Head of Controlling & Risk - Director

At Swissquote, we’re all in.
All in to shake things up. All in to build the bank people actually want to use. All in to make finance less boring — and a lot more powerful.

We’re Switzerland’s leading digital bank — 1,500+ people across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, building real financial solutions for over a million clients worldwide. From trading and investing to everyday banking, we cover the full picture. We move fast, but we build things we’re genuinely proud of. Have a look behind the scenes by checking Humans of Swissquote on Instagram.

Growing fast creates room. Room to try things, own things, and grow at a pace most places can’t offer. Whether you like the spotlight or prefer to just put your head down and do great work, there’s space for both here.

We’ve ditched the dress code — but never the chance to celebrate. Big win or small, we make it count. The kind of place where the atmosphere takes care of itself.

As an equal opportunity employer, we welcome candidates from all backgrounds, experiences and perspectives to join our team and contribute to our shared success.

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The Head Controlling & Risk leads the Controlling & Risk department and oversees a multidisciplinary team of approximately 20 employees organised across specialised risks The role is responsible for ensuring that credit, market, liquidity, operational and related regulatory risks are identified, monitored, challenged and reported across the Group in line with the risk appetite defined by the Board of Directors. 

The role also oversees the Group’s internal control framework, ensuring that key controls, governance standards and related documentation remain effective, consistent and appropriately monitored.

Key Responsibilities 

• Leadership and department management: define the department’s priorities and operating model; lead, coach and develop managers and teams; ensure effective resource allocation and continuous upskilling. 

• Risk governance and reporting: produce and present clear reports for the Risk Committee, Executive Management and the Board of Directors; ensure adequate escalation of material risk developments, incidents, KRIs and remediation actions. 

• Risk framework ownership: maintain and continuously improve the Group risk management and internal control frameworks, including policies, methodologies, risk appetite monitoring, risk taxonomy, controls and reporting standards; draft, review and update risk policies, procedures and governance documents; support the development of structured approached to assess risk culture, control effectiveness and internal control maturity

The Head Controlling & Risk provides strategic direction and effective challenge across the following areas, acting as the senior point of contact for C&R teams, other internal stakeholders, governance bodies and regulators on Controlling & Risk matters: 

• Credit, market and liquidity risks – own investments: oversee concentration analysis, limit monitoring, stress testing, RWA, capital & liquidity planning and related risk indicators. 

• Credit and market risks – client activities: oversee the monitoring of clients active in ETD trading, lending and eFX trading, including trading conditions, margin parameters, daily margin call analysis, stress testing and market watch. 

• Operational risk management: oversee the identification, assessment, monitoring and reporting of operational risks, excluding dedicated IT and AML topics where separate specialised functions exist; coordinate the RCSA framework, KRIs, incidents and action management monitoring. 

• Reconciliation activities: supervise the reconciliation of cash, securities and cryptocurrencies with external counterparties and custodians, ensuring timely escalation and remediation of discrepancies. 

• Consolidated supervision: contribute to Group-level oversight by ensuring consistent risk standards, reporting and escalation across relevant entities and activities. 

• Regulatory relations: liaise with FINMA, SIX and other relevant stakeholders on Controlling & Risk topics, and oversee alignment with applicable regulatory requirements. 

• Projects, change and new business initiatives: contribute to New Business Initiative risk analyses, process improvements, automation initiatives and risk-related transformation projects, including the development of dashboards, maturity assessments and monitoring frameworks supporting continuous improvement of risk governance and internal controls.

• In-scope products and activities: mainstream securities, including bonds, equities, structured products and precious metals; exchange-traded derivatives; cryptocurrencies and digital assets; eFX and interbank FX products, including CFDs on multiple underlyings, spot and forward FX. 

• Master's degree in a relevant field; a recognised professional qualification in risk, internal controls, audit or finance (e.g. FRM, PRM, CIA, CRMA, CISA or CFA) is strongly preferred.

• 10+ years of experience in a leadership position in banking, financial services, risk management or a related field, including substantial leadership experience, ideally within a regulated and international financial institution.  

• Proven experience with responsibility for multiple risk disciplines and/or multidisciplinary teams, including exposure to risk governance, internal control frameworks and organisational or control maturity initiatives.

• Strong strategic leadership and experience managing multidisciplinary expert teams. 

• Broad expertise in credit, market, liquidity and operational risk within a banking environment. 

• Solid knowledge of Swiss banking regulation, FINMA expectations and Basel standards, ideally within a Category 3 bank. 

• Strong strategic thinking, business acumen and judgement. 

• Pragmatic and solutions-oriented, with the ability to balance risk, business growth and operational efficiency. 

• Strong communication, presentation and writing skills, including risk reports, policies and Board-level materials 

• Confident constructive challenger, with high integrity, independence and credibility. 

• Technology-minded, with a strong interest in digitalisation, data and AI. 

• Additional assets: Understanding of ICT, cyber and data-security risks. Experience with GRC platforms, RCSA, KRI and incident management workflows. Quantitative/model risk and stress-testing expertise. Data science, AI and automation applied to risk monitoring and reporting. 

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