VP Product in Cheltenham

Ripjar specialises in the development of software and data products that help governments and organisations combat serious financial crime. Our technology is used to identify criminal activity such as money laundering and terrorist financing, enabling organisations to enforce sanctions at scale to help combat rogue entities and state actors. We are a remote first team, with a head office based in Cheltenham. This position is open to UK wide candidates. If you are based near Cheltenham, you are more than welcome to work from our office at any time.

We are seeking a dynamic and forward-thinking product leader to join our leadership team as the VP, Product with a specialised focus and subject matter expertise in Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Financial Crime (FinCrime) compliance. The VP, Product will own the vision, strategy, and execution of our AI-driven risk intelligence product suite, ensuring our offerings remain industry-leading, compliant, and positioned for aggressive global growth. This vision will also consider internal innovation areas such as data science as well as the latest research into areas such as machine learning and AI to ensure we are ahead of the market from an innovation perspective. Working closely with Ripjar’s CEO on both strategic innovation, positioning and prioritisation. The VP, Product will also work very closely with the CTO and technology organisation to implement the product roadmap.

Key responsibilities:

• Product Strategy, Vision & Leadership

• Executive Strategy: Set and drive the overall product strategy, vision, and roadmap, ensuring alignment with commercial objectives and long-term business strategy.
• Voice of the customer: Ensure that the voice of the customer is reflected in our internal and external communication as well as at the Executive Leadership Team meetings and discussions.
• Commercial Ownership: Partner closely with Sales and Marketing on the Go-to-Market strategy, taking substantial input on product packaging, messaging, pricing, and partnerships to maximize market impact and P&L performance.
• Scale and Execution: Implement robust, modern agile product development processes. Maintain a bias towards data-driven execution, balancing long-term product vision with short-term commercial pressures in a high-growth SaaS environment.
• Culture: Ensuring that the leadership principles of Ripjar are always upheld, ensuring a collaborative culture that celebrates innovation and provides a safe space for all to achieve their best.

• Domain Expertise: Advise executive leadership on global regulations, typologies, sanctions, PEPs, adverse media, and risk-based compliance frameworks within the AML/FinCrime sector.
• Regulatory Translation: Translate evolving regulatory requirements (e.g., 6AMLD, AMLA, FATF updates) into actionable product enhancements and future product vision, ensuring our solutions maintain absolute compliance, are visionary and market leading in terms of both performance and features.
• AI/ML Alignment: Collaborate with Data Science and Engineering to shape features and support the development of AI models and workflows, ensuring their suitability, efficacy, and compliance for critical financial crime activities.

• Function Leadership: Build out and scale the Product Management and User Experience (UX) functions to meet global business needs.
• Talent Management: Attract, recruit, retain, coach, and develop top-tier product management and design talent, embedding requisite domain expertise within the teams. Foster a collaborative, product-led culture that encourages experimentation and rapid feedback.
• Voice of the Customer: Coordinate the collection of high-quality, nuanced client feedback, ensuring the entire company understands client FinCrime needs and how the product suite addresses them.

• Trusted Advisor: Act as a trusted external advisor in high-stakes client engagements, workshops, and proof-of-concept projects, leveraging deep domain credibility to secure new deals and major renewals.
• Thought Leadership: Partner with marketing team by contributing to high impact thought leadership content (white papers, blogs) and chairing client roundtables and presenting at major industry events.

General

• To be aware of, and respond appropriately to, issues of data confidentiality.
• Support and comply with Company policies, practices and procedures and, to be aware of responsibilities in relation to Ripjar’s Information Security Management.
• Contribute to the overall ethos/objectives of the Company.
• Maintain respectful and effective communication with colleagues and other stakeholders.
• Comply with health & safety procedures, taking responsibility for the health & safety of yourself and of others who may be affected by what you do.
• Undertake other duties which may from time to time be reasonably assigned by your line manager and/or senior leaders, and which are commensurate with the post.

Experience

• Building and leading a robust product function and driving a product-led business culture, ideally within an Enterprise SaaS, platform, or data-heavy technology company.
• Experience in AML compliance, risk management, or financial crime prevention, gained within a financial institution (Tier 1/2 bank) or a leading RegTech provider.
• Applied knowledge of global AML frameworks, sanctions, PEP screening, Adverse Media, and FATF standards, with a proven track record of translating complex regulations into successful commercial products.
• Have previously operated within or extensively served the Banking and Financial Services sector around financial crime and data analytics solutions.
• Experience operating in an environment utilising ML/AI components in product development.
• Familiarity with API-enabled, modular, SaaS compliance software solutions is highly desirable.
• Exceptional communication skills. Confident public speaker, capable of quickly establishing credibility with teams, peers, founders, investors, and C-suite clients.

Why we think you’ll enjoy it here:

• Competitive base salary DOE
• 25 days annual leave + birthdays off, rising to 30 days after 5 years of service & Christmas shutdown.
• Fully remote working
• 35 hour working week
• Flexible working hours.
• Private Family Healthcare
• Life Assurance
• Pension salary sacrifice
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Company contributions to your pension
• Enhanced maternity/paternity pay
• The latest tech including a top of the range MacBook Pro
• There is a well-stocked pantry with food, snacks and drinks when in the office