Senior First Line Risk Manager

We’re looking for a Senior First Line Risk Manager to join our growing First Line Risk team here in the Chief Operating Office (COO) at Nucleus. Reporting into the Head of First Line Risk and Incident Management, this will be a pivotal role in providing oversight and support for the day-to-day management of risk across Operations in line with our risk management framework. In addition, the role has line management responsibility for two Risk Managers, providing leadership, coaching, and direction to deliver our first line risk objectives and the ongoing development of team capability.

What we do is complex, so our first line risk approach is critical to making sure we deliver our service well and give our customers the right outcomes while meeting our regulatory obligations and keeping the business safe as we grow. Within this role, you’ll work closely with key stakeholders in the business to understand where things can go wrong and cause the most harm, so we understand our risks and make sure we have the right controls and processes in place to manage them. You will support and oversee our customer remediation approach to make sure it fairly addresses poor customer outcomes as well as looking at root cause analysis and reporting with a critical eye on reducing customer harm.

You'll work hand in hand with our partners in second line risk and compliance to ensure that we live and breathe our risk management framework across Operations and are identifying, reporting and managing events and breaches quickly and accurately.

We’re looking for someone who can use their experience to work closely with business leadership and to embed a strong risk culture to proactively manage risks arising from day-to-day operations and strategic initiatives. You’ll support effective identification and management of risks and issues with a passion for doing the right thing for our customers and the ability to see risk events as opportunities to deliver improvements to the customer experience and our controls and processes.

To be successful in this role, you’ll have a strong understanding of operational processes and risk management within a highly regulated environment. You’ll be a great communicator able to breakdown complex information to a level everyone understands, have excellent relationship building skills to collaborate across the business and will be passionate about delivering great customer outcomes and cultivating efficiencies and opportunities.

A bit about you

Your friends would probably describe you as the practical and adaptable one who makes sure that plans happen even if things change last minute. Professional, resilient and credible, you’ll use your industry knowledge to build a strong self-sufficient team. You love using your analytical and problem-solving skills collaboratively to design robust and sustainable practices that embed strong risk and control management through what we do every day. A structured thinker able to effectively articulate complex information in an understandable way with a variety of senior stakeholders, you’ll be comfortable sharing clear recommendations when needed. Organised, proactive and delivery focused, you’ll want to be part of a collaborative culture where you feel empowered to lead but always know you’ll never be left alone.

This role is extremely varied, day to day you’ll spend your time:

• Supporting the delivery and embedding of the first line risk operating model and governance across COO.
• Promoting a culture of continuous improvement and accountability for proactive risk identification, monitoring, and management.
• Collaborating with key stakeholders to identify, report, and remediate risk events and breaches, ensuring timely implementation and tracking of corrective actions.
• Working with process owners and cross-functional teams (e.g., operations, complaints, IT, second line) to enhance processes, strengthen controls, and conduct root cause analysis.
• Identifying systemic issues and supporting control owners in implementing preventative measures.
• Reviewing and maintaining the adequacy and effectiveness of risks, controls, and key risk indicators.
• Providing regular risk reporting to senior management, highlighting trends, performance, and high-impact events.
• Liaising with second line risk to ensure alignment with the risk management framework and supporting oversight and reporting.
• Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, internal policies, and supporting readiness for audits, inspections, and timely resolution of findings.

We’ve always placed more importance on cultural contribution above technical ability, but in this role, we’d really like you to have/be:

• Proven experience embedding and maintaining risk management frameworks.
• Strong track record in supporting the identification and management of operational risks and control assessment and improvement.
• Strong analytical skills with attention to detail and the ability to manage competing priorities under pressure.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement skills, with experience working with senior leadership, Boards, and committees.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to simplify complex information for diverse audiences.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite.
• Experience with Power BI or other data visualisation tools.

A little about us

• Our purpose at Nucleus is to transform financial services and create better outcomes for our advisers and their clients. It is this purpose that drives everything we do. Whether you are working in a role that is client facing or not, you’ll need to be service obsessed to work here.
• It’s a fast paced and exciting environment, and one where we believe you will get the chance to fulfil your potential and do work that really matters, to you and our clients. We believe in you having your own chunk of responsibility and being trusted to make things happen.
• Nucleus’ culture is something our people believe sets us apart from other places they’ve worked. This short film gives you an insight into what it is like to work with us.

Inclusion and diversity at Nucleus

• As with most things in life, who cares, wins. We really care about inclusion.
• For us this is not a box-ticking thing, it’s a commercial imperative. It isn’t about being PC. It’s about being future relevant and durable. Find out more on our inclusion page
• We offer a generous blend of benefits for the things that really matter to our people, including pension, bonus, enhanced parental leave, paid time off for emergencies, health and wellbeing initiatives and flexible working options.