Freightliner Ltd
Risk and Compliance Officer
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Role Purpose
Freightliner is creating its first dedicated Risk & Compliance Officer role to provide a coherent, enterprise-wide approach to risk, compliance, and assurance across a complex UK road and rail haulage business.
The role is responsible for designing, embedding, and overseeing Freightliner’s group-wide risk and compliance framework, bringing together activities currently managed across multiple functions. Operating as a second-line oversight function, the role provides consistent coordination, insight, and constructive challenge, while supporting safe, ethical, and resilient operations.
The Risk & Compliance Officer does not replace or duplicate first-line operational ownership of risk, safety, or compliance. Instead, the role provides independent oversight, assurance, and escalation, ensuring risks are appropriately identified, managed, and reported.
As a centre of expertise, advisor, and critical friend, the postholder will support the business to meet its legal, regulatory, and accreditation obligations, while maintaining a proportionate, pragmatic, and commercially informed approach suited to an operational logistics environment. This is a hands-on, build-from-scratch role, requiring strong stakeholder management and the ability to right-size governance for practical application across the business.
Key Responsibilities
1. Enterprise Risk Management
- Design, implement, and maintain a group-wide Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework aligned to Freightliner’s strategy and risk appetite.
- Coordinate the identification, assessment, and prioritisation of strategic, operational, financial, regulatory, and reputational risks.
- Ensure clear risk ownership, mitigation plans, and review cycles are in place across the business.
- Ensure operational, safety, and regulatory risks (including rail and site-level risks) are appropriately escalated and reflected within the enterprise risk framework, with clear lines of defence.
- Support Executive and Board-level discussions on risk exposure, emerging risks, and risk appetite.
2. ISO Standards & Management Systems
- Implement and maintain oversight of Freightliner’s ISO management systems, including (as applicable):
- ISO 9001 (Quality)
- ISO 14001 (Environmental)
- ISO 45001 (Health & Safety)
- ISO 22301 (Business Continuity)
- Coordinate internal audits, external certification audits, and surveillance visits.
- Track audit findings and corrective actions through to closure.
- Support the business in continually improving management system effectiveness and integration.
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3. Internal Audit, Controls & Assurance
- Oversee the design and operation of proportionate internal controls across key risk areas.
- Coordinate internal audit activity, including scoping, delivery, and reporting, whether conducted internally or by third parties.
- Develop and maintain an assurance map, identifying first, second, and third-line assurance activity, along with gaps and overlaps.
- Monitor the effectiveness of controls and assurance mechanisms and recommend improvements where needed.
4. Business Continuity & Organisational Resilience
- Own and oversee the group business continuity framework.
- Ensure business continuity plans are developed, maintained, tested, and reviewed across sites and functions.
- Coordinate scenario testing and exercises, including lessons learned.
- Oversee post-incident reviews from a risk and assurance perspective, ensuring learning is captured, shared, and embedded across the organisation.
5. Regulatory, Ethical & Third Party Compliance
- Monitor and support compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and standards, including:
- Corporate governance obligations
- Anti-bribery and corruption
- Modern slavery legislation
- Whistleblowing requirements
- Data protection (in coordination with specialist owners)
- Financial governance and controls requirements
- Undertake structured regulatory horizon scanning and coordinate organisational responses to significant regulatory or standards-based change.
- Act as a central point of coordination during regulatory reviews or investigations, working closely with Legal and other relevant functions.
6. Third Party & Supply Chain Risk
- Provide oversight of third-party and supplier risk management frameworks, including due diligence, risk classification, and ongoing monitoring.
- Support proportionate controls for critical suppliers and contractors, working with Legal, Commercial, and Procurement teams.
- Ensure significant supplier or contractor risks are visible at an enterprise level.
7. Policies, Training & Culture
- Own and maintain the framework of group policies related to risk, compliance, and ethical conduct.
- Coordinate training and awareness activity to support understanding of risk management, compliance obligations, and expected behaviours.
- Promote a positive risk and compliance culture that encourages openness, learning, and appropriate challenge.
- Develop proportionate tools, systems, and management information to support risk identification, incident tracking, audit actions, and compliance reporting.
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8. Reporting, Governance & Escalation
- Produce clear, decision-focused reporting for Executive leadership and Board or Committee audiences.
- Track and report on incidents, near misses, audit findings, policy breaches, and emerging risks.
- Develop and monitor Key Risk Indicators (KRIs) and compliance KPIs to assess trends, control effectiveness, and exposure.
- Escalate material risks, control failures, or compliance issues to senior leadership and, where appropriate, directly to the Board or relevant Committees.
9. Authority & Independence
The Risk & Compliance Officer has authority to:
- Challenge decisions and practices that expose the business to unacceptable risk.
- Require appropriate mitigation, assurance, or escalation of material issues.
- Escalate concerns independently of operational reporting lines where necessary.
Key Stakeholders
- Executive Leadership Team
- Board and relevant Committees (Audit, Risk and/or Safety, as applicable)
- Safety, Operations, and Engineering teams
- Legal, Finance, HR, IT, and Procurement
- External auditors, regulators, and assurance providers
Skills & Experience
Essential
- Proven experience in risk management, compliance, or assurance roles within complex or regulated environments.
- Experience operating or supporting a second-line oversight function, including effective challenge and assurance.
- Strong understanding of enterprise risk management frameworks.
- Experience coordinating audits, management systems, or formal assurance processes.
- Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and influencing skills.
Desirable
- Experience in transport, logistics, rail, or heavy industry environments.
- Familiarity with ISO management systems.
- Experience with third-party, supplier, or contractor risk management frameworks.
- Exposure to Board or Committee level reporting.
Personal Attributes
- Pragmatic, proportionate, and commercially aware.
- Confident, credible, and able to challenge constructively.
- Highly organised with strong analytical capability.
- Trusted advisor with sound judgement and integrity.
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