Richard Look Kin has taken up duties as group chief risk officer at First Citizens close to two years after Philip Rahaman was sacked from the post as a result of his involvement in a shares scandal linked to the banking group's initial public offering (IPO).
Look Kin, who was considerable experience as a corporate credit risk manager across the Caribbean and in capital market, bank lending and derivatives products, joined First Citizens last September. In his new position he is responsible for leading the group's credit, market and operational risk teams and ensuring an effective enterprise risk management framework is in place to measure, monitor, manage and control risks.
His previous assignment was as risk management officer at the Caribbean Development Bank in Barbados. He held that position from April 2014 to August 2015. Prior to that Look Kin was risk management country officer at Citi in T&T.
He is a graduate of Heriot-Watt University with a Master of Business Administration (MBA), Strategic Planning and also has a Bachelor of Commerce (B Com), Finance, General from the University of Toronto.
In an announcement posted on the T&T Stock Exchange Monday, First Citizens said Look Kin had assumed full responsibilities as the group's chief risk officer effectively January 1.
The post gained some unfavourable national attention in March 2014 was dismissed an internal audit by First Citizens on his purchase of 659,588 bank shares during its IPO, and the subsequent sale of 634,588 of those shares four months later. Rahaman spent $14 million to acquire the shares and is reported to have made a $12 million profit when they were sold.
The matter was investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the T&T Stock Exchange and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) on behalf of the Ministry of Finance.