Specialist Operations at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

To assist the Business Unit Head of Operations in managing the overall business and fulfilling responsibilities. The scope of the role covers all Non key risk management and Governance requirements for the function, including but not limited to: Operational Risk, including all Specialist Risk types; Resilience Risk including all Specialist Risk Types; Occupational Health & Safety; Business Continuity Management; Data Privacy; Conduct Risk; Reporting, etc.

Job Description

Accountability: Risk Management and Governance

• Encourage and Monitoring Risk Events Escalation through awareness of the risk event channel, and promote risk capturing behaviour
• Provide advice on guidelines and advise on Lessons Learnt process by sharing information
• Advise process owners through the CPA Framework and oversight of Controls Environment
• Responsible for collation of the Management Control Approach (MCA) and Control Environment (CE) and track all open issues as part of the Risk Management process, to closure to assist in achieving and or maintaining a satisfactory rating.
• Prepare various operational risk reports as and when required by Group Operational Risk.
• Report and present on all risk related activities. Responsible for the monthly Compliance risk report compilation, covering the operational risk profile of the Function, including operational risk losses and corrective actions related to internal audit and regulatory review comments. The assessment should be based on the status of implementation of operational risk policies and procedures.
• Coordinate monitoring of and reporting on the Functions operational risks by completing relevant reports on a continuous basis.
• Act as Point of Entry for Operational Risk Reporting for the Function, ensuring that all reports are compiled and forwarded, when required.
• Review and challenge the effectiveness of business management of operational risk and compliance with the operational risk framework and policies by reviewing directorates operational reports submitted to Operational Risk.
• Coordinate implementation of the Operational Risk and Resilience Risk principal risk frameworks and policies, to ensure that there are mechanisms in place to identify and understand all occurrences of risk within the Function.
• Review, challenge and validate the risk profile with information on operational risk systems and perform quality assurance on all submissions received.
• Guide process owners with the management and review of risk and controls linked to their processes.
• Utilise the Operational Risk Management System (ORMS) in the day-to-day management of the Operational risk framework requirements.
• Represent the cluster on the applicable operational risk related forums, when required.
• Liaise with stakeholders of Principal Risks within other Control Functions within the Group to promote alignment of the overall groups approach to Operational Risks.
• Prepare quarterly Operational Risk Management Committee (ORMC) reports for the Function, ensure preparation and sign off of Group Risk reports and the validation thereof on a monthly and quarterly basis, including formulating an overall opinion of the risk status in the Function.
• Provide executive management with an update on all identified risks and controls ensuring a level of comfort through effective risk management, by way of monthly or ad hoc reporting.
• Ensure requisite governance processes are followed within the Function, and aligning to Group Operational Risk.
• Compile quarterly Conduct Risk and Data and Records Management reports for the Function, including the monitoring of relevant KRIs and providing a view of the profile.
• Resilience risk lead for the function, pertaining to Business Continuity and other Specialist Risk types, including COVID-19 risk response coordination.
• Adherence to all policy requirements, including maintenance and coordination of recovery plans for the function, ensuring adequate testing cycles are adhered to. 
• Coordination of all Information Risk requirements, i.e. annual completion of End User Application registries; Access management control maintenance and monitoring and Business list of records. 

Accountability: Strategy Definition and Implementation

• Provide support to the BU Head to ensure that decisions taken are communicated to the correct audience in a timely manner and gauge the understanding and commitment from the audience across the Function.
• Ensure the successful end-to-end execution and delivery of all tactical and strategic initiatives that contributes towards the realisation of the Business Unit strategy
• Deliver on strategic solutions based on international trends, research and benchmark leaders to ensure that tactics used / strategic solutions are of utmost quality.
• Involved in coordination of strategy sessions and content as required, in supporting the Head of Operations in driving strategy within the Function.

Accountability: Business & Operational Management

• Attend a multitude of forums, project and management meetings to stay up to date with operational conditions and provide early warning to the BU Head of any probable issues and proposed solutions.
• Assist in providing knowledgeable review and recommendations for intended shifts ensuring that context, analysis and the views of the respective areas are collated, filtered and summarised in a concise manner. Assist in evaluating, interpreting and delivering only relevant information to the BU Head to ensure that the time of the Head is not taken up with operational issues that should be resolved elsewhere.
• Assist in the distribution of issues to the correct level of operational management for resolution by identifying issue at hand and delegating to relevant team
• Assist in collating escalated queries from other external stakeholders and attend to queries or relay the query to appropriate individuals when falling outside scope.
• Assist in resolving issues lodged directly with the Head.
• Assist in the set-up of a monitoring process for ongoing issues and programmes to address these in the business unit and report them to the BU Head.
• Participate in interfacing with the Heads direct reports to understand the operating environment and to assist them to prioritise focus areas
• Assist in the management of the BU Head to ensure smooth operations and that resources are available and operating effectively.
• Provide guidance and input around operational issues and day to day operational management.

Accountability: Communication & Executive Administration

• Assist in the preparation of key themes, presentations and reviews for the BU Head and assist with detailed content when required
• Assist in the review of all material and communication prior to it being reviewed by the Head ensuring that context, analysis and the views of the respective areas are collated, filtered and summarised in a concise manner.
• Manage the primary functional communication channels: Intranet; SharePoint; Workplace; Email mailboxes (Africa Compliance & Compliance Ops)
• Maintain distribution & user access lists across all platforms.  

Accountability: Stakeholder Management

• Establish and maintain effective stakeholder relationships with both internal and external stakeholders.
• Manage service offerings all stakeholder groups.

Education

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