At a bank, insurer, or financial-services firm, you serve as the operational-risk officer — leading the operational-risk function for the organization or a major business unit — and owning the program, methodology, and reporting that operational-risk management generates.
The role centers across executive forums, business-line risk discussions, and program-operations work — leading risk-assessment cycles, supporting incident response on material operational events, prepping reports for risk-committee and board review, working with business and operations leadership on emerging-risk discussions. Program maturity and incident outcomes anchor the indirect measures.
What surprises people new to the role is the cross-functional coordination dimension — operational-risk officers coordinate across business units, technology, compliance, internal audit, and external regulators, and the role's influence depends on the relationships built across these constituencies. Variance across employers shapes the role: large banks run operational-risk officer roles under regulatory mandate; insurers run under ORSA frameworks; non-financial corporates run with more discretion.
It tends to fit people strategically analytical, comfortable with executive presence, and diplomatic across cross-functional risk discussions. CRMP, FRM, and PRM credentials anchor advancement. The trade-off is the cycle-driven visibility — operational-risk officers face heaviest scrutiny exactly during cycles when incidents and losses materialize, and the role suits those steady under that visibility.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
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Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Business Operations roles →At a bank, insurer, or financial-services firm, you serve as the operational-risk officer — leading the operational-risk function for the organization or a major business unit — and owning the program, methodology, and reporting that operational-risk management generates.
Median pay for an Operational Risk Officer is about $106K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $62K to $182K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 6.5% through 2034, with roughly 56,320 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Risk Management Director, Loss Prevention Operations Manager, and Risk Model Auditor.
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