Americas
Asset Management
New York
Lazard is one of the world’s preeminent financial advisory and asset management firms.
Our people and culture make the difference. While global in presence and reach, ours is a close, collaborative community of just over 3,000 professionals. Lazard is a place of continuous knowledge sharing, skill development and relationship building, where professionals grow and succeed together. Our entrepreneurial culture, flat structure and embrace of individual differences, allow creative ideas, original concepts, and unique perspectives to drive our business forward — and for careers to take flight.
Lazard Asset Management is seeking a
Global Head of Operational Risk Management to lead the consolidation and enhancement of the firm’s operational risk framework. Historically managed locally in international offices, operational risk will now be centralized under this global leadership role to meet heightened regulatory standards and client expectations for operational resilience. The successful candidate will be responsible for transitioning the firm from a local operational risk model to developing and leading a unified and rigorous global model. The role will report directly into the Global Head of Operations.
Key Responsibilities
- Global Committee Leadership: Chair the Global Operational Risk Management Committee, directing members to execute monitoring, testing, and reporting between quarterly sessions.
- Regulatory Framework Ownership: Serve as the definitive lead for EU DORA and APRA CPS 230 compliance, ensuring all Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and business continuity policies meet evolving global standards.
- Protocol Standardization: Transition LAM from a local model to a unified global protocol, aligning local risk efforts in the UK, Frankfurt, and Sydney with New York operations.
- Resilience Testing & Tabletop Exercises: Oversee annual business recovery program testing and lead recurring "Tabletop Exercises" to simulate system failures and external shocks as mandated by DORA.
- Strategic Vendor Risk Management: Lead risk-based oversight of critical third-party service providers and ensuring resilience across the vendor ecosystem.
- Incident Escalation & Advisory: Act as the central point for escalating operational risk matters to the CEO and Executive Committee; coordinate with Legal & Compliance on the necessity of reporting events to global regulators.
- Certification & Governance: Execute official certifications to auditors and stakeholders confirming the adequacy of the firm’s risk management efforts and annual policy reviews.
- External Representation: Act as the primary spokesperson for LAM’s operational risk strategy during meetings with institutional clients, consultants, and regulators.
- Operational BCP & Disaster Recovery Oversight: In partnership with Technology, evaluate, challenge, and enhance the firm’s Business Continuity Plans and Disaster Recovery frameworks from an operational risk perspective, ensuring they are realistic, executable, and aligned with global resilience expectations. Assessing both internal risks and risks with key service providers is critical.
- Error Management & Control Design: Oversee the global error‑capture, remediation, and root‑cause analysis framework, ensuring lessons learned translate into stronger controls, reduced repeat incidents, and transparent reporting.
- Counterparty & Trading‑Related Operational Risk: Evaluate operational exposures tied to trading counterparties, including documentation workflows, settlement processes, clearing practices, and external agent dependencies.
- New Products & Initiatives Risk Oversight: Provide formal operational risk assessment for all new products and strategic initiatives, including loan‑related structures, ETF expansion, and digital tools, ensuring operational, regulatory, and vendor impacts are fully understood before launch.
- Valuation & Pricing Controls Oversight: Oversee valuation‑related operational risks, including control design, vendor data dependencies, stale pricing risks, override protocols, and governance around hard‑to‑value assets
Required Qualifications
- Deep Domain Expertise: 10+ years of senior-level experience in operational risk management within the asset management or broader financial services industry.
- Regulatory Fluency: Demonstrated mastery of global operational resilience regulations, specifically the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and APRA Common Prudential Standard 230.
- Technical Knowledge: Comprehensive understanding of investment advisor processes, including financial controls (SOC testing), cybersecurity policies, disaster recovery, and data insecurity mitigation.
- Vendor Ecosystem Proficiency: Hands-on experience managing and monitoring complex relationships with large-scale service providers like State Street and Charles River.
- Strategic Leadership: Proven ability to manage "second-line" oversight, providing independent challenge to functional owners in Technology, Finance, and Operations.
- Cross-Jurisdictional Experience: Success in navigating and unifying disparate risk committees and reporting lines across multiple global offices (e.g., US, UK, Australia, EU).
- Communication Excellence: Exceptional executive presence with the ability to translate complex technical risks into strategic insights for the CEO, Board, and sophisticated institutional clients.
- Path-Specific Credentials:
Internal Candidates: Comprehensive knowledge of LAM’s internal systems, existing vendor dependencies, and historical regulatory obligations.
External Candidates: Direct experience implementing Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) frameworks and Risk Control Self-Assessments (RCSA) at Tier-1 global firms
What We Offer
We strive to enhance the total health and well-being of our employees through comprehensive, competitive benefits. Our goal is to offer a highly individualized employee experience that enables you to balance your commitments to career, family, and community. When you work for Lazard, you are working for an organization that cares about your unique talents and passions and will continue to invest in the development of your career.
We expect the base salary range for this role to be approximately $200,000-$225,000 USD. Various factors contribute to determining the actual base compensation offered, including but not limited to the applicant’s years of relevant experience, career tenure, qualifications, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held, relevant skills for the role. Base salary is one component of Lazard Asset Management’s compensation package, which also includes comprehensive benefits and may include incentive compensation.
Representation at Lazard
Lazard is an intellectual capital business committed to delivering the best advice and solutions to clients. To achieve these objectives, we focus on attracting, developing and retaining the best talent. We believe that a workforce comprised of people who represent a wide array of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives creates a rich variety of thought that empowers us to challenge conventional wisdom, solve problems creatively and make better decisions.
Lazard was built on the premise that a multicultural firm can best serve a global clientele. As a global firm that has grown organically from local roots in different countries, we have a deep tradition of respecting and appreciating individual differences. Doing so has been core to our success for over 175 years. We are committed to sustaining an environment where every colleague is supported in their professional pursuits, can maximize their individual potential and contribute to our collective success.
