Head of Third Party Assurance – Risk

Birmingham, England, United Kingdom

12/12/2024

Our first line Enterprise Risk team is responsible for driving the risk and control agenda across AXA Health. You’ll help drive a robust and resilient risk culture, deepening the capability of AXA Health to understand and manage its risk, particularly over third parties, whilst maintaining a strong and pervasive focus on positive business and customer outcomes.

You’ll lead the oversight of third parties and strengthening of AXA Health’s control environment to ensure conduct and operational risks are managed. This will include co-ordinating and conducting audits and deep dives over third parties and existing controls, strengthening and developing processes and controls, analysing key management information (MI) and reporting findings AXA Health’s Executive Committee.

At AXA we work smart, empowering our people to balance their time between home and the office in a way that works best for them, their team and our customers. You'll work at least 40% of your week away from home, moving to the majority of your working week from September 2025. Away from home means either attendance at one of our office locations, visiting clients or attending industry events. We’re also happy to consider flexible working arrangements, which you can discuss with Talent Acquisition.

What you’ll be doing:

• Co-ordinate an assurance plan, lead audits and deep dives across AXA Health.
• Provide responsive and agile support to AXA Health’s Executive Committee on emerging risks, areas of concern and new third party strategic relationships.
• Mature the enterprise-wide controls assurance approach to deliver and continuously improve procedures, monitoring, reporting and governance processes.
• Provide advice and guidance on best practice processes, controls and documentation with a focus on strengthening, simplifying and automating.
• Lead root cause analysis to assess systemic issues, high rated risk incidents and trends in key risk indicators (KRIs).
• Provide recommendations for remediation approaches and enhancements to processes and control framework.
• Form strong stakeholder relationships ensuring consistent understanding of risk, control and conduct related matters.
• Drive engagement of committees and working groups and relevant senior management teams in third party risk management, controls development and assurance, using effective escalation when needed.
  
  
  

Due to the number of applications we expect to receive for this role, we reserve the right to close this advert earlier than the listed closing date to ensure we’re able to effectively manage interest. Therefore, if you’re interested in joining us at AXA, please don’t hesitate to apply.

What you'll bring:

• Demonstratable expertise in risk and control, supervision, quality assurance, control, internal audit and compliance monitoring processes.
• Deep understanding (or willingness to build) of AXA’s control and third-party oversight standards and policies.
• Experience of managing IT general controls and third-party assurance audits.
• In-depth understanding of relevant insurance and healthcare regulation and supervisory expectations for large, complex financial institutions.
• Proven stakeholder management and influencing skills, including executive level.
• Ability to engage teams on value of assurance activity. Influence buy-in of proposed solutions to issues.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, in particular ability to design and contribute to the content of key risk and control reporting.
• Commercial and pragmatic outlook, able to work at pace, respond quickly to change and remain delivery focussed.
  
  
  

As a precondition of employment for this role, you must be eligible and authorised to work in the United Kingdom.

What we offer:

At AXA UK, we’re appreciative of the people who work for us and our rewards package is reviewed regularly to reflect that. You can expect to receive:

• Competitive annual salary up to £70,000 dependent on experience
• Annual company & performance-based bonus
• Cash car allowance £5,200 per annum
• Contributory pension scheme (up to 12% employer contributions)
• Private health cover
• Life Assurance (up to 10 x annual salary)
• 28 days annual leave plus Bank Holidays
• Opportunity to buy up to 5 extra days leave or sell up to 5 days leave
• AXA employee discounts
• Gym benefits
  
  
  

To apply, click on the ‘apply for this job’ button, you’ll then need to log in or create a profile to submit your CV. We’re proud to be an Equal Opportunities Employer and don’t discriminate against employees or potential employees based on protected characteristics. If you have a long-term condition or disability and require adjustments during the application or interview process, we’re proud to offer access to the AXA Accessibility Concierge. For our support, please send an email to tanzeela.mehjabeen@axa-insurance.co.uk.

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Who we are:

At AXA Health, we help our members be the best version of themselves by providing access to health and wellbeing support for mind and body. We’re transforming our business by developing easy, efficient, digital experiences for our customers. We’re a collective of specialists passionate about helping our members flourish, whether that’s individuals and families, small businesses or huge corporates.