Director, Risk and Compliance

Federation of Canadian Municipalities; Ottawa; On-site; CAD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Green Municipal Fund (GMF) seeks a Director, Risk and Compliance to oversee second-line risk and compliance for GMF lending activities. You will guide credit risk, regulatory compliance, and risk governance, ensuring sustainable financing practices align with program objectives and government mandates.

The role emphasizes forward-looking risk assessment, policy development, and collaboration with leadership to manage risk in a growing climate finance

Qualifications

• Advanced knowledge of lending structures, credit and financial risk management, loss-control principles, regulatory compliance.
• Experience developing risk policies, standards and monitoring programmes.
• Ability to assess costs, benefits, regulatory considerations and operational implications in financing programs.

Responsibilities

• Establishes the risk and compliance position on material lending, financing and investment matters within the role's mandate and determines escalation or mitigation actions.
• Provides objective risk and compliance advice to management on credit and lending related risks and regulatory implications.
• Develops and maintains risk frameworks, policies and governance approaches for innovative financing activities including blended finance and advises management and committees on risk allocation and financial sustainability.
• Acts in second line of defense to review loan underwriting, credit risk rating methodologies and loan credit assessments.

Skills

Risk management

Regulatory compliance

Credit risk

Financing risk

Job description

Who we are at GMF:

At the Green Municipal Fund (GMF), we create change where it matters most-in Canada's municipalities.

As the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' flagship program and backed by a $2.4 billion endowment from the Government of Canada, GMF helps Canadian municipalities, big and small, invest in their future by supporting homegrown sustainability and resilience projects that work for Canadians by creating jobs, lowering costs, and strengthening local economies.

Through our unique mix of funding, resources and training, GMF is enhancing the quality of life for people in Canada by accelerating a transformation to sustainable and resilient communities.

Since 2000, GMF has invested over $1.6 billion in local projects helping communities avoid 2.9 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, while also contributing $1.24 billion to the national GDP and creating more than 13,000 person-years of national employment.

About This Role:

The Director, Risk and Compliance provides independent, second-line risk and compliance oversight for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Green Municipal Fund and Climate Programs (GMF) lending activities and evolving financing tools. The role brings advanced knowledge of lending structures, credit and financial risk management, loss-control principles, regulatory compliance, and leading risk management practices. It also supports the development of tools, resources, policies, training and monitoring required for effective financial risk management. The role takes a forward-looking approach to risk and compliance, anticipating how emerging climate priorities, financing models, market practices and regulatory developments may affect GMF and FCM's broader climate programming, and takes appropriate action to ensure that these implications are well understood and addressed, with alignment across key leaders on the response.

The role is responsible for identifying, assessing, measuring and monitoring risks associated with lending activities, new financing products, investment vehicles and blended finance initiatives, as well as the controls established to manage those risks. The role provides independent risk advice and challenge, identifies emerging risks, and advises management and relevant committees on credit, market, operational and other material risks. The role supports strategies to mitigate risk and losses at the individual transaction and portfolio levels while balancing impact objectives with compliance, capital preservation and long-term financial sustainability. In this capacity, the role provides objective risk and compliance advice on lending strategies, program design and evolving financing approaches. This includes assessing the associated costs, benefits, risks, regulatory considerations and operational implications in the context of FCM's business requirements, program objectives and long-term strategy.

The role develops, recommends and maintains corporate risk policies, standards and compliance programmes relating to FCM's nearly $2 billion lending, financing, and investment activities from GMF and other climate program financing activities, including the Anti-Money Laundering Compliance Program. It contributes to the governance and oversight of credit and financing risk policies, promotes consistency and standardisation across credit, market and operational risk practices, and provides independent risk advice and oversight for workout scenarios. The role also participates in and presents to relevant management and FCM and GMF board-level committees.

Given FCM's mandate as a not-for-profit organisation and its Government of Canada-funded mandate to support municipal projects with environmental benefits, the role must balance development objectives with risk and financial considerations. This helps ensure that the funds and programmes achieve their objectives while maintaining financial sustainability and meeting contractual requirements, including applicable minimum fund-balance requirements.

What you'll be doing:

Key Responsibilities

• Establishes the risk and compliance position on material lending, financing and investment matters within the role's mandate and determines when issues require escalation, additional mitigation, external expertise or executive and committee consideration, and ensures appropriate action is taken.
• Provides objective risk and compliance advice to management on credit and lending related risks, including the costs, benefits, risks and regulatory implications of proposed lending strategies and program design.
• Develops and maintains risk frameworks, policies and governance approaches for innovative financing activities including blended finance, and advises management and committees on risk allocation, portfolio diversification, capital preservation and financial sustainability.
• Acts in second line of defense capacity to review loan underwriting, credit risk rating methodologies and loan credit assessments to