Head of Governance, Risk and Compliance

We are seeking an experienced and commercially minded governance, risk and compliance professional to lead these functions across the Call Assist business.

Reporting directly to the Managing Director and providing regular updates to the Senior Management Team and relevant governance committees, the successful candidate will have overall responsibility for regulatory compliance, risk management, business continuity and operational resilience.

The role holder will lead a small Compliance and Assurance Team and manage the company’s relationships with its outsourced compliance and data protection advisers.

This is a senior and influential role. The successful candidate will help shape how Call Assist manages risk, delivers good customer outcomes and implements major commercial, regulatory and operational change.

The Head of Governance, Risk and Compliance will be responsible for:

• Leading, developing and managing the Compliance and Assurance Team, setting clear priorities and ensuring the function has the skills and resources required to support the business effectively.
• Managing the company’s outsourced compliance and data protection advisers, including agreeing priorities, overseeing performance and ensuring advice is practical, timely and relevant to Call Assist’s activities.
• Maintaining the company’s compliance with applicable regulatory, legislative, contractual, insurance and internal policy requirements.
• Providing clear, pragmatic and commercially informed governance, risk and compliance advice to the Board, Managing Director, Senior Management Team and wider business.
• Owning and continually developing the company’s risk management framework.
• Coordinating the identification, assessment, monitoring and reporting of strategic, operational, regulatory, financial, customer and third-party risks.
• Maintaining the company’s risk register and ensuring mitigating actions are clearly allocated, monitored and appropriately challenged.
• Owning and developing the company’s business continuity and operational resilience frameworks.
• Ensuring appropriate business impact assessments, continuity plans, scenario exercises and recovery arrangements are in place and regularly reviewed.
• Ensuring the company understands its important services, key dependencies, vulnerabilities and potential points of failure.
• Maintaining a proportionate assurance framework with clear first-line ownership, effective second-line monitoring and challenge, and access to independent assurance where appropriate.
• Developing and maintaining a risk-based compliance monitoring and assurance programme.
• Undertaking or overseeing thematic reviews of customer outcomes, operational processes, complaints handling, claims handling and key business controls.
• Ensuring monitoring and assurance findings are clearly reported, with agreed actions appropriately allocated, tracked and independently verified before closure.
• Reviewing the effectiveness of operational quality assurance arrangements.
• Ensuring effective policies, controls and standard operating procedures are in place across the business.
• Supporting the delivery of good customer outcomes through effective governance, training, monitoring, root-cause analysis and remedial action.
• Maintaining and continually improving the company’s frameworks for carrying out due diligence on clients, business partners and suppliers.
• Coordinating the completion of client, prospective client and other third-party due diligence questionnaires, ensuring responses are accurate, consistent, appropriately evidenced and approved by the relevant business owners.
• Supporting major new contracts, tenders, product developments and business-change initiatives from an early stage.
• Chairing the Risk Management, Consumer Duty and Compliance Committees.
• Acting as the company’s principal point of contact for the Financial Conduct Authority and other relevant regulatory or supervisory bodies.
• Representing Call Assist in client discussions concerning regulatory compliance, governance, risk management, operational resilience and customer outcomes.
• Maintaining an effective horizon-scanning programme to identify emerging regulatory,…