Sourcing An Operational Risk Manager for A Pension Company

Opportunity

This major pensions administrator was in the process of building out its risk capabilities into a completely new function. The CRO and an interim Head of Enterprise risk had designed the new risk framework from scratch, and they needed to commence the implementation process. The budget for this role was quite low and the Operational Risk Manager role needed someone with a broad set of skills who could not only support in the development and roll-out of the framework but also get enough buy in from the business to ensure successful implementation. This would involve a lot of time working closely with stakeholders across the business, which was widely spread across the country and so would require a high degree of travel from the Company’s head office in the regions.

Approach

We worked closely with the CRO and Head of Enterprise Risk to fully understand the business and the vision the leadership team had for the risk function and the new risk framework so that we could both identify the right candidates for the Operational Risk Manager role and pitch the opportunity as effectively as possible. Following this, we undertook an in-depth search of risk managers based across the UK who had broad-based pensions sector risk management experience and who were also willing to travel frequently for the role. This was essentially a regional pensions sector risk market mapping exercise; highly detailed and time intensive. In addition to investigating various sources of candidates across the country, we researched a competitor who were based in the same region as the client. We identified an individual who had the requisite pension risk management experience and who also had broad pensions risk, compliance and resilience experience and who had specific experience of developing and implementing a new framework. The individual had progressed their career with a single employer and their salary had become detached from current market rates.

Outcome

Our detailed and targeted research allowed us to deliver a shortlist of credible candidates that included one candidate who stood out from all the rest. The client was able to secure their ideal candidate with exactly the skills and experience they had hoped to secure, without breaking their budget, and the candidate was able to achieve a significant increase in their earnings and secure a role with excellent scope for future career progression.