Location: Riyadh
Job Type:
Permanent
Closing Date:
2025-08-02
About vacancy
mselect is looking to hire a Risk Management Director for an international fintech client in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Candidates must have a minimum of 10 years of progressive risk management experience working in the payment services or financial industry. Fluency in English is a must.
Job Purpose
We are seeking a dynamic Director to join its team and lead Digital Payment risk management across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. This role serves as the face of Risk with the external obligation to ensure interactions with clients, partners, merchants, regulators and other third parties on risk-related matters are well-informed, effective, and collectively moving the ecosystem towards a stronger state. Internally, the Risk Management Director must leverage their market knowledge and presence to ensure risk-related policies, programs and frameworks are aligned with current and future business demands. The Director role provides deep insights, thought leadership and support against a broader set of risk-related issues and activities, including client fraud and approval optimization, credit settlement risk, anti-money laundering, deployment of Risk solutions, the use of third parties and deployment of emerging technologies. The Director will serve as the risk leader and advisor to the KBO business and GCC & CEMEA Risk leadership teams and will play a vital role in shaping the risk management landscape in a rapidly growing cluster. Reporting directly to the Senior Director, Risk, GCC, this role requires frequent collaboration with internal stakeholders across the GCC and CEMEA regions, and extensive external engagements with clients, partners, government and other payment industry stakeholders. As an individual contributor, this role requires a highly self-motivated individual, with the skills and ability to work with a diverse set of stakeholders across the Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman clusters.
Core Principles in Risk Management
Key Responsibilities
Requirements
*Only applicants meeting the strict criteria outlined above will be contacted as part of the shortlisting process.
Job Purpose
We are seeking a dynamic Director to join its team and lead Digital Payment risk management across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. This role serves as the face of Risk with the external obligation to ensure interactions with clients, partners, merchants, regulators and other third parties on risk-related matters are well-informed, effective, and collectively moving the ecosystem towards a stronger state. Internally, the Risk Management Director must leverage their market knowledge and presence to ensure risk-related policies, programs and frameworks are aligned with current and future business demands. The Director role provides deep insights, thought leadership and support against a broader set of risk-related issues and activities, including client fraud and approval optimization, credit settlement risk, anti-money laundering, deployment of Risk solutions, the use of third parties and deployment of emerging technologies. The Director will serve as the risk leader and advisor to the KBO business and GCC & CEMEA Risk leadership teams and will play a vital role in shaping the risk management landscape in a rapidly growing cluster. Reporting directly to the Senior Director, Risk, GCC, this role requires frequent collaboration with internal stakeholders across the GCC and CEMEA regions, and extensive external engagements with clients, partners, government and other payment industry stakeholders. As an individual contributor, this role requires a highly self-motivated individual, with the skills and ability to work with a diverse set of stakeholders across the Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman clusters.
Core Principles in Risk Management
- Market Knowledge: Maintain a heightened awareness of the country or regional business environment, the payment system and other risks to clients operating in each market, and the past and present tactics being deployed to mitigate these risks
- Business Alignment: Align risk-related objectives and activities with business goals in the same area to maximize long-term growth
- Relationship Management: Engage key stakeholders (clients, partners, law enforcement, government and others) to secure support for goals and address identified risks
- Thought Leadership: Differentiate by demonstrating thought leadership to payment system stakeholders on risk issues, pulling from local, regional, and global sources As a Risk Vanguard within the cluster work with Risk to identify new & novel methods used by criminals to target clients or stakeholders and build customized and innovative risk offerings by aligning with internal stakeholders to disrupt emerging fraud & security vulnerabilities affecting the Payments Industry
- Communication: Ensure strong communication and provide marketplace feedback around risk-related programs and policies, and other activities
Key Responsibilities
- Ecosystem Risk Management: Maintain a heightened awareness of the country or regional business environment, payment systems, and other risks to clients operating in each market Stay informed about past and present tactics used to mitigate these risks Monitor local risk-related trends and developments, such as fraud schemes, regulatory changes, and key developments required to enhance the risk profile of partners and clients as well as risk posture Take the lead in protecting the payment ecosystem by proactively managing Ecosystem Integrity programs with internal and external stakeholders
- Business Alignment: Align risk-related objectives and activities with business goals in the region to optimize long-term growth and ensure that risk management strategies support and enhance the overall business strategy
- Risk Relationship Management: Engage key stakeholders, including clients, law enforcement, government, and other relevant entities, to secure support for goals and address identified risks Be the primary risk expert advisor to key clients in the market Drive customized risk engagements and provide focus to key clients, fintech’s, merchants, and emerging payment stakeholders Develop and execute a client engagement plan and materials to help clients optimize fraud performance, determine the type and frequency of engagements
- Thought Leadership: Differentiate by demonstrating thought leadership on risk issues to payment system stakeholders Participate in and orchestrate industry forums (e.g. clients, law enforcement, regulators, industry participants), and consumer awareness campaigns of payment system stakeholders to drive greater awareness and support for payment system risk strategy Be the point of reference in all risk-related engagement with regulatory and industry bodies Differentiate as a digital payments leader by providing clients and other stakeholders with value-added insights, best practices, conducting onsite market fraud prevention seminars (or webinars), and educational materials
- Communication: Ensure effective communication and provide marketplace feedback regarding risk-related programs, policies, and other activities Maintain transparency and keep all relevant parties informed about risk management initiatives and outcomes
Requirements
- Master’s degree required with 10+ years of progressive risk management experience working in the payment services or financial industry
- Strong understanding of the inter-dependency between Credit, Operational, Strategic and Cybersecurity Risks
- Understanding of current and emerging payment system risk trends across the Middle East & Africa
- Ability to influence at senior levels both internally and externally
- Excellent written, oral and presentation skills and an ability to synthesize complex and technical information into clear recommendations on course of action
- Detail orientation and strong analytical skills, willingness to offer thought leadership, to think creatively, and to offer new ways to approach old problems
- Flexibility and ability to think creatively and to identify new ways to approach old problems
- Ability to identify and pursue multiple initiatives simultaneously and deliver superior results
- This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager
- Exceptional project management and reporting skills Strong proficiency with project management tools (i.e. Microsoft Project, Visio, PowerPoint) Proven ability to prioritize deliverables and projects to meet timelines efficiently, to adapt to changes in priorities quickly and manage multiple initiatives simultaneously to drive projects to completion and deliver quality materials under tight deadlines
- Experience determining when to escalate to management and identifying the right stakeholders for decision-making
- Excellent collaboration and communications skills with experience in influencing, communicating and driving change through cross-functional groups, including the ability to diplomatically build consensus across disparate views
- Positive, proactive, solution-oriented problem solver who gets things done within a matrix organization
- Experience in preparing, reviewing, and delivering (concise) executive-level communications
- lead underwriting operations for SME, Retail or corporate lending for a large Financial Institution for a minimum of 3 years, taking accountability for application processing and credit decisioning functions
- Led the underwriting of merchants for a large acquirer including client risk assessment and due diligence, onboarding
- Strong understanding of and experience managing acquiring risk with hands-on experience improving the acquiring risk posture of an entity
- Experience in managing fraud risk, transaction monitoring operations, application fraud assessment, and suspicious transaction review
- Good understanding of Anti-Money Laundering policies and operational processes
- Assessed the impact of regulation on business or operations, responsible for responding to regulatory requirements, and participated in or led responses to regulatory supervision or scrutiny
- Experience with maximizing portfolio performance within the confines of local regulation
*Only applicants meeting the strict criteria outlined above will be contacted as part of the shortlisting process.
