Head of Risk MENA

Build the Enterprise Risk Management Framework for the MENA business, including risk appetite statements, KRIs, governance policies, and committee structures calibrated to the regulatory environment and the business's growth stage.

Lead the company's regulatory relationships across MENA, owning the risk function's contribution to supervisory expectations, licensing milestones, regulatory submissions, and inspections.

Oversee market, operational, and technology risk across the business, providing independent second-line challenges on exposure management, execution controls, pricing integrity, and operational resilience.

Design liquidity and financial risk oversight mechanisms, including stress testing and scenario analysis that reflects regulatory requirements, peak operational conditions, and adverse market scenarios.

Own third-party risk governance, setting due diligence and ongoing monitoring standards for technology partners, payment providers, market data providers, and outsourced operations.

Challenge first-line decisions on new products, partnerships, and material business changes, ensuring risk sign-off operates as a gating discipline rather than a downstream check.

Deliver decision-ready risk reporting to senior leadership and the board, including appetite breaches, emerging risks, incidents, and remediation progress that drives action rather than archives information.

Coordinate with global risk teams to maintain group-wide standards while building a regionally independent function with its own governance and escalation paths.

8+ years in risk management within regulated financial services, with experience spanning governance design, risk appetite frameworks, and active regulatory engagement.

Direct experience with CMA, CBUAE, or comparable Gulf regulatory frameworks strongly preferred.

Background in trading, payments, or multi-product financial services environments is an advantage.

Professional risk qualification (FRM, PRM, or CFA) is a plus.

You have built governance frameworks from scratch, not administered existing ones.

You can translate ambiguous regulatory requirements into practical structures.

You are comfortable in environments where the business is still defining what it is building.

You are credible with boards, senior leadership, and regulators.

Your challenge lands through evidence and clarity.

You build alignment across Finance, Compliance, Technology, Operations, and Product without creating noise or blocking progress.

You take ownership of outcomes, when something needs to exist, you build it.

You maintain independent judgment under pressure.

You are comfortable in an environment where governance structures are being designed alongside the business itself.