Product Control - Governance & Controls at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

AVP role in the CIB Finance Product Control 1st line of defense (1LOD) Governance team for the Global Markets; Treasury and Corporate business units. At a high level, this entails risk management in full compliance with regulatory requirements, Enterprise Risk Management Framework and Internal ABSA Policies and Standards. It also encompasses performing Assurance activities to enable, ensure the establishment and maintenance of a robust control environment whilst managing and monitoring the risk profile in line with applicable risk appetite.

Job Description

The role requires the candidate to execute the Product Control 1LOD mandate. The role has demanding product and technical content, and the sheer pace of activity and growth within the firm, necessitate an energetic and proactive approach. Strong product knowledge and a robust control mentality are essential, along with proven IT understanding and an aptitude for being self-driven. Strong communication and influencing skills are also a must have as the role requires one to interact with a wide range of stakeholders and will be required to manage expectations and present at risk forums in line with 1LOD role.

Core activity for the Product Control, Governance and Control Team entails the following:

• Defining, maintaining and updating Policies and Standards applicable to Product Control
• Attendance of GLRS meetings and identifying risk items and providing the necessary challenge to ensure a robust control lens is applied at these meetings
• Performing duties of a First Line of Defense team which at a high level pertain to the evaluation; monitoring and testing of controls - this also evolves to responding to and/or identifying control gaps.
• Understanding the end to end process flows and activity in the areas we look after so we play an advisory role and guide accordingly on risk management practice. This also empowers us to spot emerging risks and futureproof the business and organization as a whole
• Facilitating the PC specific Policy and Process Training and running the FC Academy across CIB ARO Finance
• Collation of Material Reporting Packs for SARB, FRCC and Group Finance KRI
• KRI controls – standardizing these across Product Control and reporting to senior management

Operational activity includes but is not limited to

• Sound understanding of the system and product flows, the risks associated with the breaks and root cause remediation
• Challenge existing processes and controls ensuring best practice across finance
• Interacting with Line Controllers for issue resolutions
• The ability to build strong working relationships with business, other infrastructure units and Assurance colleagues
• The capacity to work under pressure and the experience needed to flag concerns or articulate /report on risk
• Interaction with various areas across the Absa Group in order to obtain and understanding of the impact these areas have on Product Control as well as providing both formal reporting as well as ad hoc query resolution to these areas.
• Areas PCGC covers include: Absa CIB Markets Product Control Team, Absa CIB Treasury Product Control Team, Absa CIB Transactional Banking Product Control Team, Absa CIB Global Finance Product Control Team and Absa CIB Financial Control and Financial Decision Support.

Candidate to have

• Excellent understanding of own field. Up-to-date with relevant sector/department knowledge, and has insight into external market developments/initiatives
• Networks effectively in the market
• Is able to look at information with understanding of risk and control implications.
• Able to articulate the major issues surrounding his/her areas of work
• Demonstrates initiative in rethinking how the team’s functions or their objectives in executing our mandate should be changed to be more productive/efficient.
• Demonstrates effective use of a network of people and resources through the department.
• Influencing and negotiating skills.
• Consistently solves problems effectively and creatively.
• Excellent project management skills.
• Ability to mitigate risk.
• Excellent communication in both formal and informal settings, and at all levels
• Has the ability to break down barriers and ability to address conflict with another department.
• Makes timely and effective decisions and produces results even in the face of adversity.
• Reputation for producing results.
• A high level of focus on client relations. Always proactively seeking to improve the relationship but in the right way

Accountability: Technical knowledge:

• Excellent understanding of relevant and up-to-date technical knowledge, applications and techniques.
• Recognized as an expert in their discipline.
• Continually delivering process improvement and challenging the status quo
• Champions best practice.
• The ability to appraise issues/situations quickly and to identify appropriate next steps

Accountability: Projects/Change

• Efficiency – looking for continuous improvement in the efficiency by which the desk carries out its work.
• Reporting – looking for continuous improvement in the reporting ability and performance of the desk
• Control – looking for continuous improvement in the ability of the desk to control the business

Skills Matrix Summary:

• Energetic and proactive approach
• Strong product knowledge
• Robust control mentality
• Proven IT understanding
• Strong communication and influencing skills

Competencies

• Deciding and initiating action
• Learning and researching
• Entrepreneurial and commercial thinking
• Relating and networking
• Adapting and responding to change
• Persuading and influencing
• Creating and innovating

Education And Experience Required

• B degree/similar qualification in a financial/related discipline with 5 or more years’ relevant experience or CA(SA) with 2 years PQE experience
• Investment banking; Risk and Assurance type or Product Control experience is preferred

Education

• Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Financial Sciences (Required)

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Job Summary
Lead the agile solution design, deployment & ongoing optimization & evolution of enterprise wide technology products and services (full stack engineering & ownership / control) in a complex environment. Ensure that systems owned are kept up to do on versions, upgrades, patches, cyber security measures, DR testing. Ensure that systems uptime and availability is exemplary.

