Senior Director - Head of Risk GCC

Visa; Dubai; On-site; AED 550,863 - 734,484; Full time

Job summary

Visa is seeking a dynamic Senior Director to lead its Risk team in the GCC region, focusing on Digital Payment Risks. This role involves identifying and mitigating risks while providing strategic guidance aligned with Visa's growth objectives.

You will collaborate with senior internal stakeholders and clients, engage in external relations, and lead initiatives to enhance risk management practices across the region.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in risk management, financial services, and stakeholder engagement.

Qualifications

• 15 years of experience in financial services, with at least 5 years in senior leadership.
• Experience in engaging with stakeholders and presenting to board-level committees.
• Proven track record of managing credit risk, compliance, and operational risks.

Responsibilities

• Lead risk management practices across the GCC region.
• Align risk objectives with Visa’s business goals.
• Build relationships with key stakeholders to facilitate risk management efforts.

Skills

Leadership

Risk Management

Analytical Skills

Communication

Regulatory Compliance

Education

Master's degree in relevant field

Job description

Visas Global Risk organization is seeking a dynamic and experienced Senior Director to lead its Risk team in the GCC region focusing on Digital Payment Risks. This pivotal role will oversee risk management across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. The ideal candidate will be responsible for proactively identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks while providing strategic guidance to the payment ecosystem in alignment with Visas growth objectives. As a member of Visas CEMEA Risk Leadership Team, the Senior Director will play a vital role in shaping the risk management landscape by being an effective risk business partner to the Group Country Manager for the GCC Sub-region.

The Head of Risk for GCC is expected to drive effective risk management practices, enabling cross-functional teams to handle Visas Strategic Regulatory Compliance and Third-Party risks efficiently. This leader will be responsible for maturing and advancing Visas Risk roadmap initiatives and providing risk thought leadership for the GCC subregion. The role will also be a member of the GCC Leadership Team.

Reporting directly to the Regional Risk Officer CEMEA, this high impact and high visibility leadership role requires frequent collaboration with senior internal stakeholders across the GCC and CEMEA region including teams in Business Finance Operations Controls Processing Government Engagements Risk Value Added Services Visa Consultancy & Analytics and Risk. Importantly the position involves extensive external engagements with clients, partners, government, and other payment industry stakeholders. The Senior Director will provide leadership and guidance to a team of risk managers supporting the GCC subregion.

Purpose

• Lead the team to ensure that Visas interactions with clients, merchants, regulators, and other third parties on risk-related matters are well-informed, effective, and collectively moving the Visa ecosystem towards a stronger state.
• Build and leverage market knowledge and presence to ensure Visas risk-related policies, programs, and frameworks are aligned with current and future business demands.
• Engage clients, merchants, and other stakeholders to mitigate fraud and data compromise events, promote stronger authentication and data security, and help enforce Visas external risk programs and policies.
• Provide deep insights and support against a broader set of risk-related issues and activities including client fraud and approval optimization, credit settlement risk, anti-money laundering, deployment of Visa Risk Products, the use of third parties, and deployment of emerging technologies.
• Promote effective and executive-level information flow around strategic regulatory and other risks to the Visa enterprise and minimize audit and compliance concerns.

Key Responsibilities

• Ecosystem Risk Management: Provide deep insights of the country/sub-regional business environment, payment systems, and other risks to senior client executives operating in each market and serve as the trusted risk advisor to the leadership across all Visa business functions.
• Business Alignment: Align Visas risk-related objectives and activities with Visas business goals in the sub-region to optimize long‑term growth while ensuring that risk management strategies support and enhance the overall business strategy.
• Risk Relationship Management: Engage key senior stakeholders, including clients, law enforcement, government and other relevant entities, to secure support for Visas goals and address identified risks and foster strong relationships to facilitate risk management efforts.
• Thought Leadership: Differentiate Visa by demonstrating thought leadership on risk issues to senior payment system stakeholders. Lead and orchestrate client meetings (e.g. sub-regional Risk Executive Councils meetings) and industry forums (Risk Summits, government initiatives) of payment system stakeholders (e.g. clients, law enforcement, regulators, industry participants) to drive greater awareness and support for Visas payment system risk strategy. Positively influence regulations and risk/security‑related practices to ensure a strong payment ecosystem and a growth environment for Visa, its clients and the industry.
• Communication: Deliver effective and executive‑level communication and provide marketplace feedback regarding Visas risk‑related programs, policies and other activities while maintaining transparency and keeping all relevant parties informed about risk management initiatives and outcomes.

Skills and Experience

• Has been on the leadership team of the Chief Risk Officer of a large financial institution, preferably in the GCC region or regions of similar maturity and diversity.
• Has led underwriting operations for SME, Retail or corporate lending for a large Financial Institution as the functional head for a minimum of 5 years, taking wing‑to‑wing accountability for application processing, credit decisioning and disbursal.
• Has held responsibility for a period of at least 5 years for the credit risk policy function within SME Retail or Corporate banking, having had wing‑to‑wing responsibility for Underwriting, Portfolio management and Collections.
• Has exposure to board audit and risk committees, having been accountable for presenting the portfolio performance to the board of the financial institution.
• Through their tenure has built a robust operating level understanding of Fraud risk, Operational Risk, Compliance, AML and KYC risk.
• Has led the implementation of programs for compliance with regulations in the lending domain.
• Has been held accountable for regulatory compliance audits in the lending domain.

This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.

Qualifications

• Masters degree required with 15 years of progressive experience working in the financial services industry.
• At least 5 years of senior leadership experience relevant to the domain.
• Ability to influence at an executive level both internally and externally.
• Excellent written, oral and presentation skills and an ability to synthesize complex and technical information into clear recommendations on course of action.
• Highly meticulous with deep analytical skills and ability to provide strong thought leadership.
• Proven ability to identify, prioritize, lead multiple initiatives simultaneously, adapt to changes quickly, multitask and deliver quality under tight deadlines.
• Strong leadership skills with experience in influencing, communicating and driving change through cross‑functional teams, including the ability to build consensus across disparate views.
• Experience in building and delivering effective executive‑level communications.

Additional Information

Visa is an EEO Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status. Visa will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with EEOC guidelines and applicable local law.

Remote Work

No

Employment Type

Full‑time