The Chief Risk Officer (CRO) is the senior executive responsible for the enterprise-wide risk management strategy, ensuring the bank’s resilience against financial, operational, regulatory, and reputational risks. This role is critical in maintaining regulatory compliance, safeguarding stakeholder interests, and aligning risk practices with strategic business objectives. The CRO is a member of the General Management Team in Austria and acts as a second branch manager.

Key Responsibilities

• Accountable for independent, second line of defense enterprise risk management framework covering the Austrian business with various product offering.
• Oversight responsibilities over several risk and compliance departments including Transaction Approval & Advice, Market Risk Management, Compliance Risk Management and Non-Financial Risk Management (ORM and IRM).
• Ensure full compliance with the Austrian regulatory framework including timely reporting and proactive engagement with regulators.
• Act as partner to the business in execution of strategy whilst ensuring safety and compliance through critical reasoning and credible challenge.
• Ensure that risk policies, procedures, and infrastructure are in place to support business operations within established risk appetite limits.
• Promote a strong risk-aware culture across the organization, ensuring accountability and transparency in risk-taking activities.
• Oversee risks related to emerging technologies, including AI, cybersecurity, and digital transformation initiatives.
• Act as Chairman for the Financial Risk and Non-Financial Risk committees and represent Risk in ALCO and other internal committees.
• Hierarchical reporting line into the CEO of Austria and functional reporting line into the Head of Wholesale Banking Risk CEE Network.

Qualifications & Experience

• University Degree
• Minimum 10 years of professional banking experience
• Minimum 5 years of management experience
• Proven people leader, strong coach, and influence at senior levels.

Key Competencies

• Strategic thinking and decision-making under uncertainty.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
• High integrity and independence.
• Ability to challenge the status quo and always looking for ways to create efficiency.
• Analytical rigor and technological fluency.
• Ability to anticipate and respond to emerging risks.
• Strong stakeholder management and ability to operate in matrix environment.
• Ability to design and implement a talent strategy that builds a best-in-class team, ensuring the right skills and capabilities are in the right roles to deliver organizational objectives.
• Good level of German language