CIB Risk- Chief Credit Officer

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time.

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary

Enterprise leadership of the Pan Africa CIB Credit portfolio by maintaining and inculcating a solutions-focused mindset; driving and informing the right level of debate; ensuring execution within agreed timeframes, whilst achieving the desired balance between risk and reward and maintaining and protecting the quality of the Bank’s asset book.

The incumbent is accountable to the CIB Chief Risk Officer and supports the CIB Pan Africa business in the delivery and execution of the credit strategy and associated risk appetite. The CIB CCO is responsible to ensure that the credit risk profile and performance is effectively managed and reported, in an integrated manner across Pan Africa CIB business including CIB SA and CIB ARO (working in close co-ordination with the Group Chief Credit Officer, in-country Credit Directors/Chief Credit Officers). He/she must have a finely tuned sense of risk and well developed judgment in order to propel this team into the future.

This is a key strategic position with the ability to influence the company’s direction and this leader must be able to thrive in a diverse and dynamic environment. The ideal candidate must have exceptional leadership and communication skills, with the ability to drive a team of risk professionals. Demonstrating insightful and commercial thinking, together with gravitas and presence, will be key to winning the respect and trust of senior executives.

Job Description

Accountability: Drive Business Performance and Strategy

• Position CIB Credit as a key service provider to the relevant business units serving as its customer.
• Implement performance controls to proactively measure achievement against strategic targets and address changes or non-performance.
• Play a pivotal role in shaping the CIB strategy as it relates to the choice of sectors, segments, products etc.
• Contribute to the strategic direction of the Bank through the setting of appropriate risk appetite parameters and lending strategies ensuring loss minimisation is balanced with appropriate level of risk.
• Provide ongoing advice and direction to the operational environments managed by this role in terms of the areas of focus, opportunities, key targets and relevant policies, legislative and regulatory environments.
• Pro-actively manage the CIB Credit lending portfolio, monitor internal metrics as well as external economic and market indicators to identify current or future areas of stress, and drive appropriate actions.
• Actively participate in all internal client reviews from a service perspective, provided by areas under responsibility through a process of formalised service review.
• Drive the proactive negotiation of service level contracts with business unit heads with a continued focus on improved performance, reduction in turnaround times and reduced cost.
• Shape and influence the deal pipeline appropriately through membership of relevant committees.
• Proactively identify business opportunities which drive performance in line with strategy and embed strategic performance management tools.
• Articulate rationale for business performance at senior forums, demonstrating implications to business, presenting options and confidently responding to challenges.
• Work with the Finance team in the area of responsibility on improving the models for transfer pricing or cost allocation between Credit and relevant business units.
• Continuously monitor service levels and implement strategic measures to improve customer satisfaction and overall profitability.
• Build and maintain effective stakeholder relationships within the industry and within the Bank to ensure the unit is successfully positioned to manage risks and expectations and deliver on shareholder value.
• Represent CIB Credit and participate and contribute to industry and Bank wide forums and governance structures as required or directed.
• Build and drive ESG Risk management team within the credit function including the evolution of the climate and transition risk plans.

Accountability: Provide Strategic Leadership

• Design and align the strategic vision and direction of the CIB Credit Risk target operating model and architecture to the CIB strategy.
• Stay abreast of industry trends and role players and ensure that the CIB Credit Risk function is well positioned to provide competitive and industry leading services.
• Identify strategic role players and stakeholders and engage all stakeholders, role players and industry forums to understand changes to strategy, regulations and markets.
• Set and communicate a long-term strategy that clearly articulates strategic targets and metrics to align the delivery of CIB Credit against the Bank’s strategic objectives and targets and shareholder expectations.
• Direct the review and design of the business architectures for CIB Credit to maintain a competitive advantage, reduce cost and improve profitability.
• Give clear direction to leaders in the CIB Credit team on the strategic and operational focus areas that need to be delivered.
• Drive the development and tracking of tactical plans and scoreboards and take corrective actions where required.
• Drive the development and execution of strategic projects across the CIB Credit portfolio.
• Drive sustainable cost and processing efficiencies through continuous innovation, industry benchmarking and alignment to best practices.
• Proactively manage changes in the environment and ensure the effective implementation and stabilisation of changes in the business unit.
• Play a thought-leadership role with regards to both the operational and strategic management of the business.
• Establish appropriate governance structures to facilitate decision making, strategic risk management and performance tracking.

