Associate Principal, Core Credit

What You'll Do:

This role will be primarily responsible for safeguarding OCC by ensuring that OCC only admits and transacts with clearing members and other counterparties that are financially and operationally sound, and meet the expectations of OCC’s management, and Board.

Monitors assigned OCC Clearing Members and bank relationships through identifying, measuring, monitoring, managing, and reporting the various forms of credit risks introduced to OCC by these counterparties.  Conduct yourself within the department’s processes and controls and demonstrate understanding of OCC’s Framework for Risk Management and work with senior management in Financial Risk Management to ensure OCC is at the forefront of credit  risk management capabilities. This person should continually assess current systems and capabilities supporting CRM processes and recommend to Credit Risk Managers/Directors any enhancements necessary to be at the leading edge of credit risk management. This individual will may lead projects related to those enhancements to ensure successful implementation and conclusion.

Awareness of overall financial industry trends,  regulatory developments, OCC rules, and overall credit risk management best practices is necessary to lead OCC in the development of credit risk management frameworks, tools, and solutions that both protect OCC and its Clearing Members from credit losses.  This role may serve as a subject matter expert related to external inquiries of OCC from clearing members, banks and auditors (independent and regulatory).  This person ensures they are communicating relevant credit risk information to various senior OCC staff, conducting ad-hoc projects, and presenting analysis to senior OCC staff.

Present and particiapte with internal working groups, direct communications to the Chief Financial Risk Officer, interact with the Management Committee, and regulators, as needed.  Works under a high demand for independent judgement.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each primary duty satisfactorily.

• Independently monitor, analyze, and evaluate the ongoing creditworthiness of counterparties and their compliance with OCC rules and other regulatory requirements, including analysis of financial statements to identify levels and trends in key metrics and ratios, material news,  , escalating  counterparties requiring enhanced surveillance to department management.

• Collaborate with counterparties to identify root cause of issues or concerns.

• Independently evaluate clearing members’ and other counterpartys’ risk management and operational policies, procedures, processes, staff, and systems to understand how the member is monitoring and mitigating its risk to OCC.

• Accountable for analysis and evaluation, creating output of CRM’s periodic exams of existing clearing members and other counterparties and escalating identified credit concerns to Management as needed.

• May participate in requests for new or business expansions for clearing members and other relationships, including recommendations for protective covenants, where necessary.

• Foster and maintain strategic relationships with senior staff of Financial Risk Management, other internal and external stakeholders, demonstrating a high degree of professional prescence.

• Effectively challenge and identify enhancements to business processes, risk management systems and methodologies as part the course of daily business and through the annual review process to create best practices,  escalating to Management necessary improvements.  

• Work closely with senior leaders on projects and cross-department collaboration

• Participate in interactions with regulators, exchanges and other external parties, as needed, on formal exams of CRM or ongoing requests for information.

• Drive business results by continuously demonstrating a strong bias for action through ownership and accountability

• Participate in OCC culture, value, and competency initiatives, including a focus on achieving strong engagement results.

• Participate in remediation efforts related to regulatory or internal audit findings and observations. Ensure remediation addresses root cause, improves OCC’s residual risk, and is completed in a timely manner.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• Mentor and train junior staff in Credit Risk practices, processes, and procedures.  

Qualifications:

The requirements listed are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the primary functions.

• [Required] Ability to critically assess counterparties, including a deep understanding of the CAMEL(S) rating methodology and other industry accepted credit rating methodologies

• [Required] Ability to read and understand financial statements, brokerage statements, and accounting records

• [Required] Strong knowledge of SEC/CFTC regulatory rules and regulations related to credit risk management.

