Director / Principal, Geopolitical & Country Risk

Control Risks supports private equity and credit, infrastructure and real assets, real estate, sovereign wealth, and development and multilateral funds, with a range of consulting services. These include transaction-specific diligence, encompassing sector- or country-specific political and policy risk intelligence and advisory, as well as assessments focusing on financial crime, reputation and performance, material ESG factors, and cyber risks associated with an investment target and its management. We also provide broader proactive and reactive risk management services for our client’s portfolio companies and assets.

The successful candidate would join a leading geopolitical and political risk intelligence and advisory team, with over 100 analysts and consultants around the globe. Moreover, the successful applicant would be expected to work very closely with other practice areas in Control Risks, particularly with colleagues from our Intelligence & Investigations team. The role is central to delivering our growth objectives related to private markets investors with Europe coverage.

This role is responsible for leading the implementation of our strategy with private markets investors in the UK and Western Europe more broadly to position Control Risks as a leading advisor on political, regulatory and policy risk to private market clients.

Role tasks and responsibilities

Client management and business development

• Refine and implement our private markets business development campaign to position Control Risks as a specialist provider of policy and regulatory diligence
• Identify and acquire new points of contact with new and existing clients, and manage these relationships to best meet our client’s requirements for both transaction and portfolio company support.
• Achieving year-on-year growth in our client base, and increase the number, diversity and complexity of our mandates.
• Develop our relationships with industry associations and professional advisors, and evaluate the best events and networks to engage, to raise awareness of our brand and services among private market investors.

Case and project work

• Ensure our proposals focus on our clients’ requirements and our ability to meet them, and that our proposals stay ahead of the market by incorporating clients’ feedback and service innovation.
• Lead more complicated engagements for private markets investors, drawing in Control Risks’ expertise from different practices as required.
• Build and maintain policy/regulatory monitoring across priority jurisdictions, particularly the UK, and sectors relevant to our clients.
• Develop and manage a human source and subcontractor network to support the growth of the practice and the delivery of our work. Align closely with colleagues working on the region to expand our source and subcontractor networks to meet market demand.
  

Working culture

• Foster an inclusive, collaborative environment between practice areas, offices and regions.
• Coordinate closely with the Head of Private Markets and Financial Sponsors, as well as other colleagues with a private markets investor remit.
• Ensure that pricing, margins, value of our work and strategic objectives regarding the buyer group are understood in the team to grow our client base and deliver on revenue and profit targets.