Chief Credit Officer: RB Risk at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

• The RB Chief Credit Officer (CCO) is a senior executive who oversees the credit risk management function of Relationship Banking (RB). The CCO is responsible for the end-to-end management of the credit portfolio incorporating origination and acquisitions, sanctioning, portfolio performance and collections/recovery strategies.
• In providing enterprise leadership across the RB Credit portfolio, the CCO will be required to maintain and inculcate a solutions-focused mindset; drive and inform the right level of debate/commerciality; ensuring execution within agreed timeframes; ensure the desired balance between risk and reward; and protect the quality of the Bank’s asset book through the cycle. The incumbent will be expected to have a finely tuned sense of risk-taking and an effective credit strategy thought leadership and execution capability.
• The CCO is a member of the RB Risk Executive team and reports directly to the RB CRO and will have need to have the ability to influence the company’s direction and thrive in a diverse and dynamic environment. The incumbent must have exceptional leadership and communication skills, able to drive a large team of credit risk professionals. Demonstrating insightful and commercial thinking, together with gravitas and presence, will be key for the CCO to win the respect and trust of senior stakeholders.

Job Description

Accountability: Providing Strategic Leadership

• Design and align the strategic vision and direction of the RB Credit Risk target operating model and architecture to the RB strategy.
• Stay abreast of industry trends and role players and ensure that the RB 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 and respond to changes in strategy, regulations, and markets.
• Set and communicate a long-term strategy that clearly articulates strategic targets and metrics to align to the overall RB business strategy.
• Direct the review and design of the business architectures for RB Credit (i.e. people, systems, processes, products, market segments, geography) to maintain a competitive advantage, manage costs and improve profitability.
• Give clear direction to leaders in the RB 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 RB Credit portfolio.
• Drive sustainable cost and processing efficiencies through continuous innovation, industry benchmarking and alignment to best practice thinking.
• Establish appropriate governance structures to facilitate decision making, strategic risk management and portfolio performance tracking.

Accountability: Credit Infrastructure, Models and Data

• Drive strategic system architecture for the RB Credit Risk function, ensuring an integrated landscape and ensuring that the function benefits from a holistic architectural approach.
• Ultimate owner of RB 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: Driving Business Performance

• Position RB 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.
• 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 levels of risk-taking.
• Provide ongoing advice and direction to the operational environments managed by this role in terms of the areas of focus, opportunities, key targets and relative policies, legislative and regulatory environments.
• Pro-actively manage the RB 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.
• 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 to serve.
• Shape and influence the deal pipeline appropriately through membership of relevant committees.
• Articulate rationale for credit risk performance at senior forums, demonstrating implications to business, presenting options and confidently responding to challenges.
• 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 risk-weighted shareholder value.
• Represent RB Credit and participate and contribute to industry and Bank wide forums and governance structures as required or directed

Accountability: Drive the People Agenda

• Together with HR 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 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 by for example mentoring leaders and using the performance development framework, informal coaching and formal learning as tools.
• 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 HR policies and procedures.
• Drive strategies to ensure the business unit attracts, retains and develops talent.

Accountability: Maintaining a Healthy Risk Profile within RB Credit Risk

• 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 (including business assurance and operational risk management) 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 on 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.

Accountability: Manage the Financial Sustainability and effective use of resources

• Support the annual planning and review of MTP, STP and Revised Annual Forecast (RAF) budgets for RB including the setting of MTP and STP Financial targets and standards and related measures and anticipated financial cost targets.
• Ensure rigorous cost management by implementing a highly structured budget and monitoring and reporting process and instilling discipline within the team around cost control.
• Monitor annual resource utilisation and implement strategies to improve the efficient allocation and utilization of
• Ensure accurate and timely credit portfolio reporting in terms of the annual calendar.
• Drive the effective identification, funding and resourcing of new change initiatives within the area of responsibility.
• Build, maintain and implement a control and governance framework capable of withstanding high levels of internal and external scrutiny (Internal Audit, External Audit, various regulators)
• Development and implementation of appropriate risk grading models.
• Portfolio optimisation and analysis to ensure effective use of economic capital.
• Ensure regular stress testing of the credit book is undertaken.
• Influence the overall risk appetite levels by making recommendations on the levels of Economic Capital required to be set aside for the business.
• Ensure compliance to policies, legislation and regulations and that staff compliance training and attestations are in place.

Perform all other responsibilities as reasonably assigned.

Education

• Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)