Vice President & Chief Risk Officer, Canada

Visa is a world leader in payments and technology, with over 259 billion payments transactions flowing safely between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and government entities in more than 200 countries and territories each year. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable, and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive while driven by a common purpose – to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

Make an impact with a purpose-driven industry leader. Join us today and experience Life at Visa.

Company Description

Visa is a world leader in payments and technology, with over 259 billion payments transactions flowing safely between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and government entities in more than 200 countries and territories each year. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable, and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive while driven by a common purpose – to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

Make an impact with a purpose-driven industry leader. Join us today and experience Life at Visa.

Job Description

The Chief Risk Officer’s (CRO) key responsibilities in Canada will be to maintain trust in our global brand, championing security in the industry and differentiating Visa in the eyes of clients and key stakeholders. The CRO will advise the Canada Country Manager, the Canada Leadership Team and global functional leads on strategies related to complex operational, financial, legal and regulatory risk exposures.

The successful candidate will lead a small team of 3 Risk professionals, based in Toronto and have indirect responsibility for all second Line of Defense functions (Compliance etc.). Additionally, the CRO will draw upon the resources of the North America Risk function across the wider region.

The Role

The incumbent will have a dual reporting relationship to the North America Regional Risk Officer and the Canada Country Manager. The CRO will be entrusted with a broad portfolio of responsibilities including Strategic Risk Management for the business, Credit Settlement Risk, Ecosystem Risk (Fraud & Data Security), and Regulatory Compliance Risk across Canada. The CRO will also be part North American Risk Leadership Team and Canada Leadership Team helping to advance risk strategies & practices across North America and Globally. The Canada CRO will interact with and represent Visa to Canadian Government, Banking and Law Enforcement agencies, including the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Bank of Canada, Canadian Bankers Association and Payments Canada. In addition, the CRO will interact with Issuing, Acquiring and Merchant clients, with the goal of providing insights to improve overall ecosystem risk performance.

In addition to overseeing Strategic Risk Management, the CRO will have responsibility for championing security in the industry and maintaining the integrity of the payments ecosystem. The CRO is responsible for negotiating and executing on comprehensive industry security roadmaps to ensure our clients make investments in data security, authentication and consumer empowerment to protect cardholders, merchants and all stakeholders in the industry.

The CRO will contribute to development of interoperable and secure digital identity standards, which work with Open Banking, leveraging Visa’s network assets and create a value proposition for Visa’s clients.

The CRO will develop comprehensive Country Risk Plans, security priorities and execute strategies to prevent fraud, enhance user authentication, safeguard sensitive data, identify and respond to data breaches and prevent the misuse of the payment system for unlawful purposes. The CRO will also be responsible for representing Visa’s Credit Settlement Risk policy to protect Visa against financial loss in the case of a failure of an issuing or acquiring client.

Key Responsibilities

- Develop and execute a comprehensive risk plan that is consistent with local market landscape, country priorities and global risk strategy.

• Execute both internal and external risk management programs
• Lead client forums (Canada Risk Councils, working groups, etc.)
• Promote & support client adoption of Visa risk products  / solutions / initiatives
• Identify new, creative win-win methods to reduce and mitigate payment system risk, fraud and cardholder data security risks
• As a member of the Canada Leadership Team, serve as a trusted & strategic advisor to the Canada Country Manager on all risk issues

-Ensure Visa Canadas regulatory compliance

• Design, implement, and oversee comprehensive compliance programs that meet regulatory requirements and uphold Visa Canada's standards and policies.
• Stay abreast of changes in regulatory guidelines and legislation. Ensure that Visa Canada remains compliant with Bank of Canada and Department of Finance
• Regularly conduct risk assessments to identify potential areas of compliance vulnerability and develop action plans for resolution of problematic issues.
• Ensure accurate and timely submission of regulatory reports and filings. Maintain detailed records and documentation to support compliance activities.
• Collaborate with internal and external auditors to facilitate compliance audits and inspections. Evaluate audit findings and implement corrective actions as necessary.
• Advisory Role: Act as a key advisor to senior management and the Board of Directors on regulatory compliance matters. Provide guidance and recommendations to support strategic decision-making.

- Prepare reports, briefings and other written products to update executive management on risk activities, issues and opportunities.

• Convey risk-related trends and developments to local country manager and leadership team through regular reporting
• Synthesize marketplace feedback regarding the effectiveness of Visa’s risk management strategy and programs. Benchmark Visa’s performance relative to other payment networks and participants
• Guide Visa’s proactive risk communications and collaboration across all of these stakeholders so as to advance the safety, security and long-term growth of the Visa payment system

- Lead the responsible innovation initiative by assisting Visa and its clients to mitigate risks and embrace new technology improvements.

• Assess emerging/innovation risks and new business models through the NBIA process
• Leverage local insights to contribute to Risk thought leadership
• Guide clients through payment innovation complexity

- Manage relationships with issuers, acquirers, merchants, payment processors, service providers, regulators and law enforcement to:

• Resolve fraud & data breach events
• Provide stakeholder training
• Respond to ad hoc queries & analytics requirements
• Identify opportunities to enhance the payment ecosystem and advance risk management best practice through training, education and speaking engagements 
• Support constructive relationships with local market regulators and law enforcement agencies and, critically, guide the Visa through a critical period of change in the local regulatory environment

- Responsible to build and manage an Enterprise Risk Management Framework for the Canada market that provides a consistent and pragmatic approach to identify, assess, treat, monitor and report risks at Visa.

- Ensure that the participants in the Non-Financial Institution program is assessed against the Visa Risk policies in close cooperation with the Account executives and the Strategy and Operations team.

• Maintain the safety, soundness and security of the Visa payments system
• Confirm the Non-FIs: ability to manage risk, security and fraud and operate the business in a comprehensive, safe and sound manner. PCI compliance. Ability to address anti-money laundering (AML) and anti-terrorist financing (ATF) in accordance with Canadian law and Visa requirements. Ability to comply with Visa Rules

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

Additional information

This position requires the incumbent to be available during core business hours

This position requires the incumbent to travel for work 0-20% of the time.

Work Authorization: Authorization to work in Canada is a precondition of employment for this position. Visa will not sponsor applicants for work visas in connection with this position. No relocation will be provided for this position.

Visa welcomes and encourages applications from persons with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.

Required skills:

- 12 or more years of work experience with a bachelor’s Degree or at least 10 years of experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters/ MBA/JD/MD) or at least 8 years of work experience with a PhD

- Track record for successfully identifying and mitigating enterprise and operational risk for a complex, global company in a regulated industry.

- Experience protecting consumer and corporate data through the development and implementation of rigorous compliance & rules management processes.

- Demonstrated approach to risk management contributing to brand and business growth. Understands both at a strategic and operational level the myriad risks facing the business. Drives down to root causes to assess the severity of the risk, the cost of remediation, and develops an appropriate action plan.

- Proven ability to influence (e.g. senior level decision makers), lead, collaborate, and work in matrix environment.

- Works effectively with clients and external stakeholders – banks, processors, regulators.

- Intellectually curious. Finds stories in the data, asks the right questions, demonstrated track record of mining data & intelligence for game-changing insights that generate big impacts.



Preferred skills:

15 or more years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD, PhD)

- 15-18 years of experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD or PhD)

- Experience in the payments industry (network, processors, financial institutions) or within multi-national, technology based, transactional businesses (e.g. large retailers)

- Extensive work experience in a multinational corporation

- Solid general management background, with proven track record in strategic thinking, financial planning, risk management, relationship building and project leadership.

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.

Visa welcomes and encourages applications from persons with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.