Head of Financial Crime Operations

This is a senior leadership opportunity for someone who wants to take full ownership of a first-line AFC function and play a key role in shaping how financial crime operations evolve within a digital assets environment.

Role Details:

Reporting into executive leadership, you'll be responsible for leading and developing the end-to-end first-line AFC operation across multiple regulated business lines. This is a hands-on leadership role with genuine accountability for operational performance, risk outcomes, automation initiatives and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities:

• Owning the end-to-end AFC operating model, including onboarding reviews, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, investigations and operational workflows.
• Leading, developing and scaling a high-performing AFC team while improving operational efficiency and eliminating process bottlenecks.
• Taking ownership of key operational metrics such as alert volumes, ageing, false positives, automated decisioning, manual review rates and regulatory reporting quality.
• Working closely with Product, Technology, Operations and Finance to balance customer experience, operational cost and financial crime risk.
• Driving process optimisation through data, technology and AI-enabled solutions.
• Producing meaningful MI and reporting to senior leadership to support strategic decision making.
• Acting as the first-line financial crime owner, ensuring controls remain effective while supporting business growth

Key Experience Required:

• Significant experience leading a first-line AFC, AML or Financial Crime Operations function within banking, fintech, payments or digital assets.
• A proven track record of improving operational performance through data-driven decision making.
• Strong commercial awareness with the ability to balance financial crime controls against customer experience and operational efficiency.
• Experience engaging with senior executives, regulators and governance committees.
• The ability to lead geographically dispersed teams in a fast-moving, high-growth environment

This is a fully remote position with the flexibility to work from anywhere. You will have executive-level ownership with genuine influence over strategy and operations. This is an incredible opportunity to build and modernise a global financial crime function in a high-growth, technology focused business operating across multiple regulated environments.