Head of Risk and Quality

Head of Risk & Quality

Eton Bridge Partners have exclusively partnered with Wellcome Sanger, a world-leading non-profit genomics research institute, to appoint their Head of Risk & Quality. This is a high-impact leadership role that will be central to shaping and embedding their organisation-wide risk framework. Operating across the Institute and its wider group, you will drive a culture where risk is clearly understood and effectively managed, empowering leadership to make confident and well-informed decisions. You will also work closely with senior stakeholders to bring clarity to complex challenges, aligning the risk framework with Wellcome Sanger's mission and priorities while strengthening governance, controls and business continuity to build resilience at scale.

Please note: Eton Bridge Partners is exclusively retained to deliver this recruitment and will manage all applications on behalf of the Wellcome Sanger Institute for this position.

Salary: The salary offered for this role is up to £95,000 per annum.

Key Responsibilities

This role reports directly to the CFO.

• Build and lead a high-performing risk and quality function, while establishing and maintaining quality standards across the Institute in line with organisational and stakeholder expectations.
• Own and continuously enhance the enterprise-wide risk framework and corporate risk register, ensuring alignment with Board-defined risk appetite and effective mitigation of key risks.
• Act as the organisation’s subject matter expert for risk and quality, driving a strong risk culture and consistent standards across all functions.
• Partner with business units to identify, assess and manage operational and strategic risks, supported by a structured, multi-level risk taxonomy (enterprise, functional and team-level).
• Provide expert advice and reporting to senior leadership and Board committees, including regular updates to the Audit & Risk Committee and supporting governance decision-making.
• Lead the implementation and embedding of a robust Three Lines of Defence model, clearly defining accountabilities for risk management across the organisation.
• Oversee internal audit outcomes, business continuity planning and major incident preparedness, ensuring issues are tracked, resolved, and organisational resilience is maintained.