Accountability: Credit Infrastructure, Models and Data

• Drive strategic system architecture for the CIB Credit Risk function, ensuring an integrated landscape and ensuring that the function benefits from a holistic architectural approach.
• Ultimate owner of CIB Credit models and plays a pivotal role in shaping model development and implementation.
• Design and own RDARR-compliant processes and controls for updating all artefacts across the function and play a role in shaping the credit data landscape.

Accountability: Drive the people agenda

• Together with Human Capital (HC) for the function/unit, determine the people management strategy for the business unit aligned to the overall business strategy.
• Take steps to build, develop and lead a cohesive and high performing Leadership team within the business unit.
• Drive the overall people agenda within the business unit to ensure that the human aspects to performance are considered and embedded in the business.
• Build and sustain a culture that aligns to the Bank’s aspirational colleague experience to deliver the target customer experience and financial performance.
• Take steps to establish and drive a high-performance culture across the business unit.
• Enable and drive the transformation agenda in the business unit by implementing strategies and addressing barriers.
• Establish and maintain a succession plan for the key roles in the area and review and approve succession plans.
• Ensure the business complies with Group HC policies and procedures.
• Drive strategies to ensure the business unit attracts, retains and develops talent.

Accountability: Maintain a healthy risk profile within CIB Credit

• Identify and take accountability for the assigned principal risks relevant to the area and ensure that adequate controls are in place within the role’s area of responsibility.
• Monitor all business risk activities within the operating environment through obtaining feedback and providing guidance for tactical plans to ensure compliance to policies and standards.
• Drive a culture of proactive compliance and risk management within the executive team and the function as a whole.
• Implement risk and conformance management structures and reporting frameworks to proactively manage business risks and provide an early warning system at an EXCO level.
• Review the risk management and compliance practices of the function as a whole and highlight areas that require improvement to leaders in the team.
• Evaluate the status of Operational and Principal Risks within the function and complete the required attestations to confirm control status.
• Present the function’s requirements in senior meetings.

Accountability: Manage the financial sustainability and effective use of resources

• Drive the annual planning and review of Medium-Term Planning (MTP), Short Term Planning (STP) and Revised Annual Forecast (RAF) budgets for the Pan Africa CIB Credit function.
• Ensure rigorous cost management by implementing a highly structured budget and monitoring and reporting process.
• Ensure the function/unit has sufficient resources to deliver on operational and customer commitments.
• Monitor annual resource utilisation and implement strategies to improve the efficient allocation and utilization of resources within CIB Credit.
• Ensure accurate and timely financial reporting in terms of the annual calendar.
• Implement effective corrective measures to ensure financial control and address negative budgetary variances.
• Review opportunities for investment or disinvestment of resources and make capital allocation decisions within mandate.
• Drive the effective identification, funding and resourcing of new change initiatives within the area of responsibility.
• Review the effectiveness of the existing credit management teams, processes and systems.
• Oversee the functions responsible for credit application preparation, sanctioning, monitoring and control, compliance, support, management of distressed business customers, recoveries/collections and capital management.
• Build, maintain and implement a control and governance framework capable of withstanding high levels of internal and external scrutiny.
• Development and implementation of appropriate risk grading models.
• Portfolio optimisation and analysis to ensure effective use of economic capital.
• Ensure that Returns hurdle rates are set, approved and tracked.
• Ensure regular stress testing of the credit book is undertaken.
• Deliver portfolio information that is transparent, accurate and complete.
• Influence the overall risk appetite levels by making recommendations on the levels of Economic Capital required to be set aside for the business.
• Ensure that the CIB Credit portfolio is managed within acceptable parameters and that governance and management processes exist and operate effectively.
• Agree targets and take accountability for the overall achievement of performance objectives.
• Sign off capital expenditure within mandate above the limits of the general managers in the business unit.
• Ensure compliance to policies, legislation and regulations and that staff compliance training and attestations are in place.
• Perform all other duties as reasonably assigned.

Preferred Education & Work Experience:

• CA (SA), Honours degree, MBA or a related NQF Level 9 equivalent qualification a strong advantage.
• 15+ years banking / financial services environment experience.
• 5+ years senior management experience in a risk environment at business cluster level.
• Experience in dealing with multiple stakeholders.
• Well-rounded credit professional with significant sanctioning and management experience.

Education

Postgraduate Degrees and Professional Qualifications: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised.