Dr. Jaffar Mohammed

Operational Risk

Organizations from all sectors face a growing threat of failure or weakness in their internal controls, systems environments, employees' conduct, and externalities. Companies in the insurance sector, energy, retail, or government entities are as vulnerable to operational risk as banks. The operational risk could negatively impact the organization's profitability, operations resilience, and reputation when it materializes. Organizations need a structured and methodological approach to manage it.

How do we help clients?

Develop a best-in-class Operational Risk Management Framework, including determining operational risk strategy, operational risk appetite, organization setup, policy, and procedures for implementing the operational risk incidents management, Risk and Control Self-assessment (RCSA), and Key Risk Indicators (KRIs).
Integrate the RCSAs program with the processes and procedures and create a structured approach for addressing the inherent and residual risks.
Develop KRIs for the key departments and integrate them with RCSAs and incidents management processes to help decision-makers decide based on calibrated red flags.
Assess and improve the investigation process of operational risk incidents.
Conduct a diagnostic process of how far the existing practice and culture of operational risk management are at the client vis-à-vis the market practice and regulatory expectations and requirements.
Map the existing maturity of the operational risk management to an Operational Risk Management Maturity Curve and devise an action plan to transform the maturity level along the curve.
Develop and improve operational risk reporting for the executive management, board of directors, and regulators.
Conduct workshops for the board of directors to train the directors on what they should look for and deeper into operational risk reporting.

Fraud Risk

Organizations of all types and sizes face a potential threat of corruption, bribes, kickbacks, asset misappropriation, forgery, identity theft, or financial statements misrepresentation. Fraud risk management is challenging because the threat comes from all stakeholders: employees, vendors, customers, depositors, policyholders (as in insurance companies, for instance), etc. Advancement in technology and expansion of new products and services offered by institutions from all sectors, in addition to the inherent people risk, requires a high level of diligence, knowledge, and expertise to manage and mitigate the fraud risk.

How do we help clients?

Acquiring best-class technology for fraud risk management is helpful, but a resilient fraud risk management setup requires organizational infrastructure for the firm to benefit from the system optimally.

We help you build a cohesive infrastructure for evaluating, mitigating, and monitoring the risk of fraud and misconduct.

Build and implement custom fraud risk management programs to help you manage your anti-fraud strategy.
Maintain an effective code of conduct. We assist with monitoring, code management, and training provisions such as conflicts of interest.
Fraud risk vulnerability assessment: we identify improvement opportunities to mitigate, prioritize, and monitor fraud and corruption risks that could threaten financial, operational, and brand stability. We conduct vulnerability assessments across all products, services, and payment channels and develop and implement action plans to remedy the vulnerabilities.
Develop bespoke fraud risk management policy, procedure, and response plans to combat fraud schemes.
We diagnose how far the existing anti-fraud and corruption practice is from the market practice, industry bodies' recommendations, and regulatory requirements and expectations.
We develop and improve fraud risk red flags and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the management to assess their return on investing in the fraud risk management framework.
Train employees from all levels, including members of the board of directors, on the fraud risk management subtleties and schemes to which their organizations are exposed.
We train directors of the boards in the areas they should look deeply into in executive management reporting.

Human Resources Transformation

The role of Human Resources (HR) is shifting, requiring different HR philosophies and practices. Whether you want to transform your HR function, redesign your HR processes, or train your HR practitioners to carry out your vision, we can help.

How do we help clients?

Guide firms to determine the suitable HR operating model and organizational framework to ensure leaders' own people strategy and implementation.
Guide firms to structure the HR processes and what HR strategy and capabilities are needed to succeed.
Developing HR strategy in sync with the business strategy and objectives.
Develop people sourcing strategy in sync with the business strategy.
Develop and implement methodological human resources capacity planning tools and processes.
Develop and improve recruitment and selection processes, criteria, and procedures.
A cohesive talent management framework would ensure firms attract and retain the talents that will produce business objective outcomes.
Tailored health checks of the performance management practices and developed and implemented the action to remedy the gaps.
Design learning and development strategy based on the business objectives and existing talent pool.
Documenting and mapping current processes and recommending improvements.
Conduct Job, role, competency, and skills analysis.
Develop and review Job Descriptions and align them with Job and role analysis.
Develop and improve employee relations framework.
Develop and improve employees' onboarding and offboarding framework.

