Technology Risk GRC Lead

About us

Tamara is the leading fintech platform in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC region with a mission to help people make their dreams come true by building the most customer-centric financial super-app on earth. The company serves millions of users in the region and partners with leading global and regional brands such as SHEIN, Jarir, noon, IKEA and Amazon, as well as small and medium businesses.

Tamara is Saudi’s first fintech unicorn and is backed by Sanabil Investments, SNB Capital, Checkout.com, amongst others, operating out of its headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with other regional and global support offices.

Your role

Tamara is seeking a Cyber Security specialist / lead to join our Cyber Security team. In this role, you will own the day-to-day governance, risk, and compliance operations that underpin Tamara’s cyber security program, ensuring the organization meets regulatory expectations, maintains a mature control environment, and continuously improves its security posture.

You will be responsible for end-to-end regulatory compliance activities — including SAMA inspections, NCA assessments, PCI-DSS compliance, and PDPL alignment — as well as the governance lifecycle of cyber security policies, standards, and procedures. You will drive internal follow-ups to remediate identified maturity gaps and observations, and serve as the primary point of coordination between the Cyber Security team and first-line technology, engineering, and business stakeholders on compliance matters.

As an experienced individual contributor, you are expected to operate independently, take ownership of GRC deliverables, and lead initiatives that advance the maturity of Tamara’s cyber security governance and compliance program.

Your responsibilities

• Support in SAMA inspection readiness (end-to-end), including compliance assessments, evidence coordination, gap analysis, and direct support during on-site regulatory visits.

• Lead compliance assessment and alignment activities across applicable regulatory frameworks, including SAMA CSF, NCA, PCI-DSS, and PDPL, ensuring timely closure of identified gaps and observations.

• Drive the governance lifecycle for cyber security policies, standards, and procedures including development, periodic review, version control, stakeholder approval, and communication to Tamarians.

• Maintain and manage compliance mappings, control inventories, and maturity tracking across all in-scope frameworks, ensuring accuracy and audit-readiness at all times.

• Follow up with first-line teams (Technology, Engineering, IT Ops) and relevant business stakeholders to ensure timely implementation and remediation of compliance requirements and control gaps.

• Coordinate and respond to regulatory initiatives, requests, and ad-hoc inquiries from regulators such as SAMA, NCA, and relevant payment scheme bodies.

• Prepare and present cyber security governance, compliance status, and maturity updates for the Cyber Security Committee and other internal governance forums.

• Produce GRC-related dashboards, metrics, and KPI reporting for leadership visibility on compliance posture, policy health, and remediation progress.

• Collaborate with Enterprise Risk and Compliance teams on cross-functional risk and compliance matters, including contributing to vendor risk assessment reviews from a cyber security perspective.

• Utilize and maintain the Tamara’s GRC platform to manage compliance workflows, control assessments, policy repositories, and audit evidence.

• Support audit activities by coordinating evidence collection, tracking findings, and following up on remediation and mitigation actions to closure.

• Stay current on regulatory updates, emerging cyber security risks, and industry best practices relevant to fintech and financial services in the GCC region.

Your expertise

• 4–6 years of experience in Cyber Security GRC, Technology Risk, IT Governance, IT Audit, or a related field within financial services, fintech, or banking.

• Demonstrated experience with regulatory compliance frameworks, particularly SAMA CSF (required) and NCA (preferred). Experience with PCI-DSS and/or PDPL is a strong advantage.

• Solid understanding of cyber security governance principles, policy lifecycle management, and control assessment methodologies.

• Experience conducting or supporting regulatory inspections, compliance assessments, and maturity evaluations.

• Proven ability to manage compliance remediation programs, track findings to closure, and coordinate across multiple stakeholders.

• Strong documentation and reporting skills, with the ability to produce clear, structured deliverables for both technical and executive audiences.

• Experience working with GRC platforms and tools for compliance management, policy governance, and audit tracking are a plus.