Senior Credit Risk Manager at Equity Bank

Description

THE ROLE PURPOSE

To provide strategic leadership and second line oversight of credit risk, country risk, and climate/ESG risk across the Group including risk associated with digital lending. The role ensures a robust risk management framework, effective limit setting, rigorous stress testing, and high-quality analysis that safeguards asset quality, capital resilience, and business sustainability in line with regulatory expectations and international best practice. The role is responsible for the identification, measurement, assessment monitoring, and reporting of credit risk across the Bank. The role ensures that the Bank’s credit risk profile remains within approved risk appetite, complies with regulatory requirements, and is transparently reported to senior management and governance committees. The role plays a critical part in enhancing credit risk frameworks, analytics, reporting quality, and decision-making.

THE KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Credit Risk Management

• Lead the development, review, and ongoing enhancement of credit risk reporting frameworks, dashboards, and management information (MI).
• Monitor the Bank’s credit risk profile across portfolios, products, sectors, and counterparties, highlighting emerging risks and trends.
• Support the formulation and review of credit risk frameworks, policies, methodologies, and risk appetite metrics.
• Provide expert analysis and insights on asset quality, portfolio performance, concentrations, stress testing outcomes, and early warning indicators.
• Ensure timely, accurate, and compliant credit risk reporting to senior management, Board Risk Committees, and regulators.
• Partner with Credit, Finance, Treasury, Business Units, and Compliance to support informed credit decision-making.
• Oversee credit risk data quality, assumptions, and integrity across systems and reports.
• Support regulatory submissions, internal and external audits, and supervisory reviews relating to credit risk.
• Mentor and develop team members, fostering a strong risk culture and technical capability within the Credit Risk function.

Climate Risk

• Support the development and maintenance of the Group Climate Risk Framework aligned to international best practice and regulatory guidelines.
• Define governance, roles, metrics, data requirements, and processes for physical and transition risk assessment.
• Lead climate risk scenario analysis, sector heatmapping, asset level vulnerability assessments, and exposure mapping.
• Oversee financed emissions estimation climate concentration analysis and carbon intensive sector reviews.
• Integrate climate risk drivers into credit rating models, underwriting, stress tests, and ECL overlays.

Country Risk Management

• Develop and maintain the Country Risk Management Framework covering:

o   Transfer & Convertibility (T&C) risk

o   Sovereign risk

o   Contagion risk

o   Cross border settlement risk

• Ensure alignment with Basel Committee guidelines, rating agencies, and internal methodologies.
• Monitor country limit utilization across subsidiaries and cross border exposures.
• Identify emerging risks arising from geopolitical shifts, capital controls, rating downgrades, or sovereign restructurings.
• Integrate country risk into ICAAP, stress testing, and capital planning decisions.

CORE ACCOUNTABILITIES AND DELIVERABLES 

Financial

• Effective monitoring and reporting of credit risk exposures, impairments, non-performing loans (NPLs), and portfolio quality.
• Contribution to optimization of risk-adjusted returns through improved credit risk insights.
• Support accurate credit risk inputs into capital adequacy, provisioning (IFRS 9), and stress testing processes.

People

• Provide leadership and guidance to credit risk analysts/managers.
• Build technical capability and succession within the Enterprise Risk team.
• Promote collaboration and high performance across cross-functional teams.

Processes

• Design and maintain robust credit risk reporting and escalation processes.
• Ensure adherence to approved credit risk governance frameworks and internal controls.
• Drive continuous improvement and automation of reporting processes.

Systems

• Oversight of credit risk systems, data warehouses, and reporting tools.
• Partner with IT and data teams on system enhancements, upgrades, and risk analytics solutions.

Customers / Stakeholders

• Provide clear, insightful, and actionable risk information to senior management, committees, and regulators.
• Act as a trusted advisor to business and credit teams on credit risk matters.

Qualifications

KEY TECHNICAL SKILLS & LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES

• Strong expertise in credit risk management, portfolio analytics, and credit risk reporting.
• In-depth understanding of regulatory frameworks (Basel II/III), IFRS 9, and stress testing.
• Advanced analytical and data interpretation skills.
• Proficiency in credit risk systems, reporting tools, and data analytics platforms.
• Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving capability.
• High level of professional judgement and integrity.
• Ability to influence and challenge senior stakeholders constructively.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.
• People leadership, coaching, and talent development skills.

EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS  

• Minimum 9 years’ related areas within the financial services industry, 6 years in Credit Risk experience

ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS AND CERTIFICATIONS 

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, Economics, Accounting, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related field.
• Master’s degree in finance, Risk Management, Economics, or Business Administration is an added advantage.
• Professional certifications such as FRM, PRM, CPA, ACCA, or CFA are strongly preferred.

Apply

https://equitybank.taleo.net/careersection/ext_new/jobdetail.ftl?job=2600003G&tz=GMT%2B03%3A00&tzname=Africa%2FNairobi