Global Financial Crime Lead, Senior Manager

About Zodia Custody  

Zodia Custody is the leading institution-first digital asset custodian, formed through a partnership between Standard Chartered, Northern Trust, SBI Holdings and National Australia Bank. Our mission is to enable institutional investors worldwide to fully embrace the potential of the digital asset future in a secure and reliable manner. By combining cutting-edge technology, robust custody solutions, and a focus on governance and compliance, Zodia Custody meets the complex needs of institutional investors. 

 About the role  

This is a full-time hybrid role for a Global Financial Crime Lead, Senior Manager at Zodia Custody based in London. As the GFCL, you will play a pivotal role in safeguarding the firm's assets and reputation by implementing and operating the firm’s comprehensive financial crime control framework, ensuring Zodia’s adherence to regulatory requirements and mitigating business risk with a key focus on financial crimes prevention from a 1LoD basis. You will be responsible for overseeing and operating the Risk and Compliance controls required to meet Zodia Custody’s financial crime and other regulatory obligations, policy requirements and business risk management approach across Zodia Custody and its subsidiaries.

Your day-to-day tasks will include leading the Financial Crime Prevention team and the Onboarding Team, (including guidance, development and rewards), assessing KYC files, acting as the in-business risk management advisory within the 1st line functions (including product, sales and operations) and ensuring Zodia’s controls are executed in line with its policies and procedures. The role will also involve identifying potential risks, developing risk mitigation strategies across the business functions, conducting risk assessments, and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. This role covers a broad range of Risk Management activities and the full spectrum of Financial Crime sub-risk types (AML/CTF, Fraud, AB&C & Sanctions). The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of the digital asset ecosystem, a proven track record of managing risk in a complex financial environment and a strong knowledge of financial services regulations, especially regarding financial crime risk management in digital assets.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Lead the Financial Crime Prevention team and the Onboarding Team, including guidance, development and rewards. These teams have responsibility for (1) Risk Rating prospective and existing clients and other relationships (2) Performing risk-based due diligence at onboarding and an ongoing basis (3) investigating and resolving Sanctions, PEP and Adverse Media Alerts (4) Investigating and resolving post-facto Transaction Monitoring alerts (5) Investigating and resolving in the first instance potential suspicious activity reported through other functions (6) Conducting on-chain investigations
• Provides 1LoD approval for all client and non-client relationships entered into by Zodia Custody, including assessing the level of financial crime risk posed by the relationship and imposing conditions or additional mitigants as required to manage risk
• Overseeing the execution of quality control (maker, checker) and quality assurance (CST) in the operations team to ensure effective implementation and execution of risk management controls aligned with Zodia Custody’s policies and standards with a significant focus on financial crime controls.
• Overseeing the execution of the defined governance in the operations team, including management information and reporting.
• Works with Sales and Relationship Managers to support Zodia Custody offering services to clients in a way that grows the business while managing Zodia Custody’s risk appetite and need to be compliant with regulatory obligations
• Oversees the operational risk management strategy, identifying areas of future regulatory change and potential efficiency to maintain ongoing effectiveness of the financial crime prevention function. Effectively and collaboratively identify, escalate, mitigate and resolve risk, conduct and compliance matters.
• Owns or co-owns key vendor relationships including the KYC Management Tool (KYCP) and Screening (LSEG Worldcheck) and Transaction Monitoring (Solidus)
• Provision of support to other Zodia Custody jurisdictions as part of existing operations, as well as supporting in Zodia’s expansion and set-up into other markets as part of joint-ventures or partnerships. This will include supporting and advising on the design and implementation of processes and controls, including the implementation of local changes to operational risk processes to account for local regulatory/policy deviations
• Represents Operations on key Risk Committees including the Executive Risk Committee, Subsidiary Risk Committee and Risk and Conflicts Committee
• Supports the Director of Operations and the Chief Operating Officer as required on broader tactical and strategic operational risk management activities as required
• Take personal responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, regulatory and business conduct and a strong culture of risk awareness and accountability for controls across the operations team.
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Requirements:
• 8+ years of experience in financial crime prevention within a financial services firm/consulting with at least 3 years in a managerial role, preferably within the 1st line of defence.
• Significant experience of managing and developing teams
• Deep understanding of financial crime regulatory requirements and industry good practice in multiple jurisdictions including UK, EU, UAE and Singapore with respect to controls.
• A “can do” and proactive attitude. This is a senior role at the Zodia Group level, with minimal supervision and leadership responsibilities. The candidate taking this role needs to be a self-starter, able and willing to drive initiatives independently to short timeframes

• Strong proficiency in compliance technology tools and ability to conduct associated data analysis.
• Strong understanding of digital assets and the financial crime risks and controls within digital asset firms, and a desire to learn more and be open to new innovations.
• Able to multi-task and thrive in a high-pressure environment. Changing priorities and tasks excites you.
• A strong ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with internal and external stakeholders. 
• Strong organization, project and time management skills.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills and ability to articulate technical detail to non-technical stakeholders.

Nice to have 

• Digital assets-related qualifications / certifications
• Experience working in a Digital Assets environment and /or conducting blockchain analytics investigations 
• Experience in broad aspects of risk management outside of Financial Crime Risk.
• Additional languages are a plus.

Benefits:
We are a friendly team, with monthly socials and seasonal celebrations as well as offering a range of fantastic benefits including:

• Competitive employer contribution pension scheme
• Private health care
• Critical Illness cover
• Life Insurance
• Flexible bank holidays (can chose whether to work on bank holidays and use the leave elsewhere in the year)