Risk Manager

Job Description

Job Description:\n\nPosition Summary\nOur client is seeking an experienced Risk Management Officer to establish, implement, and oversee a comprehensive enterprise risk management framework covering the Firm's existing and evolving businesses.\nThe Risk Management Officer will have primary responsibility for developing and maintaining effective controls over credit risk, counterparty risk, market risk, concentration risk, liquidity-related exposures, margin risk, and trading-related exposures across Firm's businesses.\nThe position will provide independent risk oversight and challenge to the Firm's business activities while working closely with senior management, Compliance, Operations, Finance, Legal, Technology, and business-unit supervisors.\nOur firm's businesses include:\n• Prime Brokerage services;\n• Portfolio Margining;\n• NYSE Floor Executions Desk;\n• Blueline and OTC trading activities;\n• Nasdaq sales and trading;\n• Institutional sales and trading;\n• Investment Banking; and\n• Securities Lending.\nThe Risk Management Officer will be responsible for translating the Firm's risk appetite into specific risk limits, exposure thresholds, escalation procedures, monitoring reports, controls, and supervisory processes that are appropriate to each business line. The successful candidate will be expected to be both a strategic risk leader and a hands-on risk practitioner, capable of designing the framework while also performing or overseeing daily risk monitoring, investigating exceptions, challenging exposures, and escalating material risk matters.\nCore Responsibilities\n1. Enterprise Risk Management Framework Develop and maintain firm's comprehensive risk management framework covering the Firm's material financial and trading risks.\nResponsibilities include:\n• Establish and maintain written risk management policies, procedures, standards, and controls.\n• Develop a Firm-wide risk taxonomy identifying material risks by business line and activity. • Establish risk appetite statements, risk tolerances, limits, triggers, and escalation thresholds.\n• Develop business-specific risk parameters based on the nature, size, complexity, and liquidity characteristics of each business.\n• Establish clear ownership of risk controls among Risk Management, business supervisors, Compliance, Operations, Finance, and other control functions.\n• Establish independent risk oversight and challenge processes. • Develop procedures for identifying, measuring, monitoring, escalating, and mitigating emerging risks.\n• Periodically assess whether existing risk controls remain appropriate as the firm's businesses, products, counterparties, and trading strategies change.\n• Prepare periodic risk assessments for senior management and the Board/Risk Committee.\n2. Credit and Counterparty Risk Establish and oversee Firm's credit and counterparty risk management program. Responsibilities include:\n• Establish counterparty credit limits for customers, brokers, banks, dealers, institutional counterparties, trading counterparties, and other relevant entities.\n• Develop methodologies for evaluating counterparty creditworthiness.\n• Establish exposure limits based on counterparty financial strength, collateral, liquidity, legal documentation, and transaction characteristics.\n• Monitor current and potential future exposure.\n• Establish procedures for calculating: Gross exposure; Net exposure; Secured exposure; Unsecured exposure; Settlement exposure; Replacement-cost exposure; and Potential future exposure.\n• Monitor counterparty concentrations.\n• Establish controls for intraday credit exposure.\n• Establish escalation procedures when counterparties approach or exceed approved limits. • Review and approve credit limits and exceptions within delegated authority.\n• Coordinate with Legal and Operations regarding master trading agreements, securities lending agreements, prime brokerage agreements, margin agreements, and other relevant documentation.\n• Establish procedures for monitoring counterparty defaults, deteriorating credit conditions, failed settlements, margin deficiencies, and other indicators of increased counterparty risk.\n• Maintain watchlists and heightened-monitoring processes for higher-risk counterparties.\n3. Prime Brokerage Risk Develop and oversee risk controls applicable to AmerX's Prime Brokerage activities. Responsibilities include:\n• Establish client-level exposure limits.\n• Monitor client debit balances and financing exposures.\n• Monitor client collateral and margin sufficiency.\n• Establish concentration limits for individual securities, issuers, sectors, and asset classes.\n• Monitor long and short positions and associated financing requirements.\n• Establish controls for intraday exposure.\n• Monitor client liquidity and liquidation risk.\n• Establish procedures for responding to margin calls and collateral deficiencies. • Establish liquidation and escalation procedures for stressed accounts.\n• Monitor risks associated with concentrated, illiquid, hard-to-borrow, volatile, or otherwise higher-risk positions.