The County of Santa Barbara's County Executive Office is currently accepting applications to fill one (1) full-time Risk Manager vacancy in Santa Barbara. The candidate selected for this vacancy will bring a high level of professionalism, knowledge, and energy to the team.

The Risk Manager is responsible and has authority over the County’s risk portfolio, including the workers’ compensation, general liability, unemployment insurance, medical malpractice, cyber security, County workplace safety, and contract review programs. This position reports to an Assistant County Executive Officer, is a member of the leadership team and is responsible for managing all aspects of the Risk Management Division.

This role oversees highly complex and strategic risk management functions and have responsibility for significant budget/funding levels. Decision-making includes establishing work unit objectives and goals, exercising considerable discretion in selecting the method to address a problem or issue, and fostering collaboration among and between the work units supervised as well as work units under the direction of others.

This position is classified as a Risk & Safety Manager III in the management classification series. This is an at-will position, exempt from Civil Service provisions. The incumbent serves at the pleasure of the County Executive Officer.

This role requires onsite work, but after initial training there is a potential for a hybrid work schedule, depending on the department and position needs. Onsite work for a minimum of three days will be required.

Oversees all Risk Management programs by planning, organizing, coordinating, and directing the activities in areas such as workers’ compensation, general liability insurance, workplace safety, cyber security, medical malpractice, and other related areas.
Develops, administers, and evaluates risk and safety management services and programs to ensure compliance with strategies and performance goals; manages work systems and process; maintains and updates procedures and ensures compliance; researches trends and best practices; and recommends and implements changes.
Supervises management, professional, paraprofessional, and support staff; conducts performance evaluations, employee development, hiring, discipline, and termination procedures; establishes and facilitates effective relationships with departments and provides risk management support in areas of assigned responsibilities.
Assesses and purchases a variety of traditional and non-traditional insurance products to protect the County’s employees and assets.
Develops and administers division’s budget and procurement process; reviews and approves budget requests and transactions; negotiates and manages contracts; researches and analyzes financial information; makes resource allocation recommendations; implements resource allocation decisions and is responsible for internal insurance rate setting.
Interacts with and makes recommendations to policy makers at the CEO and/or Board of Supervisors level; develops, analyzes, and maintains reports and other materials that contain actionable metrics to monitor the performance of business operations.
Responsible for keeping current with rules, regulations, legislation, and procedures to determine their impact on organizational processes, procedures and County operations to ensure compliance with related Federal/State laws/regulations.
Identifies, researches, analyzes and evaluates potential risk or loss exposure for current and potential future activities and operations; evaluates, recommends and employs new/enhanced insurance coverage, self-insured retention or other non-traditional insurance/financial solutions where appropriate.
Oversees multiple concurrent projects and ensures their timely and successful completion; monitors key performance indicators and tracks division’s objectives; and evaluates the performance of risk management programs.
Coordinates with the general public, County staff, and external agencies; may represent the County of various professional committees and organizations, such as PRISM; and prepare and make presentations to the public, elected officials, board, and other stakeholders.
Performs other related duties as required.

The County Executive Office is looking for a candidate who will work cross-departmentally with other leaders in the County and use their technical expertise and interpersonal skills to meet the goals and objectives of the department and County.

The ideal candidate will possess:

Strong Leadership Skills:
1. Demonstrate an ability to be a strong partner in the organization.
2. Effectively advise and provide consultative services to departments, executives and elected officials on risk management matters.
3. Successfully lead, develop, support and retain staff.
4. Character defined by integrity, humility, empathy, action and stewardship.
Interpersonal and Communication Skills:
1. Strong customer orientation to achieve both departmental and countywide goals by collaborating with department directors, elected officials and executive leadership.
2. Ability to manage highly sensitive issues.
3. Exceptional written and oral communication skills to present/communicate to a group, including executives, managers, and County employees.
4. Demonstrate emotional intelligence to communicate effectively and foster productive relationships.
Technical Skills:
1. Ability to develop or redesign successful safety and risk management programs and loss control capabilities.
2. Possesses broad knowledge of insurance, liability, workers’ compensation and safety.
3. Understands risk management process and how to identify risks, measure risks, examine solutions, implement risk management technique/solution, and monitor results.
4. Knowledgeable in the area of risk transfer across a broad range of services.
5. Skilled at identifying current and emerging liability and safety exposures.
6. Educated and experienced in the area of safety to ensure solutions comply with occupational safety and health administration state and federal regulations, and other applicable safety standards and guidelines.
7. Competent in reviewing countywide contracts to ensure compliance with County insurance and indemnification requirements

Education and Experience:

The knowledge, skills, and abilities listed below may be acquired through various types of training, education, and experience. A typical way to acquire the required knowledge and abilities would be:

Equivalent of a bachelor’s degree from an accredited four-year college or university in occupational health, safety engineering, insurance/risk management, business administration, or related field; AND
Seven (7) years of progressively responsible experience in risk management, occupational health and safety, claims administration, or liability and casualty insurance that includes three (3) years as a supervisor or manager.

International degrees must include documentation from an evaluation service that shows the U.S. education equivalency and unofficial transcripts at the time of application submittal. A list of evaluation services may be found at http://www.naces.org/members.html

Licenses & Certificates:
Possession of a California Driver’s License may be required, along with the ability to meet insurability requirements.

Possession of an Associate of Risk Management (ARM) certification from the Insurance Institute of America (IIA) is highly preferred.

To view the full job classification for the Risk & Safety Manager III specification, click here.

This position may require to work a varied schedule of hours, which may include evenings, weekends, and holidays, as needed.

This position will require independent travel throughout the County.

Application & Selection Process:

Application Review to determine whether employment standards are met.
Selection Interviews: The most qualified candidates may be invited for an interview(s) by the hiring department.
Conditional Job Offer: Once a conditional offer of employment has been made, candidate will be required to successfully complete a background check, which includes a conviction history check and satisfactory reference checks.

Recruiters will communicate with applicants by e-mail during each step in the recruitment process. Applicants are reminded to check spam filters continuously during the Recruitment & Selection Process steps listed above to ensure they do not miss required deadlines.

BENEFITS: The County of Santa Barbara offers generous benefits that include health insurance, pension, 457(b) retirement, and much more. For more information click here. In addition, applicants from other public sector employers may qualify for:

Retirement reciprocity
Time and service credit towards an advanced vacation accrual rate

REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS: The County of Santa Barbara is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to applicants. Qualified individuals with disabilities who need a reasonable accommodation during the application or selection process should contact the recruiter listed on the job posting. We require verification of needed accommodation from a professional source, such as a Medical Provider or a learning institution.

Disaster Service Worker: Pursuant to Governmental Code section 3100, all employees with the County of Santa Barbara are declared to be disaster service workers subject to such disaster service. Activities as may be assigned to them by their superiors or by law.

APPLICATION AND SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTIONNAIRE DEADLINE: Monday, January 12, 2026 at 4:59 PM PST. Applications and job bulletins can be obtained 24 hours a day at www.sbcountyjobs.com.

For questions, please contact: Raquel Martinez, Talent Acquisition Manager at RMartinez@countyofsb.org

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