Risk & BCM Director

About Riyadh University of Arts

Riyadh University of Arts (RUA) is an institution focused on cross-cultural arts education and creative innovation. The university aims to foster ideas that inspire progress and transform society through industry and academic collaboration, while cultivating a global environment for cultural exchange. RUA's vision is to be a beacon of knowledge, integrating culture and arts, and empowering students. Its mission is to cultivate an innovative educational environment in culture and arts, delivering programs that enrich both Saudi and global communities.

About the Role

Riyadh University of Arts is seeking a Risk & BCM Director to lead enterprise risk management, business continuity, and compliance. This full-time role, based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, involves establishing frameworks and oversight mechanisms to protect institutional objectives, strengthen resilience, and ensure adherence to regulatory and internal requirements. The Director will oversee enterprise risk governance, continuity readiness, crisis preparedness, policy discipline, and integrated assurance across the institution, providing leadership with clear reporting on risks, breaches, remediation, and required decisions.

General Accountabilities

• Oversee the design and implementation of the Risk & Compliance department’s strategic plan, objectives, and goals, ensuring alignment with RUA's strategy.
• Direct and approve the department’s operational plans and oversee their implementation to achieve identified objectives.
• Develop the department’s performance objectives and indicators, and continuously monitor progress.
• Participate in the GRC budgeting process and provide input from a Risk & Compliance perspective.
• Ensure effective utilization of the department’s budget and report on progress and challenges.
• Oversee the design and setup of Risk and Compliance department’s policies, processes, and procedures to align with and exceed best-in-class standards.
• Oversee the implementation of procedures and controls to ensure efficiency, transparency, and accountability.
• Oversee regular reviews of policies, processes, guidelines, and procedures to confirm alignment with RUA requirements and market developments, coordinating corrective actions as needed.
• Inspire the team and provide guidance, delegation, and mentorship to foster a performance-driven culture.
• Ensure team availability and qualification through recruitment, training, development, and performance management.
• Take actions to enhance employee engagement and motivation.
• Provide clear top-down communication to employees and bottom-up feedback to senior management.

Specific Responsibilities

• Oversee the formulation and maintenance of the enterprise risk framework, including risk appetite, taxonomy, escalation thresholds, reporting cadence, and leadership governance.
• Oversee the enterprise risk portfolio to ensure risks are identified, prioritized, owned, and managed across strategic, reputational, regulatory, academic, student safety, research, third-party, operational, and financial domains.
• Monitor key risk indicators and recommend timely actions when thresholds are breached or risk exposure changes.
• Ensure material risk remediation is assigned, tracked, and escalated for overdue or high-impact items.
• Oversee business continuity management to ensure critical functions have defined continuity expectations and validated recovery arrangements.
• Direct business impact analyses, continuity plans, disaster recovery arrangements, and crisis response exercises.
• Ensure lessons learned from incidents and tests are translated into improvements in controls, plans, and readiness.
• Direct enterprise BCM governance and reporting across internal stakeholders and continuity partners.
• Oversee the compliance management approach, ensuring regulatory obligations are captured, translated into operational requirements, and monitored through structured reporting.
• Ensure policy governance standards, centralized policy repository controls, and disciplined review cycles are applied consistently.
• Coordinate integrated assurance across Risk, Compliance, and relevant functions to reduce duplication and strengthen transparency.
• Ensure consolidated dashboards and decision-focused reports are developed for leadership and governance bodies, highlighting risks, breaches, incidents, and required decisions.
• Engage with internal and external stakeholders to support risk treatment, continuity planning, preparedness, assurance, and compliance remediation.

Qualifications and Requirements

• A minimum of 10 years of relevant experience.

Work Environment

This role is a full-time position based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The successful candidate will join a team dedicated to shaping the cultural future of the Kingdom and contributing to Saudi Vision 2030.