\n• Establish controls around client-specific risk exceptions and overrides. • Coordinate with Operations and Compliance to ensure timely escalation of material risk issues.\n4. Portfolio Margining Establish and oversee the Firm's portfolio margin risk controls.\nResponsibilities include:\n• Monitor portfolio margin requirements and excess equity.\n• Establish minimum excess equity and risk thresholds.\n• Monitor intraday portfolio risk.\n• Review concentrated and highly correlated positions.\n• Monitor stress losses and adverse market scenarios.\n• Establish controls for portfolios approaching margin or risk limits. • Establish escalation procedures for margin deficiencies.\n• Monitor risk associated with option positions and complex portfolios.\n• Review the adequacy of portfolio-margin methodologies and assumptions.\n• Establish controls for changes to portfolio composition that could materially increase risk.\n• Coordinate with Operations, Finance, Compliance, and business supervisors regarding margin-related exceptions.\n5. Market Risk Management Develop and implement a comprehensive market-risk monitoring program across Firm's trading and investment activities. The Risk Management Officer will establish appropriate methodologies for measuring and monitoring:\n• Position risk;\n• Price risk;\n• Volatility risk;\n• Interest-rate risk;\n• Equity risk;\n• Credit-spread risk;\n• Foreign-exchange risk, where applicable;\n• Option and derivatives risk;\n• Liquidity-adjusted market risk;\n• Concentration risk;\n• Basis risk; • Gap risk;\n• Event risk; and\n• Overnight and intraday risk. The Officer will establish appropriate risk measures, including where applicable:\n• Position limits;\n• Notional limits;\n• Gross and net exposure limits;\n• Stress-loss limits;\n• Concentration limits;\n• Stop-loss or loss-escalation thresholds;\n• Volatility thresholds; • Intraday limits; and\n• Overnight limits.\n6. NYSE Floor Executions Desk Establish risk controls specifically applicable to Firm's NYSE floor execution activities.\nResponsibilities include:\n• Monitor execution-related positions and exposures.\n• Establish controls for principal and agency activity.\n• Monitor order and position risks where AmerX assumes financial exposure.\n• Establish appropriate intraday exposure limits.\n• Monitor unusual or rapidly increasing positions.\n• Establish escalation procedures for positions exceeding established thresholds.\n• Coordinate with the NYSE Floor Desk Supervisor and Compliance regarding trading exceptions and unusual activity.\n• Ensure that risk controls appropriately distinguish between agency execution activity and transactions in which Firm assumes principal or market exposure.\n• Monitor settlement and fail risks associated with execution activity.\n• Establish procedures for managing market exposure arising from errors, trade breaks, unmatched trades, or other operational events.\n7. Blueline / OTC Trading Develop risk controls for Blueline and other OTC trading activities.\nResponsibilities include:\n• Establish counterparty and trading limits.\n• Monitor OTC position and exposure levels.\n• Establish limits for less-liquid securities and instruments.\n• Monitor valuation and pricing risks. • Establish controls for stale, unavailable, or unreliable pricing.\n• Monitor inventory concentrations.\n• Establish limits for securities with limited market liquidity.\n• Monitor mark-to-market exposures. • Establish procedures for independent price verification, where appropriate.\n• Monitor settlement and delivery risks.\n• Establish controls for unusual, large, or concentrated OTC transactions.\n• Escalate material OTC exposures to appropriate senior management.\n 8. Nasdaq Sales and Trading Develop risk controls covering Firm's Nasdaq-related sales and trading activities.\nResponsibilities include:\n• Monitor trader and desk-level positions.\n• Establish position and exposure limits.\n• Monitor intraday and overnight exposure.\n• Establish controls for concentrated positions.\n• Monitor market volatility and liquidity conditions.\n• Establish escalation thresholds for losses and rapidly increasing exposures.\n• Monitor principal trading and inventory risk.\n• Coordinate with Trading Supervisors and Compliance regarding risk exceptions.\n• Establish controls for trading activity that could create material market or counterparty exposure.\n9. Investment Banking Risk Develop appropriate risk controls for Firm's Investment Banking activities. Responsibilities Include Depending on the transaction and firm's role, monitoring risks associated with:\n• Underwriting commitments;\n• Bridge or financing commitments;\n• Securities offerings;\n• Syndication exposures;\n• Capital commitments;\n• Deal-related market exposure;\n• Unsold inventory;\n• Concentration risk;\n• Issuer/counterparty credit risk;\n• Transaction execution risk;\n• Liquidity requirements associated with commitments. The Risk Management Officer will participate in the risk review of material transactions and establish appropriate approval thresholds and escalation procedures.