Senior Director, Enterprise Risk Management and Compliance

About Rice:

Boasting a 300-acre tree-lined campus in Houston, Texas, Rice University is ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has a 6-to-1 undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio, and a residential college system, which supports students intellectually, emotionally and culturally through social events, intramural sports, student plays, lectures series, courses and student government. Developing close-knit, diverse college communities is a strong campus tradition, which is why Rice is highly ranked for best quality of life and best value among private universities. 

Rice is also a wonderful place to work. Rice faculty, staff and students share values that are essential to our success as a healthy community. Those values guide our decisions and behaviors and shape Rice’s culture. They come through in the way we treat each other and the welcome we extend to our visitors. These values can be recalled simply by our name — RICE — Responsibility, Integrity, Community and Excellence.

Position Summary:

The Senior Director, Enterprise Risk Management and Compliance contributes to the leadership of the ethics, compliance, and enterprise risk management program at Rice University.  Reporting to the Associate Vice President, Ethics, Compliance and Enterprise Risk & Chief Compliance Officer, the position will support compliance with federal, state, and local laws, as well as university policies, while facilitating the highest ethical standards of conduct for Rice’s community of staff, students and faculty. 

The position will work closely and collaboratively with compliance partners across Rice to strengthen existing compliance practices. The position will also direct the continued implementation and development of the university enterprise risk management strategy by designing and maintaining processes and capabilities to help the university manage its key enterprise-wide risks. Rice’s ethics, compliance, and enterprise risk monitoring program is established by the Audit Committee of the Board of Trustees and is carried out under the overall direction and guidance of the Vice President and General Counsel. 

Among other responsibilities, the position will work with the Executive Compliance Committee, senior university leadership, and the Audit Committee of the Board of Trustees to respond to compliance and enterprise risk inquiries, monitor emerging compliance and enterprise-wide risk areas, facilitate and promote awareness and communications regarding the compliance and enterprise risk management programs, and support the administration of policies and the policy review process. 

The position will engage with all University processes, systems, and departments and interact regularly with all levels of management.

This is a full-time, benefits eligible position. *Exempt (salaried) positions under FLSA are not eligible for overtime.

Minimum Education Requirements: 

Bachelor’s degree (or foreign equivalent) in Business Administration, International Business or related field.

Minimum Experience Requirements: 

Eight (8) years of experience as a risk or compliance analyst in a legal, compliance, audit or enterprise risk environment, including experience with each of the following:

• Conducting enterprise risk reviews (including strategic, operational, financial, legal and compliance, cyber/IT, and environment, health and safety risks) and protocols to incorporate best practices;

• Defining and carrying out internal compliance risk reviews and audits;

• Globally accepted ERM standards and guidelines (e.g., ISO 31000, COSO ERM); and

• Compliance and assurance services, including managing risks and opportunities for business transformation projects in higher education and addressing risks specific to data and research security, laboratory safety, grant management, international programs, and global partnerships.

Of the required eight (8) years of experience as a risk or compliance analyst in a legal, compliance, audit or enterprise risk environment, at least five (5) years of experience must include experience with each of the following:

• Laws, regulations, and higher education industry standards (e.g., Clery Act, Title IX, FERPA, HIPAA, etc.);

• Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) software tools, including Riskonnect, Archer, MetricStream, and/or LogicGate, to track and manage risks;

• Designing and implementing risk appetite frameworks and risk tolerance metric focused on higher education;

• Risk analysis and data visualization tools including Tableau