Head of Risk (George)

Job description

Head of Risk

George, Western Cape

Permanent | On-site

Shape how we understand risk. Influence how we respond to it.

At Badger, good risk management isn’t about slowing the business down. It’s about giving people the insight, confidence and foresight to make better decisions.

We’re looking for an accomplished Head of Risk to lead our risk function and strengthen risk management across the Badger Group.

This is a senior leadership role with significant organisational reach. Reporting to the managing executive: legal, risk and compliance, you’ll work closely with executives, risk owners and governance committees to ensure that material risks are understood, appropriately managed and factored into the decisions that shape our future.

You’ll bring independence of thought, sound commercial judgement and the confidence to challenge constructively when it matters.

About the role

• As head of risk, you’ll provide strategic and functional leadership for risk management across the relevant companies within the Badger Group.
• You’ll take ownership of the effectiveness of our risk management framework and help ensure that risk is considered proactively in our strategy, our performance and the way we run our businesses.
• A key part of your role will be turning complex information into meaningful insight. You’ll monitor the internal and external environment, identify emerging risks and opportunities, challenge assumptions and ensure that executives and governance structures have a clear view of the Group’s risk exposure.
• You’ll also play an important role in strengthening risk ownership across the business. Risk isn’t something that belongs to the Risk team alone, and you’ll work with leaders and risk owners to build a culture where people understand their risks, take accountability for them and escalate concerns early.

Your impact will include:

• Leading our enterprise risk approach
• You’ll develop, maintain and continuously improve a comprehensive, risk-based monitoring plan and broader enterprise risk management approach.
• You’ll oversee the processes through which risks are identified, assessed, monitored, mitigated and escalated, ensuring that risk appetite, key risk indicators, controls and mitigation plans remain relevant as the business and external environment evolve.
• You’ll monitor the effectiveness of risk mitigation activities and challenge whether actions are genuinely reducing exposure — not simply whether they have been completed.

Keeping us ahead of emerging risk

• You’ll maintain a forward-looking view of the environment in which we operate.
• That means analysing market and industry developments, regulatory change, financial and operational performance, criminal trends and other relevant indicators to identify emerging risks and opportunities.
• You’ll connect information across the business, identify patterns and ensure that significant changes in our risk profile receive the right level of attention.

Leading risk governance and ORSA

• You’ll play a central role in the own risk and solvency assessment (ORSA) process, ensuring that it is appropriately coordinated, maintained and presented for board approval in accordance with relevant prudential standards and group and company requirements.
• Working alongside functions such as actuarial, finance, compliance, internal audit and legal, you’ll provide independent risk oversight and challenge while maintaining clear accountability between the respective functions.
• You’ll oversee regulatory risk reporting and submissions for which the risk function is accountable and support effective engagement with the prudential authority (PA) and financial sector conduct authority (FSCA) where relevant to the risk mandate.

Providing insight to executives and governance structures

• You’ll prepare and present clear, decision-focused risk reporting to executive leadership, boards and relevant audit and risk committees.
• Your role won’t simply be to report what has happened. You’ll explain what matters, why it matters, where exposure may be changing and what should happen next.
• You’ll be comfortable communicating uncertainty, challenging assumptions and escalating material concerns when required.

Strengthening risk mitigation and assurance

• You’ll monitor whether risk treatment and mitigation plans are progressing as expected and assess whether they are delivering the intended result.
• Where incidents or investigations expose weaknesses, you’ll ensure that lessons are translated into appropriate preventative or corrective action.
• You’ll also work collaboratively with internal audit, compliance and other assurance functions to support effective combined assurance and assess the strength of internal controls and risk-management processes.

Building a strong risk culture

• You’ll develop trusted relationships with executives, managers and risk owners across the group.
• Through constructive challenge, education, practical support and clear reporting, you’ll help leaders understand both their risk exposure and their accountability for managing it.
• You’ll ensure that changes in strategy, operations or the external environment are reflected in the group’s risk oversight.

Leading the risk function

• You’ll ensure that the function is appropriately structured, skilled and resourced to meet the needs of the organisation.
• You’ll set clear priorities and performance expectations, recruit and develop capable people and create an environment where your team can provide credible, independent and commercially relevant risk insight.

About you

• You’re an experienced risk leader who can move comfortably between technical detail and strategic conversation.
• You understand that the best risk leaders aren’t there simply to point out what could go wrong. You help organisations understand uncertainty, make informed choices and take appropriate risks with their eyes open.
• You have the confidence to challenge senior stakeholders without becoming adversarial, and the judgement to know when an issue requires escalation.
• You’re analytical and naturally curious. You look beyond individual numbers or incidents to understand patterns, connections and what they could mean for the organisation.
• Just as importantly, you can turn that complexity into a clear conversation with an executive team or board.

Experience and qualifications:

• A relevant postgraduate or professional qualification in risk management, actuarial science or a closely related discipline.
• Substantial professional experience in risk management within a regulated financial-services environment.
• Meaningful experience within the insurance sector, ideally life insurance, non-life insurance or both.
• Strong practical knowledge of enterprise risk management, including risk identification, assessment, monitoring, mitigation, risk appetite, key risk indicators and emerging risk.
• Sound knowledge of the regulatory environment applicable to South African financial services and insurance.
• Practical understanding of ORSA and the role it plays in insurance risk and prudential governance.
• Knowledge of regulatory requirements relevant to the prudential authority and financial sector conduct authority.
• Experience preparing and presenting material risk information to executive management, boards and/or board committees.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capability, including the ability to interpret financial and non-financial information and identify trends.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders and provide credible, independent challenge.
• Experience leading people, a specialist function or significant cross-functional risk programmes.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen.
• The professional judgement, integrity and courage expected of a senior risk leader.
• It would be an advantage if you also have:
• Experience across both life and non-life insurance.
• Direct experience leading or coordinating an ORSA process.
• Experience engaging directly with the prudential authority and/or FSCA.
• Experience operating within a multi-company or group environment.
• Experience implementing or materially improving an enterprise risk management framework.
• Combined assurance experience across risk, compliance and internal audit.
• Experience with CURA or another governance, risk and compliance (GRC) platform.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel, data analysis or risk visualisation capability.
• A recognised professional certification in risk management, actuarial science, governance, audit or a related field.

Why join Badger?

• Because this is an opportunity to do more than maintain a risk function.
• You’ll have the opportunity to shape it.
• You’ll operate across businesses, work with senior decision-makers and influence how risk thinking becomes part of the way we make decisions.
• We value people who bring expertise without ego, challenge without unnecessary complexity and ideas that help us keep improving.
• You’ll join an environment that is professional, ambitious and forward-looking — one where you’re expected to think, contribute and make your expertise count

Ready to make an impact?

If you’re a senior risk professional who combines technical depth with commercial judgement, strong leadership and the confidence to influence at the highest levels, we’d like to hear from you.