\n10. Securities Lending Risk Establish and oversee risk controls applicable to Firm's securities lending activities.\nResponsibilities include:\n• Establish counterparty exposure limits.\n• Monitor collateral requirements.\n• Monitor collateral concentration and eligibility.\n• Monitor mark-to-market exposure.\n• Monitor collateral haircuts.\n• Monitor hard-to-borrow and volatile securities.\n• Monitor borrower concentration.\n• Monitor settlement and delivery exposure.\n• Establish controls for collateral deficiencies.\n• Establish procedures for rapid escalation when collateral values decline or borrower exposures increase.\n• Monitor potential losses associated with counterparty default and collateral liquidation.\n• Coordinate with Operations and business personnel regarding recalls, buy-ins, fails, and other events affecting risk.\n11. Concentration Risk Develop a Firm-wide concentration-risk framework. Monitor concentrations by:\n• Counterparty;\n• Client;\n• Issuer;\n• Security;\n• Sector;\n• Industry;\n• Asset class;\n• Trading desk;\n• Business line; • Market;\n• Liquidity profile;\n• Other relevant risk dimensions. Establish both hard limits and early-warning thresholds and ensure that material concentrations are escalated before they become limit violations.\n12. Stress Testing and Scenario Analysis Develop and maintain a comprehensive stress-testing program. Stress scenarios should consider, as appropriate:\n• Significant market declines;\n• Rapid increases in volatility;\n• Interest-rate shocks;\n• Credit-spread widening;\n• Counterparty default;\n• Multiple counterparty defaults;\n• Significant collateral declines;\n• Liquidity deterioration;\n• Large client withdrawals;\n• Prime brokerage client defaults;\n• Securities lending counterparty default;\n• Concentrated position liquidation;\n• Trading error or operational event;\n• Market closure or trading interruption;\n• Significant margin requirement increases; and\n• Combined market and counterparty stress. The Risk Management Officer will establish procedures for reviewing stress results, identifying vulnerabilities, and escalating material findings to senior management.\n13. Intraday Risk Monitoring Develop an intraday risk-monitoring framework capable of identifying material changes in exposure during the trading day. The framework should provide appropriate monitoring of:\n• Trading positions;\n• Client exposures;\n• Margin requirements;\n• Counterparty exposures;\n• Concentrations;\n• Market movements;\n• Losses;\n• Liquidity;\n• Collateral;\n• Trading limits;\n• Other material risk indicators. The Officer will establish escalation protocols for significant intraday risk events.\n14. Risk Limits and Exceptions Establish and administer AmerX's risk-limit framework.\nResponsibilities include:\n• Maintain a centralized inventory of approved risk limits.\n• Define limits at the Firm, business-line, desk, counterparty, client, and/or trader level where appropriate.\n• Establish warning thresholds below hard limits.\n• Monitor limit utilization.\n• Identify and investigate limit breaches.\n• Document the cause and resolution of exceptions.\n• Establish formal approval requirements for temporary limit increases. • Ensure that limit overrides are documented and independently reviewed.\n• Escalate unresolved or material exceptions to senior management.\n15. Risk Reporting and Management Information Develop a comprehensive risk reporting framework for senior management.\nResponsibilities Include Reports that should provide, as appropriate:\n• Firm-wide risk exposure;\n• Business-line exposure;\n• Counterparty exposure;\n• Client exposure;\n• Market exposure;\n• Concentration exposure;\n• Margin exposure;\n• Collateral exposure;\n• Limit utilization;\n• Limit breaches;\n• Risk exceptions;\n• Stress-test results;\n• Top exposures;\n• Emerging risks; \n• Significant changes in risk profile. The Risk Management Officer will establish reporting frequency appropriate to the risk, including real-time, intraday, daily, weekly, and monthly reporting where warranted.\n16. Risk Data, Systems and Technology Work with Technology, Operations, Finance, and business units to develop reliable risk data and reporting capabilities. Responsibilities include: • Define risk-data requirements.\n• Identify required data sources.\n• Establish data-quality controls.\n• Identify gaps in existing risk systems.\n• Develop automated risk monitoring where appropriate.\n• Establish appropriate controls over risk calculations.\n• Validate risk reports and calculations.\n• Develop exception reporting and automated alerts.\n• Establish procedures for addressing data failures or unavailable risk information.\n• Participate in the selection and implementation of risk-management technology. The Officer should be comfortable working with large datasets and translating business requirements into technology and reporting solutions.\n17. Model and Methodology Governance Wher