Clarissa van Heerden is an audit, finance and risk professional with seventeen years of senior management and advisory experience working for the UN, big 4 firms and international organizations.
Currently the Chief Risk Officer at the IOM – UN Migration, based in Geneva, Clarissa is responsible for the development and implementation of the global risk management strategy, policy, standards and guidelines and is a member of the senior management team implementing a comprehensive internal governance and business transformation, and of the Treasury Risk Management Committee.
In previous roles, Clarissa served as Senior Audit Executive at the Mubadala Investment Company based in Abu Dhabi, Associate Director – Risk Consulting at KPMG and Manager – Governance, Risk and Compliance at PwC South Africa.
Clarissa has served on the Audit & Risk Committee of the CGIAR System Board since 2018, and as its Chair since 2019. She is an ex-officio non-voting member of the System Board. She has also served as a member of the Audit Committee of the International Criminal Court since 2019.
Clarissa holds a degree in Accounting, completed her training through the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, is a Certified Internal Auditor and is pursuing a Masters in Global Corporate Compliance (LL.M.).