The Role

The global asset manager is hiring a Senior Risk Officer based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The position reports to the Head of Compliance and is responsible for daily risk monitoring and mitigation across credit, collateral, and operational risk portfolios, with a primary focus on margin lending and financing operations. The role also ensures trading accounts comply with local CMA regulatory requirements.

Responsibilities

Margin and Credit Control

• Validate that all margin transactions meet mandatory initial and maintenance margin thresholds before execution.
• Assess client financial profiles using the internal credit scorecard to assign and review margin limits.
• Monitor daily margin usage, block unauthorised limit extensions, and escalate breaches to senior management immediately.
• Confirm that margin trading is restricted from unapproved, highly speculative, or derivative instruments.

Collateral and Liquidation Management

• Evaluate eligible stocks to assign Initial Margin ratios and risk groups; restrict high-risk stocks accordingly.
• Track total credit exposure per stock across all client portfolios to prevent excessive single-stock concentration.
• Recommend and direct forced liquidations for unsettled margin calls, prioritising assets from high-risk to higher-quality holdings.

Operational Risk and Process Controls

• Establish processes to assess and mitigate risks associated with new products, services, distribution channels, or system changes.
• Sample, test, and validate manual entries, correction entries, and account regularisations within core systems.
• Coordinate with department heads to keep procedures current and to embed controls for new business processes.
• Monitor, investigate, and report significant events including incidents, complaints, errors, rule breaches, and fraud.

Governance and Reporting

• Prepare the annual risk assessment plan and recommend policy adjustments in line with the firm's risk appetite.
• Provide ongoing risk identification and mitigation support to business lines and department heads.
• Produce risk exposure dashboards and reports for the Board and Group Risk on a timely basis.
• Work with internal audit and compliance to conduct integrated control reviews and track regulatory requirements.

Expected Profile

• Bachelor's degree in Law, Business Administration, Finance, or a related field.
• CMA qualifications required: CME-1A and CME-1B.
• Three to six years of experience in credit risk or market risk within a CMA-licensed institution.
• Specific exposure to margin trading environments is required.