Chief Risk Officer

Funding Societies | Modalku Group; Singapore; On-site; SGD 150,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading SME digital finance platform in Singapore is seeking an experienced Chief Risk Officer responsible for managing risk across Southeast Asia. You will lead teams in credit and operational risk management, shape risk policies, and collaborate with senior leadership. Ideal candidates have over 12 years of experience in financial services with a proven track record in SME lending and a data-driven mindset. The role offers flexible working conditions, medical benefits, and a focus on mental health.

Benefits

Flexible paid vacations

Medical benefits

Mental health and wellness initiatives

Tech support with company laptop

Qualifications

• Experience in leading teams of 8+ professionals across functions.
• Proven credit underwriting expertise in SME and consumer lending.
• Ability to navigate diverse regulatory environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead and scale the regional risk function across Southeast Asia.
• Shape risk policies and oversee regional portfolio performance.
• Collaborate with senior leadership to embed automated risk controls.

Skills

Credit risk management

Operational risk management

Data-driven decision making

Stakeholder management

Leadership

Education

12+ years of experience in financial services

Experience with fintech or digital lending

Tools

Risk analytics dashboards

AI/ML models for risk monitoring

Job description

Funding Societies | Modalku is the largest SME digital finance platform in Southeast Asia. We are licensed and operating in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, and backed by Sequoia India (Peak XV), Softbank Vision Fund, Khazanah and SMBC bank amongst many others. Funding Societies | Modalku provides business financing to small and medium‑size enterprises (SMEs), which is funded by individual and institutional investors, as well as payments solutions to SMEs and consumers.

Here at Funding Societies | Modalku we live by our core values GETFS:

• Grow Relentlessly: Strive to become our best, most authentic selves.
• Enable Teamwork, Disable Politics: Only by forging togetherness, we help each other succeed.
• Test Measure Act: Stay curious and reinvent ourselves, through innovation and experimentation.
• Focus on Impact: Create impact through bias for action and tangible results.
• Serve with Obsession: Build win‑win relationships for the long‑term by having a customer obsession.

We are seeking an experienced and strategic Chief Risk Officer to lead our risk function across Southeast Asia. You will be responsible for shaping and executing a comprehensive risk management framework that supports our growth across five key markets: Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

You will serve as a critical member of the leadership team and a trusted advisor to the CEO, Board, and cross‑functional teams. Working closely with product, credit, compliance, data, and operations, your mandate is to embed a strong risk culture, enable responsible innovation, and ensure resilience across all aspects of our business. You will oversee risk governance, credit risk, portfolio risk, operational risk, regulatory risk, market risk, tech and emerging risks to ensure our digital lending, payments and fintech operations are robust, scalable, and compliant across diverse regulatory environments.

This role is pivotal in balancing growth and risk enabling strategic expansion while protecting the company’s interests, customers, and stakeholders through proactive risk identification, assessment, and mitigation strategies.

What you will do:

• Lead and scale the regional risk function, focusing on credit, portfolio, and operational risk. Oversee risk teams across all operating markets and partner closely with leaders from Business, Compliance, Legal, Tech, and Finance.
• Play a critical role in driving the company’s path to profitability by enabling sustainable yet commercially viable business models and proactively managing enterprise‑wide risk exposure. Shape risk policies that enable innovation while safeguarding the company’s financial strength and reputational trust, with a forward‑looking focus on evaluating and mitigating the risk implications of new products and business initiatives.
• Oversee regional portfolio performance, risk governance, risk appetite setting, stress testing, provisioning, and regulatory reporting from a risk perspective.
• Drive the development and refinement of credit risk frameworks, underwriting models, scorecards, collections strategies, and fraud prevention mechanisms, particularly for SME lending.
• Leverage data and analytics to monitor portfolio health in real time, identify early warning signals, and drive data‑driven decisions in underwriting and risk mitigation, supported by stress testing and scenario analysis to evaluate resilience across varying market conditions.
• Stay ahead of emerging risks including those related to technology, cybersecurity, and market shifts to ensure the business remains agile and resilient.
• Collaborate with senior leadership, risk committee and the board, presenting risk dashboards, insights, and strategic risk assessments to support long‑term decision making.
• Partner with product, technology, operations, and data teams to embed smart, scalable, and automated risk controls into the digital lending platform.
• Build and lead a high performing risk team while cultivating a risk aware culture across the organization.

What we are looking for:

• 12+ years of experience in credit and operational risk management, spanning large financial institutions and high‑growth or innovative firms, with a proven record of leading teams of 8+ professionals across functions and geographies.
• Solid experience in financial services or banking, with fintech or digital lending exposure preferred. Deep understanding of Southeast Asian markets, with proven ability to navigate diverse regulatory environments and credit behaviors.
• Proven credit underwriting expertise in SME and consumer lending, with a track record of building risk scorecards, fraud frameworks, and effective collections strategies.
• Familiarity with risk governance structures (e.g., risk committees, internal controls) and demonstrated experience engaging senior leadership and presenting to the board.
• Data‑driven mindset with proficiency in analytics, dashboards, and AI/ML based models for real‑time portfolio monitoring, early‑warning detection, and decision making.
• Strategic thinker and clear communicator with cross‑functional exposure; skilled at influencing stakeholders, articulating risk trade‑offs, and advocating for responsible innovation in partnership with product, engineering, finance, legal, and compliance leaders.

• Time off - We would love you to take time off to rest and rejuvenate. We offer flexible paid vacations as well as many other observed holidays by country. We also like to have our people take a day off for special days like birthdays and work anniversaries.
• Flexible working - We believe in giving back the control of work & life to our people. We trust our people and love to provide the space to accommodate each and everyone's working style and personal life.
• Medical benefits - We offer health insurance coverage for our employees and dependents. Our people focus on our mission knowing we have their backs for their loved ones too.
• Mental health and wellness - We understand that our team productivity is directly linked to our mental and physical health. Hence we organize org-wide fitness initiatives and engage partners to provide well‑being coaching.
• Tech support - We provide a company laptop for our employees and the best possible support for the right equipment/tools to enable high productivity

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