Director Risk & Control

Job Summary

The Director, Risk & Control role is responsible for supporting the Head of Corporate & Investment Banking in overseeing operational and process risk within the business. As a key first-line risk leader, the role embeds effective controls, governance and Operational Risk Framework requirements to strengthen control effectiveness, regulatory compliance and operational resilience.

Key Responsibilities

• Collaborate directly with Country and Regional leadership teams to identify, evaluate, and manage process and operational risks throughout the Corporate & Investment Banking Client Coverage lifecycle, encompassing in-country operations as well as outsourced, centralised and Global Business Services components.
• Drive the embedding of robust first-line controls by overseeing control design, testing effectiveness, monitoring issues, and ensuring timely remediation to manage residual risks appropriately.
• Evaluate operational risk implications stemming from new business strategies, product launches, regulatory changes, and initiatives from both COO and Client Coverage functions to ensure effective control frameworks are applied.
• Act as the primary point of contact within the country for escalating operational risk incidents, control failures, or significant issues, leading investigations, root cause analysis, and the implementation of corrective actions.
• Proactively identify emerging, thematic, and complex risk exposures, proposing practical enhancements that strengthen controls and contribute to the bank’s operational resilience objectives.
• Foster and advocate a strong risk and control culture across all levels of the client coverage teams by promoting governance awareness, supervisory accountability, and professional conduct standards.
• Support risk training and communication initiatives to strengthen the understanding of risk frameworks and embed a culture of risk ownership.

Skills and Experience

• Extensive expertise delivering operational risk management in banking or financial services, with well-grounded knowledge of risk assessment methodologies, control frameworks, and regulatory compliance requirements.
• Strong analytical skills enabling detailed investigation of complex risk challenges, foresight to anticipate potential process failures, and creativity to implement sustainable risk mitigation solutions aligned with organisational priorities.
• Track record of leading change management within risk functions, including guiding adoption of new risk practices, embedding controls, and influencing stakeholder behaviours towards enhanced risk awareness.
• Experience collaborating effectively across diverse teams such as operations, compliance, finance, and technology, ensuring risk is integrated seamlessly into client-facing processes.
• Commercial acumen related to the banking sector, especially Commercial and Global banking environments, enabling practical alignment of risk oversight with evolving market strategies.
• Exceptional communication skills with the capability to articulate complex risk matters clearly and persuasively to varied audiences, combined with a practical and solution-focused mindset.

Qualifications

• A Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business Administration, Risk Management, or a closely related discipline is essential for this role.
• Successful completion of minimum 5 O’level credits including English and Mathematics
• Verification of qualifications by the Zambia Qualifications Authority (ZAQA) is mandatory
• Advanced professional certifications such as Certified Risk Manager (CRM), Financial Risk Manager (FRM), or equivalent qualifications are highly desirable to demonstrate advanced expertise in risk management disciplines.

About Standard Chartered

We’re an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we’ve worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you’re looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can’t wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you’ll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies – everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.