Global Head of IT Risk & Compliance (6 month FTC)

WPP

Why we’re hiring:

At WPP, technology is at the heart of everything we do, and it is WPP IT’s mission to enable everyone to collaborate, create and thrive. WPP IT is undergoing a significant transformation to modernise ways of working, shift to cloud and micro-service-based architectures, drive automation, digitise colleague and client experiences and deliver insight from WPP’s petabytes of data.

It’s incredibly important that whilst we do this, we have a strong risk and compliance backbone that supports out organisation and global agencies. We need to be future ready, remediate today’s world and play a key role in enabling a world class global technology organisation to flawlessly execute whilst protecting our assets, data, client and employees.

This 6-month FTC Global Head of Risk and Compliance role brings together all operational control and governance across client assurance, risk, IT controls, business continuity and sustainability. Critical and creative thinking to support a fast-paced organisational transformation and whilst being able to execute effectively is a must in this role. You will lead a newly formed team that will be accountable for technology assurance across WPP’s global organisation that strengthens our technology defences, proactively manages risk, and ultimately protect WPP against regulatory, reputational or financial damage for WPP.

What you’ll be doing:

• Lead and build an integrated global assurance team across IT Compliance, Risk, Business Continuity and Sustainability assurance to protect WPP’s global complex IT estate
• Develop and execute an integrated strategy and transformation programme across the above areas to protect WPP, including tools, people, process and operating model (3-5 year time horizon)
• Design, develop and own all of WPP IT’s controls governance and assurance frameworks to protect our assets, data, client and employees by embedding in everything we do (Public Cloud to DevOps etc.)
• Oversee and ensure compliance with statutory and global regulations and standards (SOX, PCI, ISO etc.) as well as ensure readiness for future legislative changes (such as UK Corporate Reform)
• Champion, drive and lead a broad community of compliance and assurance specialists to step-change the culture and behaviours across WPP to protect our organisation
• Drive a set of adoption and engagement activities to shift culture mindset and behaviours and ensure every colleague in IT understands the importance of their role in ensuring flawless execution of our risk, compliance, and control commitments
• Build relationships and work closely with Internal Audit, Cyber Security, Group Risk & Controls, External Audit and other senior stakeholders across WPP to co-ordinate global, complex programmes of work
• Build strong relationships with the external stakeholders (customer, suppliers, other major bodies) as well as builds a network of peers to bring innovation and insights to WPP IT on the latest tools, techniques, and processes to deliver a future-fit capability
• Prepare and co-ordinate content and updates for the Board Audit & Risk Committee on a monthly basis
• Operate in a highly complex environment with very high risk (potential financial or commercial impact, Network and Group level visibility, potential reputational impact)

What you’ll need:

• Expert collaborator with success-proven experience delivering change across diverse teams and challenging stakeholders
• Extensive experience leading and building global teams across IT Risk, Compliance and IT Controls Assurance
• Strong influencer with demonstrable experience of leading and evolving Compliance posture across a global organisation
• Experience presenting to and communicating at Board level
• Deep technical knowledge across IT statutory and regulatory standards and Risk Management (SOX, NIST, PCI, ISO, GDPR etc.)
• Knowledge of software design, development, and architecture including Saas & Public Cloud environments
• Exceptional track record of building / leading diverse, high performing, operations / shared service teams from the ground up
• Expert communicator with a track record of operating, partnering with and influencing up to and including exec-level stakeholders (CIO, CTO, CSO)
• Critical, creative, and strategic thinker who is comfortable with ambiguity and has a data-driven approach to solving complex problems
• Strong track record of delivery across highly complex global programmes with high-pressure and high risk
• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced organizational transformation and able to navigate and champion change across organisational / geographical complexity
• External awareness of the skills and capabilities required in IT compliance and risk as the organisation transforms and opportunities to leverage technology matures
• Certifications in IT Compliance & Security (i.e. CISA, CISM etc.) desirable
• Degree or equivalent (i.e. MBA) in a related field desirable

Who you are:

You’re open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are accepting: of new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.

You’re optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.

You’re extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.

What we’ll give you:

Passionate, inspired people – We promote a culture of people that do extraordinary work.

Scale and opportunity – We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.

Challenging and stimulating work – Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers. Are you up for the challenge?