7 Tips to Advance Your Career as a Financial Risk Manager

A financial risk manager (FRM) is an individual in an organization who identifies threats to assets, analyses business risks, and offers solutions to business risks. They are responsible for developing strategies to curb the effects of fluctuating markets on businesses and their finances to enable the company to thrive. FRMs may work in financial sectors, banking organizations,  loan institutions, trading organizations, credit facilities, and marketing firms.

It pays to advance your career as a financial risk manager. It comes with several benefits, some of which include pay rise and promotion. Once you begin to practice as an FRM, you’ll rise from one level to the next as you perfect your skills. 

How can you take your career to the next level as a financial risk manager? Here are seven tips to guide you through.

1. Gain a New Set of Skills

Mid-level FRM professionals can make progress in their careers by learning and gaining new skills. Here are ways an FRM professional can seek educational opportunities to expand their knowledge in their field of interest:

• In-house Corporate Training – It’s also known as internal training. This is a type of corporate training that involves the use of a company’s expertise and resources. Usually, an internal staff conducts the training. For example, a Senior FRM in an organization can train a Mid-level FRM to help them learn the skills required to assume the role of a Senior FRM.
• External Professional Training – In this case, the organization can hire expertise from another institution to train their mid-level FRM to advance to the next level.
• Online Training – If you’re aspiring to become a certified FRM you might choose a prep course like AnalystPrep to study for your exams. You can interact with tutors, read study materials, and take advantage of available video lessons to perfect your skills before exams.

2. Embrace Change

To advance your career as a Financial Risk Manager, you need to embrace change. However, most people dread change as they’re not sure how the process will affect their progress. FRMs face a rapidly changing digital economy and new financial risk management on products and markets. Therefore, embracing such changes will help you focus on gaining new skills to match the rising needs in your area of expertise as an FRM. That is to say, taking a relevant FRM course or familiarizing yourself with the technology or product that has just emerged.

3. Collaborate Across Disciplines

It’s essential to collaborate across disciplines if you’re out to advance your career as a mid-level FRM professional. That would mean re-evaluating your skill set to know if you are competitive. In this case, you might consider working across disciplinary boundaries that will enable you to solve FRM-related problems. 

It’s worth noting that gaining in-depth knowledge in a single field is one of the best ways to move progress in your career as an aspiring financial risk manager. You might decide to specialize in financial services or banking or trading or marketing. However, it’s advisable to have general knowledge across all fields.

The ability to collaborate across disciplines and apply expertise to areas beyond your primary field makes you flexible and inspires you to be innovative.

4. Be Intentional

As a Financial Risk Manager, it’s essential to have control over your career. It’s advisable to be more purposeful in your actions and focus on things that’ll help you progress in your career. It is important to know your endgame. Where do you want to be within a given period of time, say 3 years from now? Setting a goal and keeping a schedule will help you remain more focused on your career advancement. Also, you’ll be able to identify and lean on people who can help you build on your experiences. In that way, as an FRM specialist, you can make informed decisions that will affect your career positively.

5. Identify Emerging Risk Areas

Financial Risk Managers, should beware of the emerging risks they’re likely to encounter in their line of specialization. As a result, they’ll be able to identify, analyze and document the risks associated with an organization’s operations. FRMs are certified by the Global Association Of Risk Professionals (GARP). According to the GARP, traditional skill sets such as credit risk and market risk management remain in demand. However, other risk areas such as the transition to digitalization need to be put into consideration.

The transition to digitalization, in conjunction with evolving market developments and demands, has created various FRMs opportunities. However, this has increased risk areas as hackers and fraudsters have come up with new ways to commit financial fraud and carry out data breaches. 

For this reason, as a Financial Risk Manager, you need to know the leading cybersecurity solutions. Additionally, know how to include advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to create strategic defense mechanisms against the threat of cybercrime and all cyber vulnerabilities. This knowledge will help you to solve various FRMs problems and you can be trusted and consequently get a promotion.

6. Leverage Data and Technology

This means changing raw information into useful insights. You can successfully leverage data and technology as a mid-level FRM by learning how to gather, analyze, and present information effectively. This is because cyber risk and financial crime remain an issue for many financial institutions.

Learning to leverage emerging technology solutions, such as Al and automated tools will enable you to address different financial crimes and cyber risks. For instance, as a financial risk manager, you may choose to learn how to use Automated Credit Scoring Technology. This helps you minimize the risk of repayment default and maximize the organization’s commercial use. Credit Scoring automation uses customer behavior to assess customer history updates. In that way, you can make informed decisions as an FRM in the future.

7. Develop a Professional Network

When it comes to advancing your career as an FRM, your network is very important. Your network is a key source of new ideas and prospects that will help you move to the next level. Once you develop a good professional network you’ll be able to exchange information on the challenges, goals, and experiences with different expertise. This will help you gain new insight that you may not have thought of and you can get a promotion to the next level.

Developing a good professional network can open doors to new opportunities. Moreover, you will also get a better reputation, more impactful connections, and a stronger support network that will help you rise from one level to the next.

Conclusion

It’s essential to advance your career as a Financial Risk Manager if you’re looking forward to earning a promotion or getting a salary raise. With the tips discussed above, you should be on your way to making significant progress in your career as a Financial Risk Manager. Remember, it’s all about personal determination to make progress. Start studying today for your FRM exams by enrolling with AnalystPrep. It’s one of the most effective ways to start on your professional journey.