• [Required] Strong knowledge of the financial services industry, including the financial, market, liquidity and operational risks of broker-dealers, futures commission merchants, commercial banks, pension funds, and financial market utilities

• [Required] Strong understanding of securities markets, derivatives, and option trading strategies

• [Preferred] Strong knowledge in asset classes like equities, interest rates, volatility, commodities, and foreign currencies

• [Required] Familiarity with statistical concepts including VaR, Expected Shortfall, Student-T and Normal Distributions

• [Required] Participate in OCC efforts for inclusion of new products in OCC’s clearing system, including model or methodology development, membership standards and regulatory approvals

• [Required] Strong understanding of business collaboration with IT teams in requirements development and user-testing

• [Required] Must be able to work in a team environment, be responsive to Executive Management

• [Required] Must possess strong oral and written communication and presentation skills with both business and quantitative departments

• [Required] Proven leadership abilities

• [Required] Demonstrated analytical and problem-solving skills and the ability to work in fast-paced collaborative environment

• [Required] Must be able to work under deadlines and manage multiple tasks

• [Preferred] Knowledge and experience with the processes to onboard and monitor securties lending counterparty

Technical Skills:

• [Required] Broad knowledge in mathematical finance, financial econometrics, derivative instruments, numerical methods, mathematical programming, risk management, with specialist expertise in several of these areas

• [Required] Strong knowledge of spreadsheets, MS Excel preferred

• [Required] Strong skills for presentations to senior management

• [Required] Strong knowledge in the creation of presentations, MS PowerPoint preferred

• [Required] Intermediate Knowledge of data bases, SQL, Python, and data visualization (Tableau or Power BI)

Education & Training

• [Required] MBA or MS degree in Accounting, Finance, Economics or equivalent discipline

• [Required] Analytical and problem solving skills

• [Required] Experience collaborating on a team of experienced individuals and analysts

• [Required]  6+ years of experience in Risk Management

• [Required] Experience in financial services/ regulated capital markets infrastructure

• [Preferred] Experience with a broker-dealer, FCM, exchange, regulator, or clearing house

• [Preferred] Depth and breadth of experience in a highly regulated industry, like financial services, and an understanding of rules/regulations that govern them.

Certificates or Licenses:

• [Preferred] CFA or FRM certification

About Us

The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) is the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization. Founded in 1973, OCC is dedicated to promoting stability and market integrity by delivering clearing and settlement services for options, futures and securities lending transactions. As a Systemically Important Financial Market Utility (SIFMU), OCC operates under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. OCC has more than 100 clearing members and provides central counterparty (CCP) clearing and settlement services to 19 exchanges and trading platforms. More information about OCC is available at www.theocc.com.

Benefits

A highly collaborative and supportive environment developed to encourage work-life balance and employee wellness. Some of these components include:

• A hybrid work environment, up to 2 days per week of remote work
• Tuition Reimbursement to support your continued education
• Student Loan Repayment Assistance
• Technology Stipend allowing you to use the device of your choice to connect to our network while working remotely
• Generous PTO and Parental leave
• 401k Employer Match
• Competitive health benefits including medical, dental and vision

Visit https://www.theocc.com/careers/thriving-together for more information.

Compensation

• The salary range listed for any given position is exclusive of fringe benefits and potential bonuses. If hired at OCC, your final base salary compensation will be determined by factors such as skills, experience and/or education.
• In addition, we believe in the importance of pay equity and consider internal equity of our current team members as part of any final offer.
• We typically do not hire at the maximum of the range in order to allow for future and continued salary growth. We also offer a substantial benefits package as noted on www.theocc.com/careers
• All employees may be eligible for a discretionary bonus. Discretionary bonuses are based on various factors, including, but not limited to, company and individual performance and are not guaranteed.

Salary Range

Incentive Range

This position is eligible for an annual discretionary incentive compensation award, for which the target range is listed above (see Incentive Range). The amount of such award, if any, will be based on various factors, including without limitation, both individual and company performance.

Step 1
When you find a position you're interested in, click the 'Apply' button. Please complete the application and attach your resume.  

Step 2
You will receive an email notification to confirm that we've received your application.

Step 3
If you are called in for an interview, a representative from OCC will contact you to set up a date, time, and location. 

For more information about OCC, please click here.

OCC is an Equal Opportunity Employer