Senior Risk Specialist
City : Toronto
Category : Enablement / Habilitation
Industry : Civil and Social Organizations
Employer : Canadian Red Cross
Title: Senior Risk Specialist
Employee Working Location: Partially Virtual / Hybrid
Employment Status: Permanent Full-Time
The Canadian Red Cross (Red Cross) – an inspirational not for profit organization, helps people and communities in Canada and around the world in times of need and supports them in strengthening their resilience. As a Canada’s Best Employers 2026, we are committed to having an accessible, diverse, inclusive, and barrier-free work environment.
The Senior Risk Specialist within the Quality, Risk and Compliance team at the Canadian Red Cross (CRC) will play a key role in advancing a proactive and integrated approach to organizational risk management, and incident response. This role is responsible for developing and implementing risk frameworks, tools, and practices that promote informed decision-making and strengthen organizational resilience.
The Senior Risk Specialist works with CRC Service Line and Corporate Risk teams to promote risk and incident management practices, analyze risk and incident trends, and contribute to senior leadership reporting to inform decision making. Through collaboration with stakeholders across the organization, they lead assessments, provide coaching and training, and ensure quality and compliance across risk portfolios. The role also supports the organization’s readiness and response to incidents, helps to identify emerging risks and implement timely mitigation actions.
In this role, you will:
Promote a culture of inclusive risk management by supporting operational risk-related communications, dialogue, and risk-informed decision-making.
Contribute to the development and dissemination of risk management frameworks, standards, and knowledge products, drawing on relevant industry practices.
Provide oversight and quality management for operational risk registers and mitigation plans.
Contribute to monitoring and analysis of operational risks and service line incidents, including data and feedback trends and insights, readiness indicators, and emerging risks.
Work closely with Corporate Risk and Service Line teams in risk reporting by interpreting risk and incident data for trends, patterns, and forecasts.
Lead orientations and coaching sessions for operational risk management and service line incident management and contribute to related training materials and programs.
Identify and escalate areas of emerging operational risks or high-risk issues within and across service lines, providing timely recommendations and follow-up support for mitigation actions.
Provide on-call risk services support, including after hours, especially for high-risk operations or responses.
Escalate serious or critical incidents to senior management, and assist in identifying concerns, tracking follow-up actions, and reducing risk.
What we are looking for:
Minimum of 6-9 years experience with 5 years in operational risk management, program and project management, process development or quality compliance.
A 3-year college diploma or university degree in arts, social science, law, risk management, business administration, or a related field and/or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Strong understanding of data and experienced in data analysis and visualization techniques.
Experience developing risk, program management, operational or strategic documents, tools and procedures.
Proficiency in Microsoft Office applications (Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint) and SharePoint.
Experience monitoring emerging issues that could impact organizational programs and providing options for consideration to minimize impact.
Ability to identify complex problems, analyze interrelated factors, assess and mitigate risks, and develop solutions using specialized skills.
Strong communication and influence skills to gather perspectives, understand needs, and present information to reach consensus, often in somewhat sensitive situations.
Proficiency in developing and presenting training materials, insights and trends, and other complex information in simplified and engaging ways for a variety of audiences from frontline to executive.
Working Conditions :
As we work with and support people (managers, colleagues, beneficiaries/customers, volunteers, donors and external partners) and communities in Canada and around the world, applicants whose first language is not English may be required to perform the responsibilities of the role in English.
Eligibility to work in Canada: At this time, we welcome applications from candidates eligible to work in Canada. If you are not a citizen or permanent resident of Canada, we encourage you to carefully review your visa to find out whether you are eligible to work in the job you are considering applying for. Refer to our FAQ for more information.
If you are selected for this role, you will be required to complete a successful pre-employment screening process which includes a satisfactory Enhanced Police Information Check (E-PIC).