SVP, Enterprise Controls

Fortitude Re•Jersey City, NJ

About The Position

Fortitude Reinsurance Company Ltd. (Fortitude Re) is one of the world’s leading providers of legacy reinsurance solutions. They work with the world’s leading insurance companies to help them execute comprehensive, transformational solutions for legacy Life & Annuity and P&C lines. Fortitude Re manages a general account of approximately $111 billion across life, annuity, and property & casualty insurance products. The company takes a long-term view on growth and is proud to be backed by a consortium of sophisticated institutional investors led by The Carlyle Group and T&D Insurance Group. Incorporated under the laws of Bermuda on January 1, 2017, Fortitude Re’s roots in the insurance industry and the experience of their leadership go back many decades. Fortitude Re’s leadership team has an average industry tenure of over 20 years, and an impressive track record of successfully managing the most complex legacy liabilities. Their deep insurance experience and proprietary risk modeling capabilities allow them to structure bespoke transactions that benefit both insurance companies and their policyholders. Fortitude Re continues to strengthen its ability to pursue further growth and provide innovative solutions for the global insurance industry. The Senior Vice President, Enterprise Controls will establish and lead the Company’s second line of defense controls function. This senior leadership role will be responsible for building a modern, scalable, and AI-forward controls program that strengthens the enterprise control environment across key business and functional areas, including finance, investments, actuarial, operations, technology, data, and other corporate functions. This leader will design and implement the second line controls framework, including the tools, templates, standards, and governance needed to document controls consistently across the enterprise. The role will also own the annual controls calendar and coordinate enterprise-wide control activities such as walkthroughs, risk and control self-assessments, control design assessments, operating effectiveness monitoring, and risk-based periodic testing. The ideal candidate will bring deep expertise in controls, operational risk, financial controls, compliance, internal audit, and governance, paired with strong business judgment and a practical understanding of how technology, data, automation, and AI can improve control design, monitoring, evidence collection, and reporting. This individual will serve as the enterprise leader for second line controls, partnering closely with first line business and functional leaders, compliance, internal audit, finance, technology, information security, and data teams. This position will report directly to the Chief Compliance Officer (“CCO”).

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting, business administration, risk management, information systems, or related discipline.
10+ years of progressive experience in controls, operational risk, compliance, internal audit, risk management, financial controls, or related second line / assurance functions within a regulated industry.
Significant experience in insurance, reinsurance, financial services, investment management, or a similarly regulated environment.
Strong public accounting experience.
Rotations within national professional standards or audit quality standards practices preferred.
Demonstrated success building or leading enterprise control frameworks, controls testing programs, or oversight functions.
Deep expertise in: control framework design. risk and control documentation. control design assessment. operating effectiveness monitoring and testing issue management and remediation. governance and management reporting
Experience developing tools, templates, standards, and structured methodologies for enterprise use.
Strong leadership, influencing, and cross-functional stakeholder management skills.
Experience working with or overseeing GRC platforms, workflow tools, data analytics, or controls automation capabilities.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience presenting to senior executives and governance committees.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree such as MBA or JD.
Professional certification such as CPA, CIA, CISA, CRISC, CFA, CISSP, or CISM.
Experience in a reinsurance organization, particularly in settlements, actuarial, investments, finance, or shared services processes.
Experience implementing or enhancing controls in technology-enabled environments, including data platforms, workflow tools, or control automation solutions.
Exposure to AI, advanced analytics, model governance, or the use of AI to improve control execution and oversight.

Responsibilities

Build and lead the second line control function
Lead the execution of and contribute to the development of the second line of defense controls strategy, governance model, and functional objectives in partnership with the CCO.
Col-develop and implement the structure and vision for a modern, risk-based, and AI-enabled controls program that supports regulatory expectations and business resilience.
Manage a team of control professionals in compliance with operating budget accountability
Serve as the senior subject matter expert on enterprise controls, control governance, and control lifecycle management.
Lead and influence stakeholders across the three lines of defense to promote clarity of roles, accountability, and consistency of execution.
Establish the enterprise controls framework, tools, and templates
Design and implement the enterprise controls framework for the second line of defense, including methodologies, standards, procedures, taxonomies, and documentation requirements.
Develop and maintain practical tools, templates, and guidance for documenting processes, risks, controls, objectives, evidence, issues, and remediation plans and activities.
Standardize approach to control identification, control design, design effectiveness assessment, and operating effectiveness monitoring.
Recommend harmonized approaches to controls methodologies across risk disciplines where appropriate for CCO endorsement, including control ratings, risk ratings, evidence standards, and issue escalation criteria.
Own the annual enterprise controls calendar
Develop and manage the annual controls activity calendar for the enterprise to coordinate key second line activities across business and functional areas.
Plan and sequence annual control activities, including walkthroughs, risk and control self-assessments, design reviews, testing cycles, issue validation, and reporting cycles.
Coordinate with business, compliance, operational risk, finance, and other stakeholders to reduce duplication and improve discipline across the annual control lifecycle.
Conduct walkthroughs and self-assessments
Lead or oversee control walkthroughs to confirm process understanding, risk identification, control design, documentation quality, and ownership clarity.
Design and facilitate risk and control self-assessments with first line teams, ensuring consistent methodology and useful outputs.
Assess whether controls are appropriately designed to address material risks, regulatory obligations, and policy requirements.
Challenge first line assessments where needed and drive improvements to control documentation and control rationalization.
Assess control design and effectiveness
Evaluate the adequacy of control design across key enterprise processes and functions.
Develop a risk-based methodology for assessing both control design effectiveness and operating effectiveness.
Review control inventories to identify gaps, overlaps, inconsistencies, and opportunities for automation or simplification.
Ensure controls are documented clearly enough to support effective execution, evidence retention, monitoring, and testing.
Monitor operating effectiveness and perform risk-based periodic testing
Build and execute a risk-based monitoring and testing program for second line controls oversight.
Conduct periodic testing of controls to assess whether they are operating as intended, with clear reporting of findings, root causes, severity, and remediation actions.
Define testing frequencies and scope based on risk, materiality, control maturity, regulatory considerations, and historical issues.
Maintain procedures for issue tracking, management reporting, remediation validation, and escalation of material control weaknesses.
Drive AI-forward controls transformation
Lead the adoption of AI-enabled and technology-supported approaches to controls documentation, evidence collection, issue analysis, testing, and reporting.
Evaluate and implement tools that improve scalability and insight, including workflow, GRC, automation, analytics, continuous monitoring, and dashboard capabilities.
Partner with technology, data, and business teams to modernize the control environment and increase use of automated and embedded controls.
Promote a controls-by-design and automation-first mindset across transformation initiatives.
Integrate data, technology, and emerging risk considerations
Ensure the controls framework appropriately addresses key operational, financial, technology, data governance, cybersecurity, and emerging AI/model/end-user-computing (“EUC”) risks.
Work with data and technology teams to improve control traceability, data quality monitoring, access governance, and exception reporting.
Support the incorporation of AI, model and EUC governance considerations into the broader controls environment where relevant.
Reporting, governance, and management communication
Establish routine reporting for management committees and senior leadership on the health of the control environment.
Support the CCO in preparation for, and where appropriate, attendance at Board Audit Committee meetings.
Develop meaningful KRIs, KPIs, dashboards, and escalation triggers related to controls execution, testing results, issue trends, and remediation status.
Support governance processes and committee reporting, including Board-level reporting where appropriate.