National Manager Risk and Verification

Tēnei tūranga – About the role

The National Manager Risk and Verification is a critical senior leadership role responsible for leading risk and verification across the Immigration system and reports to the Immigration Risk & Border branch. The National Manager Risk and Verification leads a large operationally focused team both domestically and internationally based which supports the identification, assessment, and mitigation of risk to enable efficient and high-quality decision making across the Visa processing network and wider Immigration system. This role works in close partnership with Visa Operations exercising collective system leadership to enable high-quality, risk-informed visa decisions. This includes shared responsibility for risk settings, collective decision making on system-wide issues, and embedding risk literacy across the Immigration system. The role is responsible for shaping, strengthening, and leading the risk and verification system across the Immigration Risk and Border branch and the wider Immigration network.

This role operates at the centre of the Immigration Risk & Border system, providing system-level leadership and oversight of risk and verification functions across the network. It also plays a key role in supporting Our Future Services through the delivery of new capabilities such as low-risk automation, decision intelligence engine, risk indicators. These capabilities ensure that risk and verification insights actively inform the design and evolution of future operating models, service pathways, and system settings. By strengthening how Immigration New Zealand identifies, assesses, and mitigates risk, this role ensures that future services are supported with high-quality evidence and system-level intelligence to drive improved service delivery.

While the role leads a large operationally focused function, it is equally responsible for enabling informed system-level decision making by ensuring the effective identification, assessment, and mitigation of risk. This dual focus ensures the risk and verification system supports operational excellence while strengthening strategic system stewardship across Immigration New Zealand. 
The position leads a large, globally dispersed team whose work is pivotal to future service delivery as Immigration New Zealand continues to evolve its operating environment. Strong people-leadership capability is essential to ensure the team is well-positioned, capable, and future ready to support emerging service needs across the network.  As Immigration New Zealand’s operating model changes in alignment with our Future Services, the role will lead changes in how the risk and verification functions operate and are delivered.

The role requires a highly experienced and seasoned leader with extensive experience managing large teams, a proven record of leading transformational change, and the ability to guide people confidently through ambiguity, complexity, and high-stakes decision making. 

Ngā herenga – Requirements of the role

Personal specifications

• Significant senior leadership experience within complex operational or regulatory environments.
• Proven ability to lead large, multi-layered teams and develop leadership capability across dispersed locations.
• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale organisational or system change in complex and ambiguous settings.
• Strong expertise in risk management or the ability to apply risk frameworks to operational and system settings.
• Proven ability to influence, collaborate, and build effective relationships with domestic and international partners.
• Strong strategic thinking, problem solving capability, and the ability to synthesis complex information to guide decision making.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver performance, culture uplift, and continuous improvement across large teams.

Qualifications

• Tertiary qualification in a relevant field or equivalent experience in risk is preferred but not essential.

Prerequisites

• Ability to gain and maintain a national security clearance to Top Secret level.
• Must hold New Zealand citizenship or permanent residency.
• Must consent to and satisfactorily complete a credit check as the role holds financial delegations.
• Must be able to travel domestically and internationally to fulfil the requirements of the role.

Takohanga tuhinga o mua – Key accountabilities and deliverables

Delivery of quality solutions that contribute to the goals of the Ministry

• Senior management accountability and ownership for risk and verification functions across the Immigration system.
• Supports the identification, assessment and mitigation of risk across the Immigration system.
• Works collectively with Visa Operations to enable high-quality visa decisions through shared stewardship of risk, alignment of risk settings, and joint resolution of system-wide issues.
• Works across the Business/Products/Sectors to minimise risk exposure.
• Provides advice and assurance to assist in the management of risk to ensure efficient and effective risk management processing across the Immigration system.
• Liaises and engages with MBIE Intelligence Unit, Labour Inspectorate and other areas of MBIE.
• Reports on system wide trends for emerging and escalating risk and verification.
• Accountable for the performance of the risk and verification system across the whole Immigration system.
• Provides expert knowledge of risk management methodology and broad experience of its application within an immigration environment.

Leadership

• Leads a large-scale operational team through domestic and internationally based leaders and teams.
• Provides strategic leadership to a large, globally dispersed team, ensuring capability, performance, and readiness for future service expectations.
• Ensures the team is prepared for and supported through future changes in operating models, systems, and expectations.
• Leads people through transformation with clarity, consistency, and confidence.
• Responsibility for developing and implementing risk frameworks, settings, tools and processes across the entirety of the Immigration system.
• Leads a collaborative system relationship with Visa Operations, supporting collective decision making on risk matters and uplifting risk literacy across all the Immigration system.
• Drives initiatives to implement strategic or organisational change initiatives and maintains a continuous improvement focus across the business.
• Interfaces with the wider INZ and New Zealand government network including establishing critical relationships across multiple domestic and international agencies, partners and suppliers.
• Builds a strong culture of performance, accountability, delivery excellence and continuous improvement.

