Job Summary

The Conduct, Risk and Assurance Lead is responsible for leading a first-line team that delivers oversight and assurance across conduct risk, operational risk practices, and audit engagement activities within Technology and Operations (T&O).

This role is accountable for the end-to-end management of conduct risk, including designing and executing initiatives to improve risk culture, awareness, and outcomes. The role holder will develop and deliver education, training, and communication programmes to embed conduct expectations consistently across the function. A key focus will be the development of data-driven insights to detect and respond to emerging conduct trends.
In parallel, the role will establish and run a first-line assurance capability, delivering targeted deep dives into processes and performing quarterly thematic reviews, including root cause analysis of technology incidents and risk assessments. These reviews will provide T&O leadership with actionable insights to strengthen controls and reduce risk exposure.

The role also serves as the primary point of coordination with internal and external auditors, leading pre-audit readiness reviews, supporting audit fieldwork, and ensuring timely closure of findings. Strong collaboration with second- and third-line teams is essential to align assurance activities, avoid duplication, and present a consistent risk narrative.

This is a senior leadership role requiring strong technical knowledge of non-financial risk, excellent stakeholder engagement, and the ability to drive strategic outcomes through both oversight and hands-on execution.
 

Key Responsibilities

Strategy

• Define and lead the conduct risk and assurance strategy for Technology and Operations.
• Deliver T&O-wide oversight and accountability for the management of conduct risk.
• Develop a programme of initiatives that strengthen the organisation’s risk culture and conduct outcomes.
• Establish a strategic assurance plan that targets key risk areas, including those linked to operational failures and technology incidents.
• Create data-driven tools to support detection and analysis of conduct and control issues.
• Align strategy with enterprise risk goals, regulatory expectations, and internal audit focus areas.

Business 

• Serve as the primary advisor to T&O leadership on conduct and assurance matters.
• Provide subject matter expertise to business and function heads on the design and implementation of conduct controls.
• Maintain strong working relationships with risk partners, internal audit, compliance, and regulators.
• Offer practical, actionable insights that help business leaders improve conduct outcomes and address assurance gaps.
• Ensure the function is audit-ready and can clearly articulate control effectiveness and remediation progress.

Processes

• Lead the development and delivery of conduct education, awareness, and communication programmes across T&O.
• Plan, design, and implement first-line assurance reviews, including deep dives into high-risk or complex activities.
• Perform quarterly thematic reviews, including analysis of RCA outputs, technology incident trends, and root cause patterns.
• Develop and maintain meaningful MI to track conduct outcomes and performance against the conduct plan.
• Report regularly to governance forums such as the Technology and Operations NFRC, ensuring transparency and accountability.
• Ensure alignment of assurance activities with the enterprise risk management framework and audit planning cycles.

People & Talent

• Build and lead a team of experienced risk and assurance professionals.
• Set the tone from the top, promoting integrity, openness, and strong risk behaviours.
• Attract and retain subject matter experts in conduct risk, assurance, and audit management.
• Develop team capability through training, coaching, and hands-on engagement with reviews and investigations.
• Create a positive and challenging team environment that promotes learning and continuous improvement.

Risk Management

• Deliver holistic oversight of conduct risk across T&O, working closely with functional risk leads and control owners.
• Establish and maintain a control testing and assurance plan that identifies weaknesses in first-line design and execution.
• Coordinate and conduct pre-audit reviews to identify potential gaps ahead of formal audit engagements.
• Provide root cause reviews of conduct-related incidents, including issues arising from major operational or technology failures.
• Use data analytics and thematic review findings to inform control enhancements and process redesigns

Governance

• Represent the first line in key governance forums, providing insight into conduct risk status and assurance outcomes.
• Coordinate internal and external audit engagements, acting as the main liaison for the first line.
• Oversee timely and effective resolution of audit findings, including tracking and escalation of overdue actions.
• Collaborate with second- and third-line teams to align assurance coverage, reduce duplication, and improve effectiveness.
• Escalate material issues and risk trends in a timely manner, supported by data, insight, and clear recommendations.

Regulatory & Business Conduct

• Display exemplary conduct and live by the Group’s Values and Code of Conduct. 
• Take personal responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, including regulatory and business conduct, across Standard Chartered Bank. This includes understanding and ensuring compliance with, in letter and spirit, all applicable laws, regulations, guidelines and the Group Code of Conduct.
• Lead the function to achieve the outcomes set out in the Bank’s Conduct Principles: [Fair Outcomes for Clients; Effective Financial Markets; Financial Crime Compliance; The Right Environment.]  
• Effectively and collaboratively identify, escalate, mitigate and resolve risk, conduct and compliance matters.

Key stakeholders

• Group Chief Information Officer (interim) and Group Chief Operating Officer (interim)
• Group Chief Risk Officer (GCRO)
• Global Head of T&O Risk and Control and Management Team
• Global Head of OTCR and Management Team
• T&O Management Team (MT) Members and their teams
• Risk Officers across all businesses and functions
• Group Internal Audit (GIA)
• Regulatory Liaison Team

Our Ideal Candidate

•    10+ years in risk governance, regulatory engagement, technology risk, or non-financial risk management
•    Experience in designing or embedding a conduct risk framework.
•    Experience in managing and / or executed targeted assurance reviews.
•    Experience in training colleagues across businesses & functions on Conduct.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Risk Management, Law, Business Administration, Technology, or a related field.

Role Specific Technical Competencies

• Risk Management
• Analytical Thinking
• Planning: Tactical, Strategic
• Managing Change
• Stakeholder Management
• Data & Reporting
• Project Management
   

About Standard Chartered

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.

Recruitment Assessments

Some of our roles use assessments to help us understand how suitable you are for the role you've applied to. If you are invited to take an assessment, this is great news. It means your application has progressed to an important stage of our recruitment process.

Visit our careers website www.sc.com/careers