The challenges facing the Chief Risk Officer
Turning risk into an instrument of decision, not one more register.
assignments brought to a close in under two months
of our assignments conclude within a single month
of replacement guarantee, invoked twice in sixteen years
What has changed in the function
David Kracov
From register to steering
Risk mapping is no longer an annual box-ticking exercise. Sapin 2, CSRD double materiality, internal control, audit, whistleblowing lines and health and safety all feed into steering. Governance expects tracked indicators and coherent action plans, not a report.
A function of interfaces
Risks are managed first by the operational teams. Risk teams bring the method, the tools and the prioritisation. Recruiting this function means assessing a capacity for influence as much as a technique.
Convergence with compliance
Risk and compliance are converging, to the point of sharing a single remit within the office of the company secretary. That convergence is giving rise to hybrid profiles the market qualifies poorly, and that we already recruit.
Recruit a leader who turns risk into an instrument of decision
We identify and recruit the leaders your organisation needs. Every search starts from your context and from the balance of the team already in place. You then receive a reasoned shortlist, with the points that deserve attention, not a catalogue of CVs.
What you can count on
The commitments we make to you.
- 01 Proven sector expertise
- 02 A network of highly qualified leaders
- 03 A search perimeter defined with you, assignment by assignment
- 04 Guaranteed discretion and confidentiality
- 05 Integration followed for a full year
What the right hire for the risk function secures
A badly chosen Chief Risk Officer produces risk maps for show, risks handled in silos and a governance that discovers its exposures at the moment they materialise. The right hire turns that picture around. The company does not lose less, it holds its course better.
Risk maps produced for head office, operational teams who experience the exercise as a burden, and exposures discovered too late.
An organisation that anticipates, with macroeconomic and geopolitical inputs shared upstream, an observatory of exposures and a common basis of reasoning on which to decide.
We recruit on both sides of the risk, compliance and insurance divide, including the hybrid profiles that few firms know how to qualify, because they call for understanding both worlds.
Vos questions sur ce recrutement
Yes, and we already recruit them for the most mature organisations. Risk and compliance teams are converging, to the point of sharing a single remit in some organisations, often within the office of the company secretary. They work on the same subjects, Sapin 2 risk mapping, double materiality, segmented assessment of third parties and business partners. That convergence is giving rise to Chief Ethics, Risk & Compliance Officer roles that the market still identifies poorly, sometimes extended to insurance. Few firms know how to qualify these remits, because they call for understanding both worlds at once. Our firm comes from that double world, its founder co-founded the Cercle de la Compliance in 2011, and we scope these hybrid remits with you before looking for candidates.
The pool of risk leaders is narrow, and its best profiles are in post. An advertisement does not reach them, a confidential and reasoned approach does. Our knowledge of this market has been built assignment after assignment, alongside the compliance and legal functions with which risk is converging. Direct approach also changes the quality of the evaluation. Our interviews measure the buy-in a candidate can create among operational teams, because a risk leader succeeds first through influence. Personality assessments are debriefed in full, references cross-checked with the executives who have worked with them. You decide on a reasoned shortlist, each candidate presented with their strengths, their points of watchfulness and the conditions for their success. Nine assignments out of ten conclude in under two months.
There is no right reporting line in the abstract, there is a reporting line that is right for your organisation. The office of the company secretary, the finance department or general management, each option changes the authority of the function and the profiles within reach. Scoping is built with you in a working session, before any search opens. It covers the reporting line, the remit, with insurance included or not, the articulation with compliance, audit and internal control, and access to governance. A Chief Risk Officer in a financial institution, a listed industrial group or a mid-cap going international does not answer the same expectations, and that initial reading steers the whole assignment. This point is settled at the scoping stage, because we have lived these trade-offs from the inside, and it governs the success of the future post-holder.
Six months of replacement guarantee, written into every mandate. If the candidate leaves the role during that period, we take the assignment back on with no new fees. The conditions, including termination at the employer's initiative, appear in black and white in the mandate. In sixteen years, the clause has been invoked twice, both times for personal reasons on the candidate's side, never for an error of judgement. That solidity owes nothing to chance. It rests on the initial scoping, the in-depth assessment and the cross-checked references that precede every presentation, then on the integration follow-up that continues for a year after signature. The guarantee protects your decision. Our method makes sure it almost never has to.