Senior Risk Manager

About the role:
We are looking for a hands-on Senior Risk Manager to help build the company's risk capabilities in Kuwait, with combined responsibility for enterprise and credit risk. As one of our first local hires, you will establish the governance, policies, risk appetite and reporting required for launch, while providing credit risk oversight as the portfolio grows. You will work closely with Kuwait leadership and Group Risk, as well as Product, Compliance, Finance and Operations, to ensure we scale responsibly and meet local regulatory expectations.

Key Responsibilities

• Building and maintaining the company's local risk management framework for Kuwait, covering enterprise and credit risk and aligning it with Group standards and applicable regulatory requirements.
• Developing the local risk strategy, risk appetite statement, policies, limits, governance forums and management reporting required for launch and ongoing operations by aligning with Group standard and adapted to local requirements.
• Owning the enterprise risk process, including risk identification and assessment, the risk register, key risk indicators, emerging-risk reviews, residual risk positions and remediation tracking.
• Providing independent risk challenges on new products, partnerships, customer journeys, operating models and other material business initiatives.
• Leading local credit risk oversight across the customer lifecycle, including underwriting and eligibility rules, credit limits, affordability, collections outcomes and portfolio quality, focusing on local regulatory requirements.
• Partnering with Group Risk and Product teams to calibrate credit strategies for Kuwait and assess model, policy and limit changes.
• Establishing clear early-warning indicators, thresholds and reporting to support timely, data-informed risk decisions.
• Preparing risk assessments, reporting and recommendations for local leadership, risk committees, the Board and regulators, as applicable.
• Supporting licensing activities, regulatory submissions, examinations and information requests in partnership with Compliance, Legal and other control functions as well as acting as primary risk contact for Internal Audit.
• Coordinating risk input into business continuity, outsourcing and third-party risk, operational incidents and control assessments.
• Promoting a practical risk culture and helping teams understand how risks should be identified, assessed, escalated and managed as well as ensuring material risks and control gaps are escalated and addressed at the right level.
• Helping shape the future Kuwait risk organisation and supporting hiring as the business scales.

You should apply if

• You have strong risk management experience within banking, fintech, consumer lending, payments or another regulated financial-services environment.
• You bring meaningful hands-on experience across both enterprise risk and credit risk, rather than exposure limited to governance or oversight.
• You have built or materially improved risk frameworks, policies, risk appetite, governance structures, reporting and control processes.
• You understand consumer credit risk across underwriting, credit policy, portfolio monitoring, collections performance and loss drivers.
• You understand enterprise risk disciplines including risk and control assessments, KRIs, incident and issue management, operational resilience, third-party risk and emerging risks.
• You understand the Kuwait regulatory environment; experience engaging with the Central Bank of Kuwait or another GCC financial-services regulator.
• You can operate independently in a new-market environment and are comfortable building the essentials yourself before a wider team is in place.
• You can balance strong governance with practical, proportionate execution and constructively challenge senior stakeholders when required.
• You communicate complex risk topics clearly and can prepare decision-ready materials for leadership, governance forums and regulators.
• You work effectively across Product, Data, Operations, Compliance, Finance, Legal and Internal Audit.
• You hold a bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Risk Management, Business, Mathematics or a related field; FRM, PRM, CFA or a comparable qualification is an advantage.
• You are professionally fluent in English; Arabic is an advantage.