Product Risk & Compliance Director

Overview

About OakNorth

At OakNorth, we’re on a mission to empower the UK’s most ambitious businesses. Since 2015, we’ve lent over $18bn across the UK and US, helped create more than 58,000 new homes and 36,000 jobs, and supported hundreds of thousands of personal savers — all while operating in one of the most highly regulated environments in financial services. Our products sit at the intersection of innovation, customer outcomes, and regulatory scrutiny. Getting that balance right is non-negotiable.

The Role

We are hiring a Director, Product Risk & Compliance to establish and run a strong, credible 1st Line product compliance capability within our Business Units. This role exists to ensure that OakNorth’s products are built and operated in a compliant-by-design, risk-aware way, without slowing teams down or turning compliance into a box-ticking exercise.

You will not own product risk decisions — those remain Product Directors in each Business Unit. Instead, you will be accountable for orchestrating, coaching, and synthesising 1st Line product compliance activity so that:

• Product teams clearly understand what “good” looks like
• Product Directors can evidence their decisions with confidence
• 2nd and 3rd Line teams engage with a well-run, well-prepared 1st Line

You will report directly to the Chief Product Officer and work closely with Product Directors, Product Managers, Compliance, Risk, Legal, and Internal Audit. This is a senior and hands-on role for someone who understands regulation deeply, but thinks like a product operator and system builder. You will be an individual contributor to begin with, and will lead the evolution of this practice in proportion to the impact it delivers.

This role is critical to OakNorth’s ability to continue building innovative products without compromising on customer outcomes or regulatory standards. You will have genuine influence over how products are designed, governed, and improved — and play a key role in ensuring the Product organisation operates with confidence, credibility, and integrity.

What you’ll be doing

• 1st Line Product Compliance Operating Model
  • Design, implement, and continuously improve OakNorth’s 1st Line product compliance approach across Business Banking and Personal Savings.
  • Translate regulatory expectations (e.g. Consumer Duty, conduct risk, vulnerable customer requirements) into practical product standards, artefacts, and ways of working.
  • Ensure compliance considerations are embedded across the full product lifecycle — discovery, delivery, launch, and ongoing management.
• BU-level orchestration and synthesis
  • Own the coordination and production of BU-level 1st Line compliance outputs, including (but not limited to):
  • Consumer Duty assessments
  • Fair value and target market assessments
  • Risk and control assessments
  • Annual Product Reviews, Product Amendment Papers and MI
  • Product Regulatory inventory/gap assessments
  • Co-ordinate RCSA and control monitoring
  • Shape and synthesise inputs from Product Managers, working with Product Directors to agree final positions before engagement with 2nd Line.
  • Ensure outputs are clear, coherent, well-evidenced, and regulator-ready.
• Product team enablement and coaching
  • Coach Product Managers and Product Leaders on how to meet regulatory and conduct expectations in a customer-centred, commercially sensible way.
  • Build capability in Product so teams understand not just what is required, but why — and can apply that thinking independently over time.
  • Continue developing compliance and risk management as a normal part of product decision-making, and not a reactive activity.
• Interface with 2nd and 3rd Line
  • Act as the primary 1st Line point of accountability for product-related engagement with Compliance, Risk, and Internal Audit.
  • Forward-plan regulatory reviews, assurance activity, and control testing, embedding these into Business Unit operating rhythms.
  • Coordinate responses to findings and issues, ensuring clear ownership, timely remediation, and appropriate escalation where required.
• Governance, reporting, and assurance
  • Produce high-quality written materials for internal governance forums, senior management, and regulators where needed.
  • Ensure product-level risks, conduct considerations, and customer outcomes are clearly articulated and supported by evidence.
  • Support the CPO and Product Directors in meeting their governance and SMF obligations.
• Continuous improvement
  • Identify opportunities to simplify, standardise, and improve how product compliance is delivered, including the use of tooling, templates, and automation.
  • Contribute to the evolution of OakNorth’s product culture, ensuring regulatory excellence and strong customer outcomes are treated as enablers, not constraints.

What we’re looking for

• Experience and expertise
  • Strong experience in product-related compliance, conduct risk, or regulatory risk within a regulated financial services environment.
  • Deep, practical knowledge of relevant UK regulations (e.g. FCA Handbook, Consumer Duty, financial crime, conduct and customer outcomes requirements).
  • Experience working closely with product teams (or within them), ideally in agile or digital product environments.
  • Proven ability to build or run 1st Line operating models, not just execute pre-defined processes.
• Skills and judgement
  • Able to interpret complex regulatory requirements and turn them into clear, actionable guidance for non-specialists.
  • Strong written and verbal communicator, comfortable operating at Product Director, ExCo, and SMF level.
  • Confident influencer who can challenge constructively, manage tension, and drive alignment across Product, Compliance, and Risk.
  • Pragmatic and outcome-focused: understands regulatory intent and customer outcomes, not just rules.
• Mindset
  • 1st Line mindset: takes responsibility for making things work in practice.
  • Builder, not a box-ticker — focused on systems, scalability, and long-term capability.
  • Comfortable with ambiguity and change in a growing, evolving organisation.

What makes working here better

• This is a truly hybrid role, offering the flexibility to work from home while also providing opportunities to collaborate in person with the team when it adds value. There’s no fixed requirement for days in the office, instead, we focus on creating space for engineers & Product to engage meaningfully, whether that’s in-person for whiteboarding sessions or remote for deep focus work.
• Work-life balance - 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays) each year, and enhanced family leave allowances.
• Competitive salary & equity - We want people to have a serious stake in the business.
• Good kit - Your choice of the best laptop, running macOS or Ubuntu.
• Team socials - The opportunity to get to know each other outside of work.
• Company socials - A chance to catch up and meet new colleagues weekly over informal office breakfasts and dinners on OakNorth - or at our free barista bar every day.
• Commuter support - We offer the cycle to work & EV scheme.