Senior Director EU & ME, MLRO

As the EU & ME Regional MLRO, you will lead and scale the regional compliance architecture across Europe and the Middle East, ensuring overseeing and directing absolute financial crime compliance and control operation while supporting regional business expansion. Leading a decentralized team of in-country MLROs, you will serve as the primary liaison for regional regulatory bodies, oversee localized compliance operations, and monitor shifting regulatory developments. You will act as the definitive second-line regional authority and escalation point, providing compliance sign-off on complex risk decisions, guiding new license applications, and advising on product and customer use cases. You will work closely with the global FCC leadership team, product executives, and regional business heads to ensure compliance is a strategic enabler of growth. This role is based in the EMEA region.

Responsibilities

Lead, mentor, and scale the EMEA regional team of in-country MLROs, ensuring robust regulatory coverage, local compliance sovereignty, and consistent application of global standards across all active jurisdictions; Act as the primary regulatory liaison for EMEA, managing day-to-day relationships, complex regulatory inquiries, and high-stakes examinations with regional central banks and financial authorities; Oversee and execute local financial crime operations and reporting workflows in instances where regional regulatory mandates strictly require second-line actions to be performed in-country; Monitor the regional regulatory landscape for shifting AML/CFT, sanctions, and financial crime developments, ensuring material updates are proactively analyzed and escalated to the Global Policy team for framework integration; Serve as the definitive regional second-line authority, providing formal compliance sign-off on high-risk decisions and complex escalations elevated to the Governance and Risk Committee (GRC); Provide strategic regulatory guidance and compliance advisory on Product Requirement Documents (PRDs), Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs), novel customer use cases, and new regional license applications to enable safe, compliant market entry; Lead the deployment and calibration of specialized financial crime compliance training curricula for regional business units, commercial teams, and in-country staff to foster a risk-aware operational culture.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Law, Criminology, Public Policy, Finance, Business Administration, or a related analytical field; CAMS certification or an equivalent globally recognized compliance credential (e.g., ICA International Diploma in AML); 12 to 15+ years of experience in AML, Sanctions, and Financial Crime Compliance within financial services, fintech, payments, or banking; At least 5+ years of senior leadership experience managing decentralized, multi-jurisdictional compliance teams or serving as a registered MLRO within Europe or the UK; Proven track record of interacting directly with regional regulators (such as the FCA, DNB, Bank of Lithuania, or equivalent central banks) and successfully managing regulatory examinations; Experience providing compliance advisory on product rollouts, licensing strategies, and customer use cases within a matrixed corporate environment; A high-ownership, pragmatic approach, with excellent communication and stakeholder management skills to influence cross-functional executives and external partners.

Nice to have

Advanced degree such as a Juris Doctor (JD), Master of Laws (LLM), or a Master’s degree in Regulatory Compliance or Financial Crime; Personal experience holding or clearing senior regulatory compliance officer status, such as the FCA's SMF17 or equivalent regional central bank approvals across multiple major EMEA jurisdictions; Deep fintech and payments experience, including a strong operational understanding of Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs), virtual accounts, multi-currency wallets, and cross-border payment mechanisms; Experience partnering closely with Product, Risk, and Commercial teams to support high-velocity feature launches and complex corporate onboarding workflows; Strong data literacy and comfort utilizing operational metrics, automated GRC systems, and dashboards to track compliance metrics and detect regional risk drift.