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CPD EP18 – The Evolving Role of Risk Management Leadership with Jeff Simmons
- Julien Haye
- 16 hours ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 10 minutes ago
In this conversation, Julien Haye is joined by Jeff Simmons, Head of Advisory Group and Risk & Compliance Lead at ALBA Partners, and former Chief Risk Officer at MUFG Securities Europe. With over two decades in global banking and regulatory leadership, Jeff shares candid reflections on how risk management must reconnect to purpose, people, and performance.
“Good CROs are not good scientists. They’re good risk managers who understand business.” – Jeff Simmons
In this edition of RiskMasters, you will learn:
How regulatory relationships built on trust can become a strategic asset
Why effective governance depends on proportionate execution and delivery discipline
The cultural shifts needed to close the gap between strategy, appetite, and action
How to educate boards and teams to make confident decisions with imperfect data
Lessons from Brexit, DORA, and regulatory divergence on sustaining resilience
⏱️ Episode Highlights
00:02 – From CRO to advisor: why Jeff redefined his purpose
00:14 – Lessons from the financial crisis and the evolution of the risk function
00:31 – Building trust and transparency with regulators
00:44 – Making governance practical: from plans to delivery
00:57 – Culture, tone from the top, and psychological safety
01:05 – The future of risk: reconnecting risk and finance
🎧 Listen now on:
📌 More about Jeff Simmons
Jeff Simmons is a senior advisor and risk governance expert with ALBA Partners, specialising in regulatory transformation, culture, and risk-function effectiveness. A former Chief Risk Officer at MUFG Securities Europe, he has led major licensing and Brexit-related programmes and continues to advise firms on building credible governance frameworks.
👉 Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-simmons-608254a/
📝 Related Resources:
Appetite as a Strategic Capability – Framework linking ambition, capacity, and governance to strengthen decision alignment.
The Hidden Constraint Behind Strategy and Governance – Understanding risk capacity as the foundation of credible board oversight.
Guiding Principles for an Effective Control Environment – Twelve principles for designing ownership-driven, performance-oriented controls.
Building Trust with Regulators – Turning supervisory dialogue into a partnership that improves governance credibility.
Psychological Safety in Risk Management – How leadership tone and escalation culture shape foresight and resilience.
From Approval to Impact: Repositioning Risk Appetite as a Board Tool – Practical steps to embed appetite into strategic execution.
Change Management Risk Assessment Framework – A step-by-step guide for aligning transformation programmes with risk capacity and tolerance.
🎓 Download your CPD certificate: The CPD Group – Accreditation #800148
Episode Credits:
Produced by Aevitium LTD
Edited by Julien Haye
Design: Julien Haye
📚 Key Risk Management Concepts
Risk Governance: Effective governance turns oversight into execution discipline. It aligns frameworks, committees, and escalation paths with business intent, ensuring that risk information informs decisions rather than reporting cycles.
Regulatory Trust: Trust is the cornerstone of supervisory relationships. Sustainable credibility is earned through transparency, proportional responses, and consistent delivery — transforming compliance from obligation into collaboration.
Culture and Psychological Safety: A healthy risk culture enables challenge, openness, and accountability. Psychological safety empowers teams to speak up early, surface weak signals, and prevent issues from becoming crises.
Risk Appetite and Strategy Alignment: Appetite frameworks achieve impact when they are connected to purpose. Translating board-level ambition into measurable limits and behavioural expectations anchors decisions in both strategy and capacity.
Leadership Education: Continuous education builds decision confidence at every level. By understanding the “why” behind controls and metrics, leaders move from enforcing compliance to enabling foresight and performance.
🧭 Recap Blog: The Evolving Role of Risk Leadership by Jeff Simmons
“Trust is the foundation of every effective relationship with regulators, with teams, with leaders.” – Jeff Simmons
Episode Summary
In this CPD-accredited episode of RiskMasters, Jeff Simmons, Head of Advisory at ALBA Partners and former CRO at MUFG Securities Europe, joins Julien Haye to discuss how risk leadership has evolved. The conversation explores trust-based regulatory relationships, the link between strategy and risk appetite, and the importance of culture and psychological safety in execution. Jeff also shares insights on regulatory divergence, governance discipline, and the convergence of risk and finance. A masterclass in turning oversight into strategic impact.
1. From Rules to Relationships
Jeff Simmons explains that after the 2008 financial crisis, risk management became overly procedural. In seeking certainty, many functions lost sight of influence. Real progress, he argues, depends on rebuilding relationships — between risk and the business, between firms and regulators, and between leaders and their teams.
2. Turning Compliance into Advantage
For Jeff, regulatory dialogue should be a partnership built on honesty and delivery. Openness, self-awareness, and proportionate remediation earn credibility. Empty assurance, in contrast, destroys it. Risk functions that treat engagement as a strategic discipline, not an obligation, transform supervision into collaboration.
3. Closing the Strategy Gap
Too often, risk appetite frameworks operate in isolation from business planning. Jeff highlights that “education is the bridge” — helping leaders translate high-level appetite into meaningful, measurable actions across the organisation. Strategy and appetite must move in step to inform resource allocation and governance confidence.
4. Culture, Tone, and Psychological Safety
Culture remains the hardest variable to quantify. For Jeff, tone from the top must be visible, lived, and believable. True speak-up culture is about trust: people must know that raising issues will not lead to punishment. Leadership credibility grows when values and behaviour align under pressure.
5. Risk and Finance Reunited
Jeff predicts that risk and finance will converge once more. Integrated systems, shared data, and aligned stress testing will bridge performance and protection. For leaders, the opportunity lies in using this convergence to drive foresight — turning risk information into strategic clarity.
Key Takeaways
Trust transforms regulatory relationships into strategic value.
Governance fails when delivery discipline breaks.
Education connects risk appetite with decision confidence.
Culture must be lived, not declared.
The next frontier is risk-finance integration for foresight and resilience.
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