Finance Risk & Controls Manager

When you work with the UK's most innovative companies, you know you're making a difference.

SVB UK (backed by HSBC) is the banking partner to the UK's leading innovators and investors: we support the growth of startups, scaleups, and technology corporates along with the UK's investor, Venture Capital and Private Equity community.

Our clients come to us for our deep industry knowledge, expansive network and unique experience helping innovative companies within the UK grow and succeed. They stay because our diverse, passionate and enterprising teams make a real difference to their business.

Join us and help us bring our clients' game-changing ideas to life.

We believe that diverse perspectives and inclusive environments ignite new ideas and power innovation. This is why we are building a culture of belonging with a workforce that reflects the markets we serve.

The Opportunity

This role will sit within SVB UK Finance and will be responsible for contributing towards strengthening the SVB UK Finance Risk and Control Environment, being part of First Line of Defense (1LOD).
The overall objective is to create an environment where there are minimum or no surprises, enhanced awareness amongst employees, timely escalations, and strict monitoring.
The role's critical success factors include technical expertise, ability to work across teams/ sites/ time zones and influencing business outcomes.

Overview

Due to the exceptional growth experienced and increasing complexity within the UK business, we are looking to hire a talented Financial Risk and Controls manager to enhance oversight and strengthen controls within SVB UK Finance, whether that is operational areas and processes that could impact financial integrity or losses or Finance's own processes and controls. This must be done in a scalable, sustainable and efficient way to accommodate and enable future growth.

This role will ensure sound governance, oversight and execution of the financial and operational risks and controls including key operational, regulatory and compliance related controls within the Finance Department, as well as supporting operational areas that could impact financial integrity.

The role will be responsible for managing all controls related design, implementation, documentation and testing to ensure we meet the requirements for the Company's Control Environment Attestation ("CEA") as well as detect and prevent non-compliance with policies and procedures in advance of internal and external audits.

This highly visible position will work closely with the related business management, business risk, compliance and SOX teams (where applicable) to ensure transparency and understanding of financial reporting and operational issues, opportunities, and the environment both for now and as we experience change from internal factors, such as growth and new business lines, and external factors, such as new regulations and industry expectations.

All of this will help the SVB UK Finance team to fulfill their internal and external regulatory and control-related responsibilities.

In this role, you will report to the Head of Finance Risk and Controls, UK. This is a visible role that will work closely with the broader Finance team, as well as Compliance, Business Risk, Operations, Internal and External Audit teams. We intend to leverage the global tools, teams, processes and systems as much as possible and the role holder will play a leadership and coordination role in both the Global Accounting and controls and Regional Finance and business teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Be responsible, along with Finance Management Team, for the development, implementation, monitoring and update of UK Finance strategies, policies, processes and controls.
• Assist the UK Finance management team with the preparation, validation and submission of any MI / Reporting to the relevant governance forum/stakeholders within SVB UK.
• Embedding Control: Managing the control environment and creating awareness across teams and levels with a view to manage exceptions and ensure compliance with SVB UK standards.
• Risk and Control Self Assessment (RCSA):
• Preparation of test scripts and responsibility for testing the controls for SVB UK Finance.
• Maintain the Finance RCSAs with continuous updates to capture the changes to controls and underlying process maps.
• Highlight control breakdowns, inadequate processes, and unexpected events and implement corrective actions quickly to address process and control deficiencies.
• Facilitate timely remediation of control deficiencies and process improvements by working closely with the business to verify Risk Assessment- Assess, measure, and monitor the governance and risk profile, including determination of real vs perceived risk and inherent vs control risk.
• Keep UK Finance control documentation updated to reflect the current operating environment and establish fit for purpose first line control testing plans to ensure UK Finance meet their Regulatory obligations and operate in robustly controlled manner.
• Work with 2LOD and 3LOD to ensure the UK Finance Risk Management Framework meets the expectations of stakeholders and is delivered within SVB UK risk appetite.
• Where control breakdowns and/or process failings are identified facilitate resolution of deficiencies including root cause analysis and working with the UK Finance Team and other (global) teams where their process may impact SVB UK activities.
• Coordination with 2LOD, internal audit and external audit on issues impacting UK Finance
• Stay up to date with the related regulatory, industry and compliance requirements which the UK Finance team must meet in order to satisfy our regulators. Analyze complex regulatory and industry requirements and the ''right size'' application of these requirements. Ensure all pertinent regulatory and rule changes are incorporated timely and educate the broader SVB UK organization on control culture, processes and best practices in relation to any changes.
• When required, design and lead any UK Finance change management programme (in coordination with Change Management Function)

Knowledge and Skills

• Ability to analyse and assimilate large amounts of information in order to distil it into meaningful practical outputs;
• Ability to prioritise and deliver a number of diverse activities across a number of areas;
• Excellent communication, drafting and interpersonal skills in order to present complex business issues with clarity
• Experience in creating strong partnerships with key stakeholders
• Understands risk management, risk appetite and has experience of facilitating and contributing to Risk and Control Self Assessments including documentation of key risks and design of controls
• Knowledge of key Prudential regulation that impacts the Treasury function (nice to have)
• Displays behaviors in line with SVB UK standards of Conduct.

Certifications and Education

• Solid experience performing audit/controls work, which conforms to professional standards
• Professional certification such as ACCA, ACA , CPA, CIA, CISA

We know that some people may be put off from applying for a role if they don't meet all elements of a job description. If you're in this camp but think you can make a difference to our business, then why not give us a try?

We pride ourself on our approach to workforce flexibility. Talk to us about where, when and how you want to work which will enable you to bring your 'A' game to work

SVB UK is an equal opportunities employer. If you need adjustments for any part of the recruitment process, please contact us at emeaTA@svb.com

SVB UK is a UK standalone independent commercial bank, regulated by the PRA and backed by HSBC Group.