Bank of Singapore is seeking a Vice President to lead the continuous development, implementation, and governance of its sustainability risk framework and operating policies. Operating inside the Business Policies & Procedures team, you will establish pragmatic controls that bridge regulatory expectations with front-office wealth management operations across the bank’s global booking centres.
Private wealth management faces unprecedented regulatory oversight concerning greenwashing, ESG product suitability, and sustainable finance disclosures. By steering the bank’s sustainability risk architecture, this role ensures that capital deployment, advisory standards, and client wealth solutions uphold rigorous environmental and ethical integrity while meeting strict supervisory requirements in Singapore and internationally.
This suits someone who possesses seasoned risk governance expertise within financial services, paired with the gravitas to translate evolving ESG regulations into actionable business procedures across multi-jurisdictional banking teams.
Job FAQs
What are the main missions and responsibilities of this role?
The primary mission of this role is to spearhead the formulation, operational roll-out, and continuous enhancement of the Bank’s Sustainability framework and policy. This involves translating complex regulatory requirements from bodies such as the Monetary Authority of Singapore into clear, actionable front-office procedures, product governance standards, and operational risk controls.
On an ongoing basis, the role manages sustainability-related governance forums, oversees impact assessments for emerging sustainable finance regulations, and coordinates with product desks to establish operational controls. The position also supports regulatory examinations, internal audits, and compliance testing, ensuring all past findings and potential gaps are thoroughly remediated.
Strategically, the Vice President acts as a key change agent within the Business Policies & Procedures team. You will lead cross-functional transformation initiatives across all three lines of defence, fostering a sound risk culture while ensuring that sustainable wealth products are governed with high credibility.
Key learning opportunities for this job
This role offers advanced exposure to the fast-evolving regulatory landscape of sustainable finance in Asia and globally, particularly within private wealth management. You will deepen your technical expertise in ESG compliance architecture, sustainable product classifications, and supervisory risk expectations.
Working within OCBC Group provides cross-institutional learning, exposing the candidate to complex multi-asset wealth solutions, open-architecture product due diligence, and enterprise-wide risk frameworks. Additionally, the role encourages the integration of cutting-edge data tools and AI to automate policy adherence and front-office monitoring.
How does the ideal candidate look like (experience, skills)?
The ideal candidate brings around a decade of professional experience, ideally combining solid grounding in sustainability or ESG risk management with several years in banking or wealth management. A strong academic foundation is expected, with industry credentials like GARP SCR, CFA ESG, or CESGA viewed favorably.
Beyond technical regulatory fluency, this position demands superior stakeholder management and communication skills. The candidate must be comfortable engaging senior leadership, front-office bankers, and compliance heads to drive consensus across ambiguous and shifting regulatory expectations.
Advice to stand out and make a successful application
To stand out, highlight specific examples of translating broad ESG or regulatory directives into concrete business operating procedures and front-office controls. Emphasize your familiarity with regional and global regulatory regimes, such as MAS guidelines on environmental risk management and green taxonomy developments.
In your application and interview discussions, balance your technical knowledge of sustainability with strong commercial pragmatism. Demonstrate how your past initiatives successfully protected an institution from greenwashing risk while facilitating smooth commercial execution for front-line relationship managers.
What aspects of the company's sustainability is this role likely to focus on?
The role centers primarily on the governance and compliance dimensions of sustainable finance. Key areas include establishing robust checks against greenwashing, implementing sustainable investment frameworks, and governing product due diligence for wealth advisory.
It directly addresses environmental risk management standards, ensuring alignment with Singapore's sustainable finance roadmap and international standards. Through policy integration, the role safeguards that client portfolios and private wealth strategies credibly account for climate and broader ESG risks.
What are the main challenges someone in this role might face?
A primary challenge will be balancing rigorous risk mitigation against front-office commercial efficiency. Introducing new ESG verification, suitability controls, and reporting requirements can often cause friction with private bankers focused on fast transaction execution.
Additionally, the rapid pace and fragmentation of global sustainable finance regulations present an ongoing challenge. Navigating divergent taxonomies across Asian, European, and Middle Eastern jurisdictions while establishing a unified institutional framework requires significant agility and regulatory insight.
How could a typical day look like for someone in this position?
A typical day could begin with reviewing updates on regulatory developments or taxonomy changes in key operating markets, followed by leading an internal working group on sustainability policy implementation. You might liaise with front-office business managers to troubleshoot operational hurdles related to ESG product due diligence.
Afternoons are often dedicated to cross-functional alignment, meeting with compliance, risk, and platform IT teams to refine procedural controls or test digital governance tools. The day may conclude with preparing presentation decks or briefs for high-level risk and sustainability steering committees.
What are the opportunities for professional growth and development in this role?
Given the strategic importance of sustainability and regulatory compliance in wealth management, this role offers high internal visibility across executive leadership. Success in this position positions a professional for senior leadership roles in enterprise risk management, sustainable finance advisory, or regulatory compliance.
Furthermore, being part of the broader OCBC Group creates pathways for horizontal moves into group-level sustainability strategy, private market impact investing, or broader operational risk leadership roles across the bank's international footprint.
The main stakeholders you might be interacting with
The Vice President will interact extensively across all three lines of defence. Internally, primary collaborators include front-office relationship managers, product specialists, and Chief Investment Office teams responsible for wealth solutions.
Equally important is daily coordination with Legal, Compliance, and Risk Management functions to validate control frameworks. The role also interfaces with Internal Audit, senior executive governance committees, and potentially external auditors and regulatory examiners.
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