FinCrime Operations Senior Lead - AML Investigations

Wise is a global technology company, building the best way to move and manage the world’s money. Min fees. Max ease. Full speed. Whether people and businesses are sending money to another country, spending abroad, or making and receiving international payments, Wise is on a mission to make their lives easier and save them money. As part of our team, you will be helping us create an entirely new network for the world's money. For everyone, everywhere. More about our mission and what we offer . As a Financial Crime Operations Senior Lead, you will be responsible for developing and managing a team of Financial Crime Operations Team Leads and Specialists for specific SME areas. Your key objective is to ensure the effective assessment and mitigation of risks related to high-risk customers, while strictly adhering to AML/CFT regulations and aligning with Wise’s risk appetite and internal policies. The specialists on your team will possess an in-depth understanding of the unique risks associated with complex business structures, varied customer types and activities, and country-specific challenges, as well as the strategies required to mitigate these risks effectively. In this leadership role, you will act as a vital connector between your operational team, which includes team leads and specialists, and Wise's senior leadership. This involves clearly communicating the overarching strategic objectives to your team and transforming these goals into actionable and pertinent directives that drive process optimization and performance improvement. You'll be instrumental in aligning Wise’s overall mission and strategy with performance expectations, ensuring that your team’s efforts are efficiently strategized and executed for optimal success. This includes developing and owning a strategic roadmap spanning several quarters your team, enhancing processes, and cultivating a positive and empowering work environment. You will support your team’s growth and independence through comprehensive training, mentoring, coaching, delegation, and recognition. As an experienced operations manager, you will design and implement customer-focused processes while maintaining a vigilant awareness of the risks inherent in the financial industry, specific product offerings, and regulatory requirements. Your approach will ensure that Wise's operations continually meet the expectations of our partners and regulatory bodies. Your mission: • Leadership and people development: Drive team performance and cultural excellence to support sustainable business growth. Lead by example, demonstrating values and work ethic that inspire accountability, proactive problem-solving, and a growth mindset. Manage and develop a high-performing team by role modeling success behaviors. Focus on cultivating a high-performance culture through talent development, career check-ins, and recommendations for growth. Build strong teams by hiring, coaching, and fostering skills and competencies. Promote continuous improvement, knowledge sharing, and inclusion to empower your team to innovate and excel. • Performance management: Foster a culture of excellence in your team by consistently meeting KPIs and SLAs in our metrics-driven environment. Refresh performance expectations to match business needs and address underperformance with clear action plans. Implement strong performance frameworks, provide actionable feedback, and ensure every team member operates efficiently. • Operational management: In this role, you'll turn high-level plans into actionable changes and lead your team to success. You'll create phased implementation plans to minimize disruption and set clear metrics to track progress. Focus on optimizing team structure by managing recruitment and strategically placing staff. Continuously identify and address redundancies and inefficiencies. You'll develop scalable, compliant processes and collaborate with product and operational teams to enhance customer experience, boost automation, and meet financial and service goals. Strong data literacy is essential for analyzing complex data and making informed decisions. Governance is crucial; you'll escalate issues promptly, provide clear updates to senior leadership, and contribute to a customer-focused culture that balances regulatory objectives with excellent customer service. • Quality assurance: Ensure the highest quality standards for your group's tasks by making decisions within established frameworks. Lead root cause analysis, turn insights into improvements, and mitigate risks. Ensure quality standards are integrated into processes, tools, and initiatives. Understand impacts, focus on findings, and propose actions for better outcomes. Collaborate with other functions, offering expertise to enhance processes and elevate quality across the team and organization • Domain knowledge and expertise: Be a subject matter expert in Financial Crime areas with the ability to train and coach your team. Maintain a comprehensive understanding of our regulatory obligations and internal policies. Apply a risk-based approach to deterring and preventing money laundering and financial crime. Be able to represent the operational team processes and policies when working with internal auditing and testing parties. Retain an understanding of the wider Financial Crime and regulatory landscape and take on best practices to your team. Own operational incident management: from initial detection to response and remediation. Liaise effectively with functions and stakeholders, ensuring clear and timely communication throughout. Be responsible for developing action plans, driving remediation efforts, and providing context and subject matter expertise during and after incidents. The Senior Lead supports product-related incident management, ensuring a response to all critical events. • Project management: Effectively Lead projects from start to finish, prioritizing tasks and maintaining documentation. Communicate miles…