A Day in the Life

Sergio Scandizzo

What is it like to be an operational risk manager? Is it different from being a market or a credit risk manager? Or an internal auditor? And is there such a thing as a typical workday? What is an operational risk manager responsible for? What pace and stress does an operational risk manager have to deal with on a regular basis? These – and many other natural questions if you are considering starting a career in this field – are unfortunately quite difficult ones to answer, even for someone who has been doing this job for the past 10 years. After the 2007–09 crisis you may also be forgiven for wondering whether there is still a role for operational risk managers, given that all the attention of regulators, legislators, practitioners and the media seems to focus on capital, liquidity and compensation. But, as we have shown in the Introduction, operational risk issues lie at the very heart of what went wrong in the credit crisis and operational risk managers will have to play a central role in overhauling banks’ risk and control environments going forward.

Indeed, the life of an operational risk manager can be radically different, depending whether they work for a large or a