VACANCY NOTICE - CONTRACT AGENT

About us

The Chief Risk Officer (CRO) is an independent function, overseeing the financial risks from the Union’s financial operations, such as the borrowing and debt management operations, assets under management operations, lending operations and budgetary guarantees.

The Union’s financial operations have expanded significantly – in volume and scope – over the course of the present Multiannual Financial Framework. Loans, budgetary guarantees, and financing of EU policies through issuance of debt securities have been used on large scale to fund responses to emerging challenges and successive crises. The implementation of these financial operations expose the Union to a variety of financial risks, including credit, market, liquidity, operational, reputational, compliance. The financial risks arising from the implementation of the Union’s financial operations should be properly identified, mitigated, managed, and reported. The risk management framework should be robust and provide a comprehensive, rigorous, and independent capacity for supervising the financial risks arising across all Union’s financial operations undertaken. The framework should ensure that Union’s financial operations should be conducted in a manner consistent with the highest standards of integrity and sound financial and risk management.

The Commission tasked the CRO as the second line of defence, with the development and implementation of the Commission’s risk management framework. Supported by a risk management unit, the CRO is responsible for ensuring robust governance, effective risk management and oversight of the financial risks associated with the Union’s financial operations. The CRO works in close cooperation with the Directorates-General responsible for the Union’s financial operations, acting in their capacity as first line of defence. The CRO chairs the Risk and Compliance Committee, which supports the CRO developing the risk framework

and the management of the financial risks arising from the Union’s financial operations.

The CRO function is hosted by Directorate-General for Budget (DG BUDG), which is the central service of the European Commission responsible for the preparation and implementation of the annual and multiannual budget of the European Union. It consists of about 600 staff and is made up of seven directorates based in Brussels and in Luxembourg. The staff members come from all EU countries with various professional expertise: accounting, economics, finance, business, programming, audit, law, communications, human resources, European administration, and other fields.

CRO unit is structured into two sectors – Sector one focused on risk oversight of budgetary guarantees and financial assistance and Sector two responsible for risk oversight of borrowing operations and asset under management. A dedicated compliance function provides compliance and operational risk oversight.

The CRO has developed an in-house risk management IT tool to support the assessment, monitoring and reporting of risks arising from EU financial operations. The tool incorporates several quantitative models covering credit, market and funding risks, which constitute a key pillar of the Commission’s risk management framework.

About the role

We offer an exciting and challenging opportunity within the Chief Risk Officer Unit, as a Data and Business Process Management Expert who will be assigned to the sector responsible for borrowing operations and asset under management.

The risk management IT tool is developed, maintained and continually enhanced by the CRO Unit. It is used by several Commission services and developments and updates are performed in close collaboration with the first line of defence. Looking ahead, key challenges include the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, the harmonisation of currently fragmented databases, and the development of new risk management functionalities to ensure that the Commission’s risk management capabilities continue to evolve in response to a changing financial and risk environment.

In this role, you will play a central part in ensuring that the data used by risk management and by other stakeholders, relying on risk management outputs, meet best-in-class standards in terms of quality, consistency and harmonisation. You will ensure that data is reliable, readily available and suitable for consolidated risk reporting and quantitative risk analysis.

The position also serves as the key interface between risk analysts, quantitative risk officers responsible for developing risk methodologies and models, and the IT teams responsible for implementing these models within the Commission’s information

systems. As such, you will act as the primary point of contact within the CRO Unit for coordinating business requirements with IT colleagues and managing the maintenance and further development of risk management IT solutions. More specifically, your responsibilities will include:

• Design, maintain and further develop the corporate database used to consolidate all input data related to borrowing operations and asset under management. The work should be performed in close cooperation with the first line of defence.
• Ensure the quality, accuracy, consistency and completeness of the data stored across the various systems, and develop the data governance framework required to support effective data management, monitoring, traceability and auditability.
• Support risk analysts and quantitative risk officers by ensuring that high-quality data is permanently available and fit for purpose.
• Ensure, in collaboration with IT colleagues, the integration of adequate AI solutions for risk management purposes, such as in the IT Risk Management tool.
• Support the implementation of new risk methodologies, quantitative models and reporting solutions by identifying, collecting and preparing any additional data required for their development and deployment.
• Act as the primary liaison between the Chief Risk Officer Unit and the IT teams responsible for risk management IT solutions, analysing and validating business requirements and their impact on data, processes and systems, coordinating their end-to-end implementation from development and user acceptance testing to deployment, and ensuring that delivered solutions meet the Unit's business needs.

Qualifications, experience and skills

Experience & skills:

• Minimum 5 years of relevant professional experience in data management, business analysis and/or IT project management, preferably gained in the financial sector or professional services: knowledge of data management, including data quality, governance, lineage, harmonisation and controls is a requirement.
• Experience with large and complex datasets, data modelling and database structures, preferably involving financial and risk data.
• Ability to use AI and automation tools for data management and analytics, including data preparation, quality control, reconciliation, anomaly detection and workflow automation, with appropriate validation and human oversight.
• Experience in designing, maintaining or improving business processes and data management frameworks in a complex organisational environment.

• Experience in coordinating IT projects or acting as a liaison between business users, data specialists and IT development teams. Experience in translating business requirements into functional specifications for IT developments.

• Excellent Excel skills; experience with Power BI, Python, SQL or equivalent data and analytics tools would be an advantage.

• Knowledge of financial products such as fixed income and equity instruments in the context of borrowing and asset management operations is considered as an advantage. Knowledge of financial risk management would also be an asset.

• Strong analytical, problem-solving and project coordination skills, with the ability to manage multiple stakeholders and priorities.

• Excellent organisational skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and deliver under tight deadlines.

Education:

• University degree in information systems, data science, statistics, finance and another relevant discipline
• Professional certifications such as FRM (Financial Risk Manager), CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) or PRMIA (Professional Risk Manager) are a plus.

How to express your interest?

You should send your documents in a single pdf in the following order:

1. Your CV
2. Completed application form

Please send these documents by the publication deadline to BUDG-MAILBOX-CRO@ec.europa.eu indicating the selection reference EC-2026-BUDG-523121

Eligibility

For eligibility, please consult this page with all the information needed.