Senior Specialist Credit Restructuring Advisory

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together one story at a time.
- With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group. Job Summary

Leading and directing the strategic delivery of the Absa CIB Credit watch-list/distressed portfolio by maintaining and embedding a solutions-focused mindset; driving and informing the right level of debate; focusing on execution within agreed timeframes, whilst achieving the desired balance between risk and reward.

The role encompasses significant technical, tactical and strategic complexity, balancing the principles of risk mitigation and loss minimization whilst retaining clients where appropriate, thereby acting as a trusted risk approver/sanctioning/advisor to affected stakeholders.

This role also provides a single point of contact for the CIB Credit Distressed Debt and Watch-list Portfolio exposures that are managed by the CIB Special Asset Management (SAM) Team.

The incumbent will provide the necessary oversight of ARO in-country Business Support/Distressed Asset portfolios.

Job Description

Distressed Asset Review and Sanctioning Officer
- The incumbent is to provide leadership to aid the development and maintenance of appropriate and effective early warning lists and watch-list governance framework across Absa CIB segment, whilst ensuring compliance with the overall Group governance and policies for wholesale credit risk in accordance with the Distressed Asset Policy (DAP) and associated standards.
- Review of the Credit Risk Management Framework and DAP to ensure alignment
- Distressed Asset Credit Decision/Sanctioning/Approval in alignment with the Delegated Mandate/Authority.
- The incumbent is responsible for providing guidance to the ARO in-country teams who are responsible for the design and embedment of appropriate governance and controls necessary to manage the Watchlist portfolios, to enable governance and control structures that provide effective management of watch listed ARO Clients.
- The incumbent is required to provide input and if required direction to the strategic management of the CIB Credit Watchlist names in conjunction with the CIB SAM team ensuring that the restructure, turnaround or exit strategies adopted take into account the reputational risks, specific country risks, sector and product risks with the objective of maintaining or reducing capital at risk as well as mitigating and reducing the risk of loss / impairment.
- Facilitate the development of streamlined and consistent impairment reporting templates that minimize inefficiencies and enable consistent reporting and forecasting of identified impairments and material potential risks and opportunities.
- The incumbent will rely on extensive prior negotiating and restructuring experience to provide the relevant input to the ‘center’ Specialists and in country teams to enable them to maximize shareholder value in their dealings with distressed clients and relevant advisors, liquidators and Business Rescue Practitioners / Administrators
- Review of Watchlist strategy sheets, impairment memos and review of Watchlist Meeting packs
- Facilitation of lessons learnt engagement with risk and business colleagues to ensure an ongoing and collaborative culture that seeks to continuously improve the risk management of CIB exposures
- Preparation of STP, MTP, RAF and other periodic forecasts relating to Impairments.
- Active involvement in automating CIB Watchlist information and processes
- Facilitation of lessons learnt engagement with risk and business colleagues to ensure an ongoing and collaborative culture that seeks to continuously improve the risk management of CIB exposures.

Internal and External Stakeholder management
- Importantly, this role will require the incumbent to effectively manage, build and maintain strategic networks with multiple stakeholders across the Bank in particular (Senior Risk, Senior Business and Product Heads, In-Country and Centre), in relation to matters that are material from a country and center perspective.
- Additionally the incumbent, will interact effectively with voting members of the various credit governance structures and Watchlist and Impairment committees.

Credit Risk and Business Management
- Contribute to business and credit policy development that supports and enables the effective management of watch listed clients in country.
- Oversight of management of risk by in-country to ensure consistency of approach in relation to classification of WL cases and appropriate levels of Impairment.
- Ensure in-country Heads of Business Support and Recoveries and teams are held accountable for the delivery of relevant, accurate and timely management information (e.g. impairment data, loan loss ratios, coverage ratios, portfolio trends) a