Head of KYC Operations - Wise Platform

Compensation: GBP 96,000 - GBP 130,000 - yearly

Company Description

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.

Your mission is to lead the KYC Operations Function organization to ensure its compliance and provide instant service with best-in-class quality. To do this in a scalable, cost-efficient manner, you will work in partnership with other Wise teams and functions, most prominently with Wise Product and Compliance.

What you’ll be doing

In this role, you will lead a team of Area Leads and their functional areas to drive strategic direction and operational excellence. You are responsible for setting and executing strategic objectives, building high-performing teams, and ensuring they meet operational and quality targets. The role involves overseeing circa 75 employees across multiple locations both internally and outsourced, ensuring the achievement of the organization's mission, and aligning operational strategies with business goals. You will need to ensure top-notch delivery in your team’s quality, compliance, speed, and cost of operations.

A few ways in which you’ll contribute to Wise’s success in this role:

• Setting the Strategy for KYC Operations Function: Lead the design of the vision and strategy for your team, aligned with the overall servicing strategy, in making the processes more compliant, faster, better, and more scalable, with a clear customer focus.
• Building the best processes: Build and develop a robust and compliant customer onboarding program. Build the necessary support systems for the processes: metrics, targets, governance. Utilize data and user research to optimize our onboarding experience and transform how we currently fight financial crime and fulfil regulatory obligations.
• Drive improvement initiatives: Manage an efficient process while providing continuous effective risk management and control. Work closely with our Risk and Compliance teams to align on risk appetites and capabilities to support the growth of the business.
• Nurturing a great team: Ensure that the right KYC Operations Function organization and the right leaders are in place. Build and develop a people strategy that allows execution upon the vision - cross functions and locations. Revamp the people management processes together with the People Operations team - skills, career paths, performance management. Oversight of team's budgets and high-level reporting.

Qualifications

• Exceptional verbal and written English communication skills are essential.
• Ability to articulate complex concepts clearly to diverse audiences.
• Extensive experience, typically 10 years, in operations (preferably KYC/AML, financial crime, compliance, or related fields within the financial services industry).
• Demonstrated leadership experience, preferably 8 years, in leading and mentoring large teams, fostering an inclusive and high-performance culture.
• In-depth expertise and strategic understanding of the regulatory environment and evolving framework surrounding KYC/AML.
• Proficient in utilizing advanced analytics tools, such as Looker, Superset, or equivalent platforms, to drive data-driven decision-making.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, coupled with strong organizational capabilities. Ability to effectively manage time and thrive in fast-paced, high-pressure environments.
• Expertise in multi-tasking and maintaining accountability in complex and challenging scenarios.