Senior Manager - Risk Management - job 3 of 26

At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. As part of Team Amex, you'll experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career.

Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.

American Express has a network that connects millions of consumers, merchants and businesses around the globe in a payments and commerce ecosystem that creates value for all its constituents.  Our Global Merchant Network Services (GMNS) Risk Management Team stands behind each of these purchases, thus protecting this network of millions of consumers, merchants and businesses.

The Senior Manager will join at team responsible for overseeing a portfolio with exposure of over $5 Billion. You will be a Risk Officer on the front line, protecting our merchant business P&L from loss, while carefully balancing the merchant relationship with American Express. Alongside credit risk management, you will be responsible for minimizing operational risk across your portfolio. The objective will be to establish the Operational Risk and Controls strategy for GMNS and set up a foundational governance structure that ensures operational risks are identified, assessed, and managed in compliance with enterprise Operational Risk Management programs and reporting. The manager will be focused on ensuring control management is embedded in the day-to-day operations of our organization.

The Senior Manager must have good judgment, excellent communication skills, be analytical, motivated and be a strategic thinker, who can both dive into numeric financial details while still being able to conduct negotiations with C-Suite executives across a variety of industries. Our team members are often considered “jack of all trades”, who are self-directed and make decisions that have high stake profitability and risk tradeoffs. Additionally, our team plays a central role in both the GMNS Business and Risk organizations by collaborating with numerous Business Units within the enterprise.

Responsibilities:

• You will be managing your own portfolio of merchants to identify exposure and proper mitigation strategies. 
• Manage the end-to-end life cycle of an AMEX merchant relationship from onboarding to periodic review/maintenance and possible exits.
• Facilitate investigation and conduct root cause analysis on identified process gaps or issue types
• Analyze trends in issues and events to identify potential systemic risks or control weaknesses within BU processes
• Support End-to-End (E2E) issue resolutions embedding accountability and ensuring lessons learned are integrated into future practices
• Opine on specific control enhancements related to issues
• Conduct in-depth process design and risk analyses on business functions to identify data integrity issues and/or operational risks
• Liaise with Business Unit (BU) process owners and Technology application owners to design and implement controls, and provide broader input on areas of risk
• Perform thematic analyses from previous control-related issues and partner with operational risk partners to develop risk mitigation strategies
• Work with internal stakeholders on best practices and key portfolio concerns while growing GMNS business.
• Demonstrate influence and negotiation skills when speaking to internal AMEX leadership as well as merchant C-Suites
• Ability to turn big, raw data files into meaningful reporting and presentations.
• Complete ad-hoc work assignments dedicated to mitigating the overall GMNS portfolio
• The incumbent will also work alone or collaborate with fellow GMNS Risk colleagues on projects designated to enhance, manage, mitigate GMNS Risk processes.    

Required Qualifications:

• The successful candidate must be able to work under their own initiative, have excellent time management skills and be able to problem solve in times of fast changing priorities. In addition, they must be able to navigate through very stressful, urgent, complex and ambiguous situations independently while seeking the win-win solution. 
• The incumbent must have excellent relationship and communication skills with the ability to apply analytical/quantitative and negotiating techniques to business solutions.
• Previous Merchant Acquiring Risk, Client Management or Commercial Credit Underwriting experience throughout multiple industries is desirable.
• Strong financial and analytical acumen, financial credit and/or accounting knowledge is required.
• Experience in process governance, with an understanding of processes that align with policies, regulatory frameworks, and/or operational standards
• Experience in at least one of the following:  
  • Translating operational risk strategy and appetite into execution guidelines
  • Tracking and identifying issues with Key Risk Indicator (KRI) limits and risk appetite to ensure operational risks are managed within agreed thresholds
  • Oversee the implementation of the operational risk governance frameworks 
  • Communicating and ensuring understanding and adherence to operational risk procedures and standards
  • Scoping, prioritizing, and support remediation of operational issues
  • Investigating and conducting root cause analysis to address repeated operational risk issue types
  • Performing quality assurance on documentation of risk processes
  • Overseeing BU remediation process for operational risk issues and events
  • Reviewing documentation and maintaining records to ensure transparency and accountability
  • Expertise in process governance, with a track record of establishing and overseeing robust decision-making processes that align with policies, regulatory frameworks, and/or operational standards
  • Experience in operational risk management (e.g., within Risk and/or Internal Audit function) is desired
  • Understanding of critical operational risk management lifecycle activities
  • Project management skills with experience collaborating within large business units preferred.
  • Strong data analytic skills required, including extensive knowledge in Microsoft Suite (Excel and PowerPoint), SQL, Tableau, BI tools.

Preferred Qualifications:

• MBA, CFA, PM or equivalent work experience preferred.
• Knowledge of Python and Java preferred.
• Previous experience with C-Level counterparts presenting complex credit metrics is preferred.

Salary Range: $90,000.00 to $165,000.00 annually + bonus + benefits

The above represents the expected salary range for this job requisition. Ultimately, in determining your pay, we’ll consider your location, experience, and other job-related factors.

We back you with benefits that support your holistic well-being so you can be and deliver your best. This means caring for you and your loved ones' physical, financial, and mental health, as well as providing the flexibility you need to thrive personally and professionally:

• Competitive base salaries 
• Bonus incentives 
• 6% Company Match on retirement savings plan 
• Free financial coaching and financial well-being support 
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits 
• Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need 
• 20+ weeks paid parental leave for all parents, regardless of gender, offered for pregnancy, adoption or surrogacy 
• Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location) 
• Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program 
• Career development and training opportunities

For a full list of Team Amex benefits, visit our Colleague Benefits Site.

American Express is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status, age, or any other status protected by law. American Express will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest or conviction records, in accordance with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including, but not limited to, the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance. For positions covered by federal and/or state banking regulations, American Express will comply with such regulations as it relates to the consideration of applicants with criminal convictions.

We back our colleagues with the support they need to thrive, professionally and personally. That's why we have Amex Flex, our enterprise working model that provides greater flexibility to colleagues while ensuring we preserve the important aspects of our unique in-person culture. Depending on role and business needs, colleagues will either work onsite, in a hybrid model (combination of in-office and virtual days) or fully virtually.

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Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the United States is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.