Head of Financial Crime Governance, WKO (Executive Director)

We are seeking an Executive Director–level Head of Financial Crime Governance to lead transformational, technology-enabled financial crime programmes within our 1st Line of Defence (1LOD) KYC Operation organisation in the Commercial & Investment Bank. This is a senior leadership role covering financial crime risk, cross-border payments, and advanced analytics (AI/ML and automation)  to drive continuous improvements in how we identify, assess and manage financial crime risk, with a particular focus on high-risk international flows involving crypto/digital assets, FinTech partnerships, and correspondent banking. 

As an Head of Financial Crime Governance, WKO (Executive Director) within Financial Crime Team, you will define ‘what good looks like’ for a modern, intelligence-led control environment and implement the relevant changes — translating regulatory expectations and emerging typologies into scalable control and governance capabilities across AML, Sanctions and KYC.

Job Responsibilities:

• Provide leadership in the first line of defence for the end-to-end financial crime transformation strategy and multi-year roadmap across AML, Sanctions and KYC/CDD and collaborate with the controls teams to contribute to the assessment of current controls, data, systems and operating model; define target state and prioritized delivery plan.

• Sponsor and drive the delivery of AI/technology-enabled controls, automation/robotics use cases and oversee the technology implementation lifecycle requirements, data readiness, model development, validation, testing, deployment, adoption, and continuous performance optimization.

• Provide senior oversight of financial crime risks across high-risk corridors and complex cross-border payment flows.

• Collaborate with the Payments teams to lead the enhancement of controls for crypto/digital asset-related activity (e.g., wallet risk, on/off-ramp typologies, Travel Rule considerations).

• Scope risk and control expectations for FinTech partners, platform models, and correspondent banking relationships.

• Partner with the Business and Global Financial Crime Compliance to simplify and streamline the financial crime framework and Financial Crime Committee governance (structure and content), acting as a central intermediary to enable a more efficient, sustainable financial crime operating environment.

• Collaborate with Sanctions, Transaction Monitoring, Fraud Operations and Compliance to strengthen key elements of the Financial Crime Compliance framework and enhance consistency across the firm.

• Define and maintain financial crime governance frameworks, support the development of business risk guidelines, KRIs/KPIs, MI dashboards, and reporting to senior management committees; deliver continuous modernization of policy and standards across AML/CTF, sanctions and KYC/CDD — explicitly incorporating AI/automation governance (e.g., transparency, accountability, human-in-the-loop).

• Act as a senior point of contact for regulators, auditors, and internal assurance functions, as required; ensure robust documentation and explainability of models and automation decisions, including ongoing monitoring and change control.

• Set performance expectations and drive measurable improvements in effectiveness and efficiency of the financial crime operations models (e.g., detection quality, false positives, case cycle times, etc.) and ensure strong integration between KYC/CDD data, monitoring, screening, investigations, and reporting workflows; influence resource allocation and target operating model design to optimize effectiveness and efficiency, focusing human effort on highest-value of investigative work.

• Lead and develop high-performing, multi-disciplinary teams (including operations, data science, technology, product) and build organizational AI/ML capability and embed a culture of robust proactive financial crime risk management; provide thought leadership internally and externally (governance forums, industry groups, working groups), including horizon scanning for typologies, regulation and technology.

Required qualifications, capabilities, and skills

• Previous experience in financial crime risk roles within regulated financial services, payments, FinTech, or relevant advisory/consulting — including senior leadership accountability.

• Deep expertise across AML, sanctions, fraud, and KYC/CDD, including transaction monitoring and screening design/oversight.

• Strong, practical understanding of cross-border payments risk, high-risk corridors and typologies.

• Proven experience engaging with regulators and auditors, including leading examinations, preparing senior governance reports, and delivering remediation.

• Demonstrable experience in designing and implementing risk appetite, governance, and control frameworks across multiple jurisdictions.

• Clear evidence of delivering complex change programmes, including designing/building/deploying/scaling of new controls or platforms.

• Strong working literacy in AI/ML, advanced analytics, and automation as applied to financial crime risk (model performance, thresholds, monitoring, validation, controls and documentation).

• Experience partnering with technology, data science, and product teams to translate risk requirements into scalable systems and operating processes.

• Track record of improving control performance using data (e.g., reducing false positives while maintaining/improving detection, improving productivity and MI).

• Executive-level presence, with confident influencing at senior committee level and interacting with regulators, is required.

• Highly collaborative and outcomes-driven, able to align competing stakeholders and deliver measurable results, is required.

Preferred qualifications, capabilities, and skills

• Direct experience with crypto/digital-assets financial crime controls (e.g., blockchain analytics integration, wallet/transaction monitoring, Travel Rule operating considerations).

• Experience managing financial crime risk within FinTech partnership models 

• Correspondent banking financial crime oversight experience, including due diligence frameworks and corridor-specific monitoring approaches.

• Familiarity with relevant global standards and regulatory expectations (e.g., FATF standards, multi-regime sanctions expectations and digital asset regulatory frameworks)

• Strong judgement and integrity, comfortable challenging the status quo, is preferred.

• Clear communicator, able to explain complex typologies and AI/ML concepts to technical and non-technical audiences.

• Adaptive execution with robust controls, resilient, adaptable, and effective in ambiguity and pace, balancing innovation with robust control design.