Investment Risk Analyst

Within GRM, the UK Investment Risk Analysis team perform a range of activities which contribute to ensuring that all portfolios are managed in line with client objectives as well as internal standards and regulatory requirements.

Within our UK Investment Risk Analysis team, this role is expected to initially focus on the independent risk oversight of our AXA IM Equities business, being the lead analyst for a large part of the fund range (several tens of billions AUM, across a range of global, regional, and country strategies many of which incorporate very strong ESG or impact investing considerations, as well as other thematic aspects such as societal change, within bottom-up stock picking of concentrated portfolios). Key aspects of the oversight are:

• Implementing a comprehensive risk oversight framework (including performance, market, liquidity, and pricing/valuation risks among others) using a range of internal and third-party tools and systems, engaging to discussions with investment teams and providing escalations and overviews to management as needed.
• Supporting the Senior Expert Risk Manager on risk oversight, challenge, and partnership for evolutions in the investment team's offering such as new products and product changes, other projects affecting the investment team, and deep dive reviews into specific areas.
• Delivering continuous improvement to the monitoring set up via participation to corporate projects as well as 'on desk' improvements (for instance delivering processes incorporating SQL/python and/or Tableau)

Alongside this the investment risk analyst will participate to the wider activities of the UK and Global risk teams likely to include:

• Acting as lead of back-up support on risk oversight of other investment strategies managed in the UK (likely to be a subset of quant equity, fixed income, balanced funds, fund of hedge funds and private equity impact, securities financing) across their risk dimensions (market risk, credit and counterparty risk, liquidity risk, performance risk, pricing, and valuation risk)
• Lead or support of investment risk project-style activities which enhance our global frameworks
• Support to other Global Risk Management (GRM) teams for their risk analysis where needed.

There may be potential scope for 'rotation' of asset class responsibilities within the team at later times, depending on the preferences of the various team members.

Main responsibilities

1- Investment Risk analysis and management:

• Analyse investment risks for new products/instruments, especially those with significant sophistication and/or complexity, and provide assessment to Global New Business Committee.
• Define and enhance risk policies and frameworks, in liaison with senior stakeholders in the investment teams and Global Risk Management department, supporting AXA IM's capability to support a large-scale investment business efficiently and safely.
• Within the context of established frameworks, define tailored internal investment guidelines and alert levels for individual portfolios in discussion with portfolio managers, and keep them updated to changes in products or market needs. Ensure analysis, remediation - and escalation if need be - of breaches or alerts raised by the Investment Guidelines or Portfolio Control teams.
• Maintain insight into portfolios' risk positioning on an ongoing basis using third-party risk systems/models (RiskMetrics, Barra, etc) and internal systems ("LiPS" Liquidity risk system, etc).
• Perform investment risk monitoring (leverage, stress testing...) required by regulation or AXA IM's standards, raise alerts if needed.
• Contribute to team processes in respect to counterparty risk including assessment/monitoring of new/existing counterparties, and analysis of collateral eligibility, haircut/liquidity requirements, etc. Provide support to Legal teams for the negotiation of ISDA/CSA/GMRA/GMSLA contracts.
• Interact with Senior Expertise Risk Managers (SERM) on key investment risks identification and mitigation at investment team level and provide SERMs with analytical support.
• Provide independent expertise in portfolio valuation aspects such as hard-to-price securities, fair value adjustments or fund dilution-protection mechanisms supporting best fair outcomes for clients.

2- Additional Equity Risk Management activities (as back-up to, or in partnership with, the Senior Expert Risk Manager - Equities) *:

• Provide comprehensive risk assessments of new products and changes for senior management, GNBC and CPC (Core Product Committee) in collaboration with other GRM teams as needed.
• Propose mitigation plans and follow-up to monitor implementation.
• Provide headline summaries of key performance and risk items within regular reports to the global senior management.
• Engage into 'deep dive' investment platform thematic reviews and investment process reviews.
• Act as a key point of contact within risk management for the various equity investment team heads.
• Review changes to client legal documentation such as IMAs, prospectuses and KIIDs.
• Maintain a strong current awareness of relevant topics (including those related to ESG/RI/Sustainability considerations) to inform risk assessments/approvals/contributions for the equity investment platform.

3- Project-style activities:

• Lead or support investment risk project-style activities which enhance our global frameworks (liquidity risk, counterparty risk...) as part of the wider global Investment Risk Analysis and Standards team.
• Continually review and improve tools and processes on own initiative and as part of wider team and corporate projects.

4- Senior management reporting and support (for UK Chief Risk Officer, etc):

• Providing regular summaries to senior management of portfolios' risk positioning, as well as risk oversight process effectiveness and completeness.
• Providing regular and comprehensive reporting to local risk committees, boards, and regulator.
• Providing support where necessary for regulatory, trustee and client visits and other similar needs.
• Proactively providing information on new investment risk issues and developments.

*The additional equity risk management activities are typically carried out by two of the analysts in the team depending which staff members are most aligned to investment risk analysis on the corresponding fund ranges

• Successful experience in investment risk management in a major bank or asset management company.
• Risk experience on various types of investment risks and a broad range of asset classes and investment strategies.
• Graduate in finance with an asset management/risk management focus or other quantitative discipline.
• Relevant professional qualifications can be advantageous - it is likely that the role holder will be a CFA charter holder/FRM/PRM-holder or having equivalently rigorous investment-related knowledge.
• Fluent English. French advantageous.
• Strong IT background (XL, VBA, python, ..., SQL advantageous). Experience with standard risk analysis tools (RiskMetrics, Factset, factor-based equity risk models...).
• Autonomy: is able to complete tasks of a certain technical or relational complexity unsupervised
• Rigour and reliability: demonstrates thoroughness and exercises judgment to provide, in a timely manner, quality analysis and deliverables
• Pragmatism and results orientation delivers timely, tangible, exploitable results which create value
• Ability to summarise and communicate: provides clear summaries and presentations to management, highlighting key points and control outcomes. Clearly presents these elements in the context of different meetings or committees
• Effective management of subjects on several fronts: more particularly, proactively acts to anticipate possible difficulties and escalates to management where necessary
• Team spirit: ability and desire to work as part of a team; will support others and build relationships within and outside of their immediate team; able to engage with the team on a global basis