Regulatory Compliance

Banks and insurance companies are among the most regulated entities across the economic sectors. Noncompliance with the regulations costs firms financial penalties and other enforcement measures that could impact the firms' image and growth plans.

How do we help clients?

Diagnose the level of adherence of the firm's practice and governance documents to the requirements of the regulators, government bodies, and industrial bodies' recommendations.
Keep the clients abreast of the regulatory updates and implement them within the existing frameworks.
Review and develop Anti-Money Laundering (AML) policies and procedures.
Develop the compliance procedure manual for the compliance department staff and money laundering reporting officers (MLROs).
Train all employees and directors of the board on AML and terrorism financing.

Corporate Governance

The substance of corporate governance is the institutionalization processes of your firm. Institutionalization refers to building structures and processes that help sustain business in a company regardless of the peculiar methods the managers follow.

How do we help clients?

Management level committees' frameworks: management committees require mandates, Charters, performance evaluation, and dashboarding. We design these frameworks for all committees, management, and board levels.
Corporate governance manual: We write a bespoke corporate governance manual for each industry, field, and firm.
Conduct workshops on corporate governance for the board of directors to delineate the expectations from their roles.
Develop, review, and improve the whistleblowing program.
Environment, Sustainability, Governance (ESG):

We help your firm in the ESG and governance rating, addressing and implementing all the requirements. To that, we help you write and execute the following policies and frameworks, for instance:

Human rights policy
Diversity and inclusive framework
Special needs employee's framework
Sustainability framework
Health, security, and safety framework

Internal audit

Status quo and legacy ways of working will result in staying caught up rather than keeping up. Internal Auditors need to embrace the need for change since every department expects Internal Auditors to be abreast and at par with the technology advancement, innovative product structures, and services deliveries challenges. Business initiatives, regulatory requirements,

and technology has all been subject to significant change; Internal Audit functions need to change and evolve to keep up and embrace transformation as a business-as-usual activity and continue to position for the organization's future needs.

How do we help clients?

We help establish transformation priorities and plans and support their implementation, offering advice on leading practices and strategies to deliver successful outcomes and enable change.
Establish highly efficient and effective control testing programs that serve the needs of multiple stakeholders (internal and external) and leverage the latest technologies and tools. Embed a control mindset across the organization.
Assess conformance to standards of professional practice, regulatory expectations, and general leading practice. Leverage proprietary frameworks and capability maturity models to support the development of roadmaps.
Engage with and advise Audit Committee members on their risk oversight responsibilities and leading practices related to engagement with and assessing the organization's Internal Audit function and leaders.

Policies and procedures

A set of policies & procedures are principles, rules, and guidelines outlined to guide employees in implementing the business strategies. Policies are the foundations for internal control and accountability within the governance structure of any organization.

How do we help clients?

We work with your organization to develop or improve existing policies and procedures through our technical expertise in policy development, knowledge, and ability to apply the depository of benchmarked best practices, industry bodies' recommendations, and regulatory requirements.
We work with your organizations to set documented processes and checklists to enable them to implement and gauge employees' adherence to each set of policies and procedures.
We work with your organization to develop all sorts of manuals and guidance booklets.

Internal control

Establishing an internal control system is a top priority for companies of all sizes and sectors. An internal control system provides several advantages for organizations, which collectively can increase shareholder value:

Reliable financial and management information
Improved stakeholder perception
Greater management of risk

How do we help clients?

Assisting companies in identifying and assessing risks related to the accuracy of their financial statements and the security of their assets.
Assess the adequacy of the designed internal control procedures and check whether these procedures are appropriately implemented.
Develop documentation that clearly describes the identified processes, risks, and controls and any recommendations for internal control improvements based on leading practices.
Assist companies in searching for ways that the internal control system can be further rationalized to achieve reduced costs for the organization.
Conduct a comprehensive diagnosis of the adherence to the COSO recommendations of the resilient internal control system, prepare a roadmap for rectification of the gaps, and deliver the missing components.