Staff management

• Leads leaders, not only staff, including responsibility for developing leadership capability across multiple locations.
• Establishes clear accountabilities, expectations and performance standards with direct reports and ensures regular performance management and development occurs.
• Monitors and manages on-going performance of their team and actively manages poor performance.
• Creates and supports a team culture that is customer focused, proactive and consistent with the values of the Ministry while inspiring high performance.

Budget and planning

• Maintain awareness and feed into /INZ global market forecasts (of application volumes).
• Maintain awareness of INZ resource management plans and potential impacts on Risk & Verification.

Monitoring and reporting

• Establishes and maintains internal quality assurance frameworks and processes as part of the Risk and Verification and Immigration Risk & Border branch.
• Partners with Visa Operations to ensure that risk insights, verification, and quality findings directly inform visa decision quality and operational performance.
• Leads development of Verification and Compliance / Border and Visa Operations /Immigration wide risk assurance frameworks, communication strategies and processes as part of Verification and Compliance senior leadership team.
• Works closely with the Immigration Design & Assurance (IDA) branch to ensure effective system-level monitoring, reporting, and insights on risk and verification performance, enabling early identification of emerging risk and supporting changes to risk rules and settings across the immigration system.

Wellbeing, health and safety

• Displays commitment through actively supporting all safety and wellbeing initiatives.
• Ensures own and others safety at all times.
• Complies with relevant safety and wellbeing policies, procedures, safe systems of work and event reporting.
• Reports all incidents/accidents, including near misses in a timely fashion.
• Is involved in health and safety through participation and consultation.

Tō tūranga i roto i te Manatū – Your place in the Ministry

The National Manager Risk and Verification position reports into the General Manager within the Immigration Risk & Border branch. The branch sits within the Immigration New Zealand group.

More information about MBIE's structure

Matatautanga – Competencies (Leadership Success Profile)

The Leadership Success Profile (LSP) is a leadership capability framework, developed by the New Zealand public sector for the New Zealand public sector. It creates a common language for leadership and establishes what great leadership looks like. You can look at the twelve underpinning capabilities and four leadership characters here: Leadership Success Profile | Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission(external link)

To mātou aronga – What we do for Aotearoa New Zealand

Hīkina Whakatutuki is the te reo Māori name for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Hīkina means to uplift. Whakatutuki means to move forward, to make successful. Our name speaks to our purpose, Grow New Zealand for All.

To Grow New Zealand for All, we put people at the heart of our mahi. Based on the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi, we are committed to upholding authentic partnerships with Māori.

As agile public service leaders, we use our breadth and experience to navigate the ever-changing world. We are service providers, policy makers, investors and regulators. We engage with diverse communities, businesses and regions. Our work touches on the daily lives of New Zealanders. We grow opportunities (Puāwai), guard and protect (Kaihāpai) and innovate and navigate towards a better future (Auaha).

Te Tiriti o Waitangi

As an agency of the public service, MBIE has a responsibility to contribute to the Crown meeting its obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Te Tiriti). Meeting our commitment to Te Tiriti will contribute towards us realising the overall aims of Te Ara Amiorangi – Our Path, Our Direction, and achieve the outcome of Growing New Zealand for All. The principles of Te Tiriti - including partnership, good faith, and active protection – are at the core of our work. MBIE is committed to delivering on our obligations as a Treaty partner with authenticity and integrity and to enable Māori interests. We are committed to ensuring that MBIE is well placed to meet our obligations under the Public Service Act 2020 (Te Ao Tūmatanui) to support the Crown in strengthening the Māori/Crown Relationship under the Treaty and to build MBIE’s capability, capacity and cultural intelligence to deliver this.

Mahi i roto i te Ratonga Tūmatanui – Working in the public service

Ka mahitahi mātou o te ratonga tūmatanui kia hei painga mō ngā tāngata o Aotearoa i āianei, ā, hei ngā rā ki tua hoki. He kawenga tino whaitake tā mātou hei tautoko i te Karauna i runga i āna hononga ki a ngāi Māori i raro i te Tiriti o Waitangi. Ka tautoko mātou i te kāwanatanga manapori. Ka whakakotahingia mātou e te wairua whakarato ki ō mātou hapori, ā, e arahina ana mātou e ngā mātāpono me ngā tikanga matua o te ratonga tūmatanui i roto i ā mātou mahi.

In the public service we work collectively to make a meaningful difference for New Zealanders now and in the future. We have an important role in supporting the Crown in its relationships with Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi. We support democratic government. We are unified by a spirit of service to our communities and guided by the core principles and values of the public service in our work.

What does it mean to work in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Public Service?(external link) — Te Kawa Mataaho The Public Service Commission