Director, Enterprise & Operational Risk Management

Your Opportunity

At Schwab, you’re empowered to make an impact on your career. Here, innovative thought meets creative problem solving, helping us “challenge the status quo” and transform the finance industry together.

Enterprise and Operational Risk Management (EORM) is part of the Corporate Risk Management (CRM) department that forms the second line of defense at Charles Schwab. EORM enables The Charles Schwab Corporation’s (CSC) purpose and vision by governing and continually improving enterprise and operational risk programs, including effectively challenging business processes to increase understanding and awareness of enterprise and operational risks and improve related risk-based decision making.

Within EORM, the Operational Risk Guidance & Oversight (ORGO) Team provides risk intelligence through business unit consultation and effective challenge to improve operational risk practices, provides program leadership for operational losses and operational risk idiosyncratic scenario analysis, assesses emerging risks impacting the Company, and provides balance sheet protection for the Company by managing the purchase of corporate insurance policies. 

This position will collaborate closely across the ORGO Team, other CRM Programs and the first line of defense to coordinate the implementation of transformative initiatives, ensuring optimized operational risk management and efficiency are prioritized.  This position will be responsible for managing special projects within ORGO and the broader EORM team that may encompass responsibilities such as managing risk governance for mergers and acquisitions or developing and implementing new policies that mitigate operational risk.  In addition, this position will be responsible for working across the second line of defense to understand the interconnectivity of risks and provide cohesive and comprehensive views that are inclusive of all operational risk disciplines, including fraud, data, technology, third party and model risks. 

Key responsibilities include:

• Lead, support, influence, and organize cross-functional project work or transformation efforts that impact ORGO deliverables.
• Establish processes to drive consistency across ORGO around communication, planning, and execution of coordinated objectives and transformation efforts.
• Ad-hoc special projects - Coordinate with stakeholders to help assess and define high risk operational environments; ensure designation of appropriate risk support and facilitate decision-making to resolve prioritization or resource conflicts, where needed. Assign and maintain roles and responsibilities for initiatives, establish clear and mutually understood expectations, set objectives, establish priorities, monitor and evaluate results.
• Lead change management initiatives by following established methodologies.
• Provide support for key operational risk policies.
• Partner across the three lines of defense to achieve continuous improvement in the execution of risk management activities at the Firm.
• Partner across the second line of defense operational risk teams to provide a horizontal view of operational risk to improve risk identification, enhance decision making and provide a more comprehensive operational risk view to the business.

What you are good at:

• The ability to quickly earn the trust of sponsors and key stakeholders; set direction and approach; resolve conflict; ask tough questions and deliver tough messages in a professional and diplomatic manner; and implement with limited information and ambiguity.
• High agility to manage multiple initiatives that vary in scope, complexity and ambiguity simultaneously with a high sense of urgency and strong attention to detail.
• Ability to think strategically and holistically across the Firm and risk verticals.
• Ability to work both in a strategic and executional capacity with ability to prioritize effectively and lead stakeholders in a fast-paced and matrixed environment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with demonstrated ability to articulate insights and recommendations that persuade audiences.
• Strong interpersonal skills / ability to forge strong relationships across multiple levels of the organization to create alignment and support.
• Strong business acumen with command of current business trends, issues and nuances in retail brokerage.
• Managerial courage and the ability to excel in a fast paced and changing environment.
• The ability to promote a culture of partnership, high performance, and continuous improvement that values collaborative challenge, learning, and a commitment to quality with all CRM partners.

What you have

To ensure that we fulfill our promise of “challenging the status quo,” this role has specific qualifications that successful candidates should have.

Required Qualifications:

• 10 years of experience in risk management, governance, or similar role.
• Strong understanding of risk management principles, methodologies and tools, and governance principles in a financial services environment.
• Experience with a retail brokerage business model and a firm understanding of how risks manifest.
• A firm grasp on operational risk data management and analysis, in particular, the ability to incorporate and understand mass information from a variety of sources to recommend a course of action.
• Undergraduate degree (BA/BS) required.