In the post-crisis environment, effective risk management has become the sine qua non of the financial services industry. Numerous reports during and in the immediate aftermath of the crisis highlighted the need for better risk management (Senior Supervisor’s Group, 2009; Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, 2010). Strategic risk-taking choices at board level have rightly come under scrutiny (Laeven and Levine, 2009; Pathan, 2009; Jiménez et al., 2013; Raviv and Sisli-Ciamarra, 2013). What is far less understood is the role of financial services employees in risk management—a gap which this paper seeks to address. In the regulatory and practitioner literature, there is broad agreement that risk management is the responsibility of all staff, not just senior leaders and risk specialists (Institute of International Finance, 2009; McKinsey, 2016; Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, 2015; Financial Stability Board, 2013; Harle et al., 2016). Under the widely adopted “Three Lines of Defence” model (Institute of Internal Auditors, 2013), the first and primary risk management responsibility lies with the risk takers, i.e. those who make loans, trade securities and derivatives, manage assets, advise clients, underwrite insurance and provide transaction/brokerage services. Consistent with this, a very recent experimental study by Cohn et al. (2017) confirms the extent to which risk management is now prioritised in professional norms. This raises questions about the type of employee who is most successful in fulfilling the enhanced risk management expectations. The purpose of this study is to provide greater understanding of what constitutes “desirable” risk management behaviour by financial services staff and the characteristics of those who are most likely to display such behaviour. To what extent are attributes such as age, gender, tenure, seniority and personal risk tolerance correlated with risk management behaviour? Such an understanding is potentially useful for guiding recruitment, retention and other managerial policies and ultimately improving risk management practice within financial institutions. The study is related to the literature examining the role of directors and senior executives in risk management. Several studies have now demonstrated the favourable outcomes associated with risk governance in financial institutions (Ellul and Yerramilli, 2013; Aebi et al., 2012; Magee et al., 2017). Related to this is a literature on board diversity that sheds light on the characteristics of directors in relation to risk-taking (Berger et al., 2014; Adams and Ragunathan, 2015; Sila et al., 2016). An impediment to research on the role of employees in risk management is the availability of data at the employee level. Very few studies have accomplished this although some have investigated the role of credit officers—a role that incorporates significant elements of risk management (Beck et al., 2012; Bellucci et al., 2010). These studies investigate the link between the gender of the lender and loan performance. Our analysis is based on an extraordinary data set of some 36,000 survey responses from ten banks headquartered in Australia, Canada and the UK. The survey questions capture demographic data (age, gender, seniority and business line), individual risk tolerance and self-report risk behaviour (with several steps taken to address potential social desirability bias). They provide a fascinating window into risk management behaviour in banks in the Anglo setting.