Job Description

Product & Service Direction Setting, Solution Design & Performance Management

• Work with the Head of Technology / CIO & business product owners to define the product & technical strategy (Full Stack – End to End)
• Act as the single point of partnership & assume responsibility for managing the senior business interface (product owner) relationship
• Assume one stop shop accountability for the delivery of the product & solutions (risk cannot be outsourced to vendors)
• Apply design thinking practices to deliver architecturally sound technical product & service solutions (and explain / guide / coach others on this architecture holistically and technically)
• Lead & facilitate the design of the product & or service solution blueprints aligned to the organization strategy (Short, Medium & Long Term)
• Collaborate across the tech value chain (CSO, CTO, etc.) to guide the business on the appropriate technical solution (cost to value) & the range of strategic technical choices to be made
• Lead the detailed scoping, prioritisation & integration planning for the design & deployment of products & services with & across multiple stakeholder groups (Front End, Back End & Integration) – (aligned to solution blueprints)
• Meaningfully contribute & ensure solutions align to the design & direction of the Group Architecture standards, principles, preferences & practices. Short term deployment must align to strategic long term delivery.
• Meaningfully contribute & ensure solutions align to the design and direction of the Group Infrastructure standards and practices e.g. OLA’s, IAAS, PAAS, SAAS, Containerisation etc.
• Strategically & operationally monitor the performance of products and services (all applications) – ensuring ongoing optimization & cost to value for our businesses (think bank wide)

DevOps (with deep knowledge & understanding of context within which we develop architecturally & infrastructurally)

• Leverage the required expert level (own) skill & knowledge in architecture & Infrastructure, design and manage all development & development practices & outputs across squads (apply knowledge on virtualization, containerization, automation, storage & serverless technologies (e.g. AWS, Azure, Google, & on prem-Cloud, etc.)
• Ensure the most optimal design & deployment of technical products and services in the organization (via pipeline – not manually)
• Design & Implement Automation Testing, Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery Strategies & frameworks across squads for effective solution development & deployment (understand and apply expert knowledge in e.g. Kubernetes, Jenkins, TeamCity, Arifactory, MS Powershell, Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) Tools, APM Tools (e.g. NewRelic & Splunk) etc.
• Ensure solution designs deliver on the key technical principles of: self-service, repeatability, testability, scalability & resilience
• Guide code development practices and processes through an understanding of complex concepts and developmental practices such as threading, parallel processing, asynchronous programming, domain driven design, lambdas etc. & coding language expertise (e.g. Java, C++, Groovy, Python, Bash, Perl, Ruby etc.)
• Guide & ensure the delivery of quality development (code) based on own experience in developing across a range of applications including but not limited to: server side, client side, web (SOAP, REST, JSON), socket based programming, batch & real time, building architectural patterns, security / security domains)
• Effectively manage the DevOps pipeline & associated releases for maximum customer impact & minimum business risk
• Manage the maintenance & optimization of applications, products & services as a ‘way of doing things / culture’ within the development teams. You are fully accountable for the longevity of applications aligned to Group Architectural practices.
• Coach & Mentor senior developers across squads on the technical competencies to effectively deliver on DevOps solutions (see Dev competency model in skills & competencies section). To do this, display proficiency in the Senior level competency requirements.

Delivery Management (where there is a specific product / service you manage)

• With fluency in the deployment of agile methodologies, resource & manage the appropriate number and nature (skill & capability) of squad based teams to execute on both Run & Change elements of delivery
• Work in collaboration with transformation & change teams for effective resourcing and delivery management of various programmes at all levels (SI, BU etc.)
• Ensure agile practices are implemented and sustained for effective delivery to business e.g. RETRO’s etc.
• Positively & proactively manage product owner relationships including building product owner technical capability to enable balanced & best fit decision making
• Proactively engage with & partner CTO, CSO, SE, Risk and broader enablement functions to drive alignment & leading practice in technology design & deployment

People

• Set & Cascade Product & Service direction across squads
• Proactively attract, recruit, develop, retain, reward & deploy a diverse resource base aligned to an ever evolving tech environment (ahead of demand)
• Build a high performance team environment through self-directed teams by driving performance management & measurement that is aligned with agile working practices (including daily, weekly, etc. sprint routines, regular & honest feedback etc.)
• Accountable for the right people in the right teams to deliver on our tech strategy (always!)
• Leverage coaching techniques in all squad related activity to drive a higher quality design and deployment of technical products and services

Financial & Vendor Management, Risk & Governance

• Carry the ‘one stop shop’ accountability for all risk associated with technical decision making (from ideation to deployment)
• Manage & Apply the organization risk & governance frameworks
• Ensure decisions on infrastructure & product design are aligned to chapter & guild guidelines & are sustainable for the enterprise
• Proactively involve / engage chapter & guild leads in product design & infrastructure decision making, applying an enterprise wide lens to product & service development
• Manage all vendor selection processes & take full accountability for all related commercial impact
• Negotiate best fit contracts for the organization at an enterprise level and align decision making to our key business principles of scalability, resilience, captivity etc.
• Deliver on time & on budget (always)

Education

• Bachelor's Degree: Information Technology