Job Description

Location: Dublin, California

Category: Risk, Compliance, & Audit

Type: ['Regular Full-Time']

About Patelco Credit Union

Patelco Credit Union is a not-for-profit credit union with a purpose to build financial health and wellbeing for our members. Since 1936, Patelco has grown from $500 in assets to over $9 billion in assets and is the 7th largest credit union in California with branches throughout Northern California.

We are here for our members throughout all their stages of life. Meeting them with the products and services to help them plan purposefully for their futures and to secure our life-long partnership as their trusted financial advocate. As one team, we are all committed to delivering service, empowering financial literacy, creating products, and providing new technology for our members.

We believe that work should be rewarding, challenging, and enjoyable. We’re dedicated to creating a positive and supportive culture where our team members can thrive. If you’re looking to use your skills and knowledge to make a difference in our members’ lives, Patelco could be the perfect fit for you.

Overview

The Senior Risk & Controls Program Manager serves as the lead subject matter expert within the Second Line of Defense (2LOD) for Risk and Control Assessments (RCSA), Issues Management, and control effectiveness oversight. This role is responsible for designing, enhancing, challenging, and overseeing the organization's operational risk management practices to ensure risks are identified, assessed, mitigated, monitored, and escalated appropriately.

As the most senior individual contributor within the Operational Risk function, this position provides thought leadership, independent challenge, and strategic guidance to business leaders, risk partners, executive management, Internal Audit, and regulators. The successful candidate will bring deep expertise in operational risk frameworks, regulatory expectations, risk assessments, control evaluations, root cause analysis, action plan governance, and issue lifecycle management.

This role plays a critical part in strengthening the organization's risk culture and ensuring risk management practices are sustainable, effective, and aligned with industry leading practices.

Responsibilities

Essential Duties

• Serve as the enterprise subject matter expert for Risk and Control Assessments (RCSA), driving the design, implementation, and continuous enhancement of assessment methodologies.
• Provide independent challenge and oversight of first line risk assessments, control evaluations, inherent and residual risk ratings, and mitigation strategies.
• Evaluate the quality and effectiveness of risk identification processes across business units.
• Facilitate and challenge business leaders during risk assessment workshops, ensuring meaningful identification of key operational risks and control gaps.
• Establish standards for control design, control effectiveness testing, and risk rating methodologies.
• Analyze assessment results to identify emerging risk trends, systemic weaknesses, concentration risks, and opportunities for control enhancements.
• Develop meaningful risk metrics, KRIs, KPIs, and reporting dashboards to provide executive management with meaningful insights into the organization's risk profile.
• Establish and maintain standards for issue identification, root cause analysis, corrective action development, validation, closure, and sustainability.
• Assess the adequacy and effectiveness of corrective actions to ensure sustainable remediation of identified risks and control deficiencies.
• Escalate significant risks and overdue remediation activities to senior leadership and governance committees as appropriate.
• Support ongoing maturation of the Operational Risk Management Framework and related programs.
• Develop and maintain policies, standards, procedures, guidance, and training related to risk assessments and issues management.
• Ensure alignment with regulatory expectations, industry best practices, and the organization's risk appetite framework.
• Support governance committees through preparation of risk reporting, presentations, and executive-level risk insights.
• Review risk events, internal audit findings, compliance observations, examination results, and operational losses to identify control implications.

Functional Competencies

• Ability to provide constructive and influential challenge.
• Strategic thinking and enterprise perspective.
• Exceptional facilitation and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to build trusted partnerships across all levels of the organization.
• Strong ownership mindset and accountability.
• Sound judgment in complex and ambiguous situations.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of risk management, operational risk, internal audit, compliance, controls, or related financial services experience.
• 7+ years of direct experience leading or overseeing Risk and Control Assessments (RCSA) programs and Issues Management frameworks.
• Demonstrated experience working within a Second Line of Defense (2LOD) risk function.
• Experience implementing or enhancing enterprise RCSA and Issues Management programs.
• Extensive knowledge of operational risk management principles, control frameworks, and risk governance practices.
• Strong knowledge of issue management lifecycle governance, remediation validation, root cause analysis, and corrective action planning.
• Experience presenting risk information to executive leadership, risk committees, and senior stakeholders.

Physical Activities/Requirements

• This position is based out of the Dublin HQ office. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change, or new ones may be assigned at any time with or without notice.

Target Base Pay

$120,170 - $150,212/ yr

Compensation at Patelco

Please note that the salary information is a general guideline only. Patelco Credit Union considers factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience, education/training, key skills, internal peer equity, as well as market and business considerations when extending an offer. We offer a competitive total rewards package including a Short-Term Incentive (STI) program for all regular positions and a wide range of medical, dental, vision, financial, and other benefits.

We Offer

Physical Health:

• Exceptional Medical, Dental, Vision, and Life Insurance benefits
• Rewards for completing wellness related activities

Financial Health:

• Competitive compensation packages with bonus opportunity
• 401(k) with 3% Safe Harbor and 5% employer match
• Discounts on loan products
• Tuition reimbursement

Emotional Health:

• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• PTO for part-time and full-time positions
• Paid holidays

Personal Development:

• On-the-job training and skills development
• Internal transfer opportunities for career growth
• Volunteer work

Patelco Credit Union is an Equal Opportunity Employer including individuals with disabilities and protected veterans

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