Corporate Governance

Corporate governance for River Partnership means the agenda of the general counsel, compliance, internal audit and regulatory strategy functions.

As financial services regulation has grown, so too has the size of specialist regulatory compliance departments to ensure that regulatory requirements are met, regulatory change is understood, challenges are navigated and opportunities enhanced.

The financial crisis of 2008 inflicted long-term damage on economies and people on a global scale. This has served to highlight the need strengthen and institutionalise risk culture and strategies not only within specific institutions but on a system-wide basis across financial services. 

The last few years have shown increasing focus on capital and stress testing, liquidity, conduct of business, crisis management, disclosure, financial crime, governance and information security and data privacy. Regulatory perimeters have been rethought and redesigned, so too has domestic and global regulatory architecture.

The Basel Accords and Solvency II in the European market are evidence of these important new regulatory requirements as well as Dodd-Frank and the Volcker Rule in the US. Likewise professionals with deep knowledge and insight related to MiFID II, SMR, MAR, BRRD, CRD IV / CRR, the Money Laundering Directive, AIFMD, SSM and PSR are of increasing importance to our customers.

As a result professionals with regulatory expertise are now some of the most sought after individuals within financial services, and organisations are paying a premium to ensure they are able to attract professionals with the relevant know-how and perspective for current and future state regulatory governance and compliance.

The challenge many institutions and regulators face in current times is how to manage the influx of regulation and its increasing complexity. It has been necessary for all financial institutions to re-evaluate their compliance capabilities and in some cases, restructure whole departments and significantly increase their talent pool in order to adequately satisfy the relevant regulator. With the range of changes already confirmed and more which are likely to be put in place, institutions must continuously monitor and ensure their compliance capabilities remain fit for purpose, taking into account any change in jurisdiction for overseas offices. 

The River Partnership team have built significant relationships with the highest performing and talented governance leaders in the UK, Europe, US and APAC. Since our inception in the midst of the 2008 Financial Crisis we have worked on business critical mandates including:

• Several Partner search mandates for Global Strategy Houses
• A 2015 instruction to map the market extensively and hire a Regulatory Advisory Partner and team
• Partner and team build outs for Big 4 and nice Consulting Firms including a comprehensive research report for talent benchmarking
• Multiple global Regulatory Affairs and Policy engagements with two Universal Banks
• Financial Crime Partner and MD search within a global consulting firm resulting in a new revenue stream vertical for our client
• Critical leadership assignments within Conduct and Prudential Risk

Our talented and experienced team provides executive search and bespoke competitor & market research to global financial institutions and management consultancies across key financial centres in London, Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Geneva, Milan, Madrid, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, New York and Sydney.

• Risk Management
• Corporate Governance
• Strategy & Transformation
• Economics & Forensic
• Digital
• Climate & Sustainability