Head of Financial Crime Operations

📋 Description

• • Own the end-to-end strategy, delivery, and operational model of Lendable’s Financial Crime Operations function, reporting to the Director of Complaints, Fraud and Financial Crime.
• • Lead a team of 15 professionals, including a direct report (Financial Crime Manager), setting direction while ensuring consistent, resilient day-to-day operations.
• • Translate complex regulatory obligations (AML, sanctions, fraud, PEPs, POCA, counter-terrorist financing), risk appetite decisions, and operational data into clear, actionable insights for senior leadership, Product Managing Directors, and the Board.
• • Develop and execute the annual Financial Crime Operations plan, adjusting priorities in response to regulatory shifts and business growth.
• • Design and maintain an operational framework that is well-understood, consistently applied, and scalable without compromising integrity.
• • Serve as the primary voice of Financial Crime Operations in engagements with the Second Line Financial Crime Risk Department, Deputy MLRO, and MLRO.
• • Ensure operational resilience by maintaining high standards in investigations, SAR output, transaction monitoring, and sanctions screening under stress, volume spikes, or regulatory scrutiny.
• • Build and maintain formal resilience plans to guarantee critical controls remain effective during incidents and to demonstrate operational continuity to regulators.
• • Hold accountability for all escalated matters requiring senior judgment, including regulatory interactions, enforcement-adjacent situations, and external engagements.
• • Design and own the function’s governance and management information (MI) framework to provide senior management and the Board with genuine visibility of the control environment and early identification of emerging risks.
• • Lead process transformation initiatives by identifying opportunities for fundamental redesign—not incremental improvement—across financial crime operations.
• • Oversee the adoption of automation, analytics, and technology in collaboration with Product and Ops Product teams, ensuring initiatives are prioritized by impact and embedded sustainably.
• • Establish a framework for root cause analysis on incidents and thematic issues to ensure remediation addresses underlying causes, not symptoms.
• • Define and own the function’s operational metrics framework, including targets for case throughput, SLA adherence, SAR timeliness, and investigation quality.
• • Use MI and management reporting to identify productivity losses due to process friction, resourcing gaps, or tool limitations, and drive targeted interventions.
• • Produce regular, meaningful performance reports for the Director of Complaints, Fraud and Financial Crime covering output volumes, quality trends, SLA performance, and capacity utilization.
• • Lead a programme of efficiency improvement by mapping current-state processes, eliminating waste and duplication, and delivering measurable gains in team productivity.
• • Build business cases for investment in tooling, automation, or headcount based on operational data, and track ROI post-implementation.
• • Conduct forward-looking capacity planning to anticipate impacts of business growth, regulatory change, and seasonal volume shifts.
• • Own and maintain the financial crime policies and procedures framework, ensuring they remain current, proportionate, and fit for purpose as the business and regulatory landscape evolve.
• • Represent Lendable in regulatory dialogue, audits, and industry forums as the authoritative voice on financial crime risk and controls.
• • Contribute to enterprise risk forums and governance committees, integrating the financial crime perspective into broader business decisions.
• • Ensure all regulatory reporting obligations within the function are accurate, timely, and defensible.
• • Lead, develop, and hold accountability for the Financial Crime Manager and the wider operations team, building capability and capacity for medium-term demands.
• • Set the function’s culture: high standards, clear accountability, and a commitment to continuous improvement.
• • Partner with People and Talent to develop succession plans and ensure the function has sufficient depth of capability to remain effective under change.
• • Work 40 hours per week, Monday to Friday, typically 9am–6pm with a one-hour lunch break, with a hybrid model requiring three days per week in the London office.