Risk Partner

About Southern Cross Health Insurance

Southern Cross Health Insurance is committed to creating a healthier New Zealand by empowering members to live healthier, longer lives. As a member-owned, New Zealand-based organization, it focuses on delivering timely access to quality care, inspiring healthy lifestyles, and fostering positive change across the health system, all while creating a rewarding environment for its employees.

Position Overview

The Risk Partner (Line 1) role is vital in supporting the business in making well-informed decisions, effectively managing risk, and enhancing risk maturity throughout the company. This role involves diverse tasks such as facilitating risk workshops with senior management, investigating incidents to find root causes, testing controls, and converting risk data into insightful reports for governance purposes. The Risk Partner plays a key role in identifying risks and guiding teams to act on them, ultimately improving outcomes for members.

Key Responsibilities

• Collaborate with business leaders to detect, evaluate, and manage risks in daily operations and during change projects.
• Assist in control testing, assurance measures, and remediation processes to enhance risk and compliance performance.
• Offer pragmatic risk guidance by organizing workshops and aiding teams in advancing their risk management capabilities.
• Analyze risk data, incident reports, and trend information to deliver substantive insights to leadership and governance bodies.
• Work jointly across departments to nurture a proactive risk culture and pursue continuous enhancement.

Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is skilled in relationship-building and engaging meaningfully with stakeholders. They understand that risk management transcends compliance checklists, focusing instead on clarifying risks, reinforcing controls, and enabling superior decision-making.

This individual is comfortable handling detailed investigations, control assessments, and data analysis but can also summarize insights effectively for senior executives. They possess natural curiosity, are confident in asking questions, and are willing to offer constructive challenges. Adaptability in a dynamic environment and a drive for ongoing improvement in risk management are essential.

Required Experience and Skills

• Over three years of experience in risk management, compliance, controls, assurance, or governance, familiar with working across multiple topics and stakeholders within either Line 1 or Line 2 settings.
• Strong capability in forging relationships and delivering actionable advice to business leaders.
• Excellent problem-solving aptitude to recognize trends, risks, and areas for improvement.
• Hands-on experience with control testing, managing issues, and conducting risk assurance activities.
• Proficient in influencing and challenging constructively as well as communicating with a broad spectrum of stakeholders.
• A commitment to continuous improvement and enthusiasm for enhancing how teams make risk-informed decisions.

Culture and Employee Benefits

Southern Cross champions a caring, honest, and open work culture that emphasizes well-being and professional growth. Employees benefit from a healthy work-life balance and are encouraged to thrive personally and professionally. Benefit highlights include:

• Five days of annual wellbeing leave
• Health insurance covering employees and their immediate families
• Life insurance plus discounts on pet and travel insurance
• Additional parental leave and financial wellness resources
• Opportunity to engage in workplace wellbeing programs
• Option to purchase flexible leave for study, volunteering, or family support
• An annual volunteer day with team participation

Location and Inclusion

This position is based in Auckland. While applicants from other regions are welcome to express interest, remote work options are not available. The organization proudly supports diversity and inclusion through active employee-led forums and networks such as the Rainbow Network, Māori Network, Pasifika Collective, and Neurodiversity and Whānau Support.