Sr. Specialist - Project Risk Management at Vale

Job description

Who We Are We are a global mining company dedicated to safely delivering nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum group metals essential for the world’s energy transition. Our mission is to improve lives and shape a better future together. From utensils to cellphones to satellites, our operations simplify daily life and enhance connectivity. Our metals are integral to life-saving medical equipment and the electric vehicles driving the fight against climate change – our work truly matters. Join our diverse team of 15,000 talented individuals committed to transforming critical minerals into prosperity and sustainable development in countries like Canada, Brazil, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, and Japan. We invite you to use your skills with us and contribute to something meaningful and enduring. The Opportunity We are seeking a Sr. Specialist – Project Risk Management to join our VBM / CTO / Studies / Project Controls team in Toronto, Ontario . This permanent position reports to the Sr. Manager, Project Controls – Canada and provides senior functional leadership for Project Risk Management across Vale Base Metals’ Canadian studies and project portfolio. The role establishes and continuously improves the framework, governance, standards and tools applied throughout the project lifecycle, leads major risk assessments, and serves as the primary interface with Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). As a trusted advisor to project teams and senior leadership, it provides independent challenge and insight on threats, opportunities and uncertainties, ensuring these inform planning, execution and investment decisions across all disciplines and functions. About You You are a strategic and collaborative risk management professional with extensive experience supporting large, complex capital projects within mining industry. You are highly skilled at facilitating discussions, challenging assumptions, and helping project teams proactively manage uncertainty. You possess strong leadership and influencing abilities, enabling you to build credibility with project teams, senior management, and key stakeholders. You thrive in complex environments where balancing technical, commercial, schedule, cost, organizational, and external risks is critical to project success. Your ability to translate risk insights into practical business decisions allows you to drive value and improve project outcomes. In this role, you will: Lead the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of the Project Risk Management framework for the Canadian project portfolio. Establish and maintain project risk management standards, procedures, governance requirements, methodologies, reporting structures, tools, templates, and risk taxonomies. Lead all major risk assessments for projects in Canada. This includes supporting quantitative risk analysis activities, including contingency assessment, probabilistic forecasting, schedule risk analysis, and confidence-based estimating. Act as the primary Projects interface with Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), ensuring alignment between project-level and enterprise-level risk practices. Provide risk leadership and advisory support to Project Directors, Study Managers, Project Managers, and functional leaders. Lead the integration of risk management activities across engineering, mining, processing, infrastructure, permitting, environmental, Indigenous relations, procurement, contracting, construction, commissioning, and operational readiness functions. Oversee the quality and effectiveness of project risk registers, mitigation plans, opportunity management processes, reporting requirements, and escalation mechanisms. Challenge project assumptions and provide independent assessments regarding key risks, opportunities, mitigation strategies, and residual risk exposure. Develop portfolio-level visibility of project risks, opportunities, emerging threats, and key trends requiring management attention. Challenge project assumptions and p