Compliance Officer

From day one, our mission has been to create an independent business with a unique culture - one that is controlled by the people who work for it. Finding the most talented and entrepreneurial people has always been key to our success.

People come to Howden Group Holdings for lots of different reasons, but they stay for the same one: our culture. That’s what sets us apart, and why we nurture and retain the best talent in the market. Whatever your priorities - work/life balance, career progression, sustainability, volunteering - you’ll find like-minded people driving change at Howden Group.

What are we looking for?

We are loooking for someone to support the CCO in developing a central compliance function that serves the needs of our growing and dynamic global broking operations. This includes:

- Visiting local offices, understanding the local strategy and maturity and supporting their development of second line capabilities in proportion to their growth plans.
- Embedding Howden Group Holdings’ Principles for Business which set out our Group minimum standards.
- Growing a central library of compliance resources including training materials and template policies and procedures. Ensuring they are promoted for use in local entities;
- Identifying Groupwide compliance trends and themes; delivering messages and solutions to address them.
- Developing second-line ‘healthcheck’ visits in local countries and support the development and delivery of local action plans where necessary with tracking and reporting of remediation.
- Embedding governance structures and communication lines between Group, Regional and Local management tiers including ensuring relevant forums and committees operate effectively.
- Providing expertise, practical solutions and resourcing support to entities addressing internal audit findings.
- Support the Group by conducting ad-hoc reviews related to compliance matters - either remotely or on site.
- Enhancing the compliance workstream of our integration programme for acquired companies.
- To establish strong working relationships that support a strong risk management culture, including the roll out of Howden’s Enterprise Risk, Internal Controls and Compliance Framework;
- To support the development of an annual HBG Group Compliance Plan, including establishing and tracking the performance of the Group Compliance Function and the activities and priorities of regional and local compliance resources in the context of Group priorities; and
- Countries in scope include all territories except those directly managed in the UK and Ireland. Our principle regions are Latin America; Europe; Middle East and Southern Africa; Turkey and North Africa; Asia and Pacific and frequent travel is an expected and integral part of the role.

Key Accountabilities
- To support the CCO in developing a regional structure for risk and compliance and support the Group Risk Function in embedding governance and control structures which meet the growing needs of the Howden Group.
- To work with senior operational management to ensure that risk & compliance systems, processes, procedures and controls remain appropriate.
- To prepare template and model documents for adaptation and adoption by local entities.
- To ensure that operational management are briefed in good time to ensure compliance with regulatory change - with particular focus on changes with Groupwide impact.
- Manage assigned projects and contributes to other projects as required.
- Conduct site visits to directly support businesses and, where needed, support second line reviews of local operations.
- Prepare relevant management information to the Howden Broking Chief Compliance Officer and Howden Group CRO and to relevant forums and committees on Risk & Compliance matters.

People and Culture
- Howden is a rapidly evolving, growing business with entrepreneurial spirit at the core of its culture. The role holder will promote Compliance’s role in the context of this culture, enabling good decision making at local levels by the business and supporting sustainable growth in line with Howden’s strategy;
- Maintain an unwavering customer focus and instil the same in both colleagues and stakeholders;
- Actively support positive management and leadership behaviours;
- Actively undertake personal development to ensure up to date knowledge and understanding of best practice; and
- Keep informed of external industry, legal and regulatory developments relevant to the role to ensure practice and outputs are of a sufficiently high standard.

Capabilities
- Experience of national compliance frameworks and similar multinational regulated groups and a track record of advocating a positive, enabling culture of compliance;
- Comfortable operating in matrix environments;
- Strong experience of governance in multi-national regulated groups and in working directly with Board level management;
- Excellent interpersonal skills and an awareness of adaptations needed