Independent Risk Management Director, Investment Products

The role:

SoFi is seeking an energetic, detail-oriented, self-motivated, and intellectually curious Independent Risk Management (IRM) Director to support the growth of our Invest business.  Your success in this role will rely on deep subject matter expertise in broker-dealer, investment advisory matters, and retail investment product risks. This person will serve as the senior second-line risk leader responsible for independent risk oversight of the Invest business. This role will act as the primary risk partner to Invest leadership, providing credible challenge, strategic risk advisory, and oversight across all material risk categories associated with the business, excluding Compliance Risk, which is overseen by a dedicated Invest Compliance organization. Specifically, the Director will operate in close partnership with Compliance leadership in a coordinated coverage model to ensure comprehensive and effective risk oversight.

Will look for this leader to leverage their comprehensive understanding of risk management and the mitigating controls needed across risk types - including operational, fraud, technology, credit and third-party.  You will apply lessons learned from peers across the industry - both benchmarking against industry leaders as well as learning from those who have under-performed, ensuring strong risk governance, diversified exposures, and rigorous controls.

As part of the Second Line of Defense (2LOD), this individual will provide oversight across risk types for all product and feature launches as well as partner with 1LOD risk owners on ensuring we are appropriately identifying, monitoring, and mitigating risks as part of our framework programs as we scale and grow this business.  The ideal candidate is comfortable challenging business assumptions, escalation decisions, and risk-taking activities to ensure alignment with approved risk appetite.

By joining SoFi, you'll become part of a forward-thinking company that is transforming financial services for the better. We offer the excitement of a rapidly growing startup with the stability of an industry leading leadership team.

What you’ll do: 

• Serve as the accountable 2LOD Risk Manager for the Invest business, maintaining an enterprise-wide view of Invest’s risk profile including key risk themes and control effectiveness.
• Become a trusted advisor to senior business leaders on risk implications of strategic decisions, product expansion, operational changes, and emerging risks.
• Represent Independent Risk Management in executive forums related to Invest strategy, governance, and risk management.
• Present risk assessments and recommendations to senior management committees, executive leadership, and Board-level governance forums, as appropriate.
• Provide hands-on independent oversight and credible challenge across consumer and retail investment products: self-directed brokerage, robo-advisory, options trading, IPOs, alternative investments, Composer trading algorithms, margin lending, and broker-dealer clearing/introducing broker relationships.
• Oversee aggregate portfolio risk trends, including:
• Operational (trade processing/settlement/service failures, reconciliation breaks, corporate action errors), 
• Fraud (targeted risk assessments across all attack vectors), 
• Third party (vendor diligence, outages and cyber incidents, service degradation, concentration risk),
• Technology & platform (trading outages, mobile app/API failures, data quality issues),
• Product (new product introduction, portfolio construction errors, rebalancing failures, product design flaws, unexpected concentration exposures), 
• Credit (margin lending), and
• Model
• Identify thematic and emerging risk trends and ensure timely root-cause analysis, corrective action plans, and sustainable remediation.
• Collaborate with business units, Enterprise Risk Management, Compliance, AML and other functional teams to optimize the Enterprise Risk Appetite and tolerance.  This includes understanding root causes for Key Risk Indicator (KRIs) breaches against tolerance thresholds.
• Support post-launch reviews and continuous control enhancements as the business scales.
• Benchmark risk practices against peer institutions and incorporate lessons learned from industry events or control failures.

What you’ll need:

• 10+ years of experience in Risk Management, Operational Risk, Enterprise Risk, Product Risk, Audit, Compliance, or related control functions.
• Broker-Dealer experience and Consumer Investment Product experience
• Demonstrated experience supporting brokerage, investment advisory, wealth management, digital investing, and/or securities businesses.
• Demonstrated experience providing independent oversight and credible challenge to senior business leaders.
• Experience leading cross-functional risk assessments and governance processes for complex financial services businesses.
• Experience interacting directly with regulators, executive management, and Board committees.
• Exceptional interpersonal, verbal and written communication skills
• Strong leadership, collaboration, influencing and organizational skills with attention to detail

What success looks like:

• Establishing a comprehensive and forward-looking view of Invest business risks.
• Influencing business strategy and product development through effective risk advisory and challenge.
• Ensuring risks remain within Board-approved appetite while enabling business growth.
• Driving timely identification, escalation, and remediation of material issues.
• Maintaining strong partnerships across Invest, Compliance, Technology, Operations, Fraud, and Enterprise Risk functions.
• Demonstrating effective regulatory engagement and governance leadership.