Head of Risk - Cyprus

As Head of Risk at Bitvavo, you own risk management for Bitvavo Europe Limited, our MiFID II regulated entity in Cyprus. You report to our Group Head of Risk in Amsterdam and lead the risk function from our Limassol office. This is a local role, and we are only considering candidates who are currently based in Cyprus and able to work from Limassol.

What you'll do

• Own and continuously improve the risk management framework, including risk taxonomy, risk appetite, tolerance levels, risk register, policies, RCSA methodology and the three-lines-of-defence operating model
• Maintain the risk appetite framework across credit, market, solvency, liquidity, operational, reputational, strategic and technology risk
• Produce concise, decision-oriented reporting for the Board and Risk Committee, covering the risk tolerance dashboard, top risks, appetite breaches, emerging themes and open issues
• Support the Board's annual assessment of framework effectiveness and respond to Internal Audit and CySEC findings
• Monitor counterparty and credit exposure to clients, clearing members, CCPs, bilateral counterparties and custodians, including limits, concentration analysis and collateral
• Conduct independent review of margin methodology, define stress tests, set tolerance levels and gap risk on derivatives and leveraged products, and challenge assumptions and back test outcomes
• Manage inventory, hedging, settlement mismatches, FX and corporate action exposure within set sensitivity and position limits
• Oversee settlement liquidity, cash funding for settlement purposes, liquidity stress testing and the contingency funding plan
• Own the ICARA, including own funds and K factor monitoring, internal capital and liquidity adequacy, and wind down analysis, supporting accurate prudential reporting to CySEC
• Run firm-wide and reverse stress tests covering extreme market moves, gap events, venue or CCP disruption, clearing broker default and volume spikes, with clear management actions
• Conduct criticality assessment, due diligence, concentration risk analysis, exit strategies and maintenance of the register of arrangements for third parties and outsourcing
• Own the business impact analysis methodology and cycle, including criticality, MTO, RTO/RPO and dependencies, feeding BCP/DR and third party criticality
• Manage incident severity classification, escalation triggers to ExCo, Board and CySEC via Compliance, live assessment and post incident remediation
• Define important business services, impact tolerances and resource mapping, run scenario and tabletop testing, and close gaps under DORA

What you bring

• Currently based in Cyprus and able to work from our Limassol office
• Approximately 8 to 10 years in risk management within a regulated broker, investment firm, exchange or clearing member, including several years leading a risk function or major risk domain
• Demonstrated ownership of enterprise risk framework and risk self-assessment, not solely advisory or policy experience
• Proficient knowledge and experience in both financial and non-financial risk within an exchange or broker firm operating in the capital markets and/or crypto domain
• Expert knowledge of financial instruments, including crypto, stocks, ETFs, derivatives and commodities, and the clearing and settlement process
• Working knowledge of the CIF prudential framework, including the IFD/IFR regime, ICARA, K factor requirements and prudential reporting to CySEC, including FinRep and Corep
• Familiarity with the wider requirements applying to a CIF, including the Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law, relevant CySEC circulars and directives, MiFID, DORA, MiFIR and EMIR
• Quantitative fluency, with the ability to interrogate margin models, stress scenarios and exposure data rather than accept the output

About Bitvavo

Bitvavo launched in 2018 as a digital assets trading platform bridging traditional currencies and digital assets. It is now the market leader in the Netherlands and one of the largest in Europe, serving over one million users exchanging tens of billions of digital assets annually.