk & Compliance platforms (e.g., Archer, MetricStream, RSA, OneTrust).
Data analytics & manipulation: SQL, Python or R knowledge for risk analytics preferred; strong data governance awareness.
Model validation & governance: experience validating risk models, documenting assumptions and ensuring model lifecycle controls.
Insurance and risk transfer: knowledge of commercial insurance placement, coverage assessment and cost-benefit evaluation.
Project management: ability to lead cross-functional risk projects, implement controls, and manage timelines and stakeholders.
Incident management & business continuity planning (BCP): practical experience building response plans and conducting tabletop exercises.

Soft Skills

Strong verbal and written communication skills; ability to translate technical risk concepts into concise executive summaries for Boards and C-suite.
Strategic thinker with a pragmatic, solution-oriented approach to risk mitigation.
Influential stakeholder management and relationship-building skills across finance, legal, IT and business units.
Analytical mindset with strong problem-solving and critical thinking abilities.
High attention to detail and commitment to data accuracy and governance.
Leadership and people management: coach and develop risk-aware behaviors and high-performing teams.
Change management and facilitation skills for embedding new processes and controls organization-wide.
Integrity and sound ethical judgment; ability to handle sensitive, confidential information.
Resilience and adaptability in fast-changing regulatory and business environments.
Collaborative team player who can work cross-functionally and drive consensus.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Risk Management, Mathematics, Statistics, Business Administration, or a related discipline.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree (MSc, MA, MBA) in Risk Management, Finance, Economics, Data Analytics or related field.
Professional certifications preferred: FRM, PRM, CFA, CPA, CAMS, or CRISC.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Finance and Financial Engineering
Risk Management, Actuarial Science or Statistics
Economics and Business Administration
Data Science, Computer Science or Quantitative Analytics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 5–10+ years of progressive experience in enterprise risk management, operational risk, credit risk, market risk, internal audit, or regulatory compliance.

Preferred:

8+ years with demonstrated experience leading ERM programs, risk committees and Board-level reporting.
Experience in a regulated industry (banking, insurance, financial services, healthcare, energy) and familiarity with relevant supervisory frameworks.
Track record of delivering risk transformation projects, implementing GRC tools, or building risk analytics capabilities.