Sr. Risk and Controls Manager

At Early Warning, we’ve powered and protected the U.S. financial system for over thirty years with cutting-edge solutions like Zelle®, Paze℠, and so much more. As a trusted name in payments, we partner with thousands of institutions to increase access to financial services and protect transactions for hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses.

Positions located in Scottsdale, San Francisco, Chicago, or New York follow a hybrid work model to allow for a more collaborative working environment.

Candidates responding to this posting must independently possess the eligibility to work in the United States, for any employer, at the date of hire. This position is ineligible for employment Visa sponsorship.

Overall Purpose

The Risk and Controls Management Team is responsible for overseeing the operational risk and control framework for the company. The team partners with first line business teams to execute independent control testing validation, manage the issue management program, implement control processes and procedures, support various audit and compliance exams and organize the annual updates to business process Risk and Control Self-Assessments (RCSA), Risk and Control Matrices (RCMs) and process maps.

The Sr. Compliance Risk and Controls Manager will work closely with the Chief Compliance Officer in executing the compliance control validation program strategy and embed a standardized and consistent approach to conducting control and issue validations, as well as, risk identification, reporting and mitigation. Further, the Sr. Compliance Risk and Controls Manager is responsible for ensuring the quality of the control environment, supporting first line updates to Risk and Control Self Assessments, Risk and Control Matrices and process maps, and providing subject matter expertise to the business teams on a robust control testing and issue management program.

Essential Functions

• Ownership of the compliance risk and control framework, including serving as the subject-matter-expert on compliance risks, regulations, and controls that execute compliance risk management activities.
• Responsible for being a team lead and providing direction to validation team members as it relates to completing validation work, preparing work papers to evidence validation, making recommendations, and drafting final reports. 
• Perform validation of identified controls to ensure adequate governance, evidence of execution, and appropriate monitoring and escalation across various business functions including security, operational or compliance.
• Document validation results, prepare work papers to evidence validation methods, and draft final reports for customers summarizing validation results. 
• Define and execute test scripts across various business functional areas, with the ability to target key controls that mitigate inherently high or critical risks.
• Provide effective challenge to business developed remediation plans.
• Ensure issues are properly reported with appropriate root cause analysis and action plans, and ultimately validate those issues have been appropriately addressed and/or remediated.
• Independently identify risk through undefined processes or ways that are not pre-determined.
• Perform and support detailed data analysis of activities to include trending and issue identification.
• Identify emerging risks, process improvements, or areas for increased training through the analysis of results.
• Responsible for building and maintaining relationships with business partners while adhering to the highest ethical standards required for independent validation.
• Manage work across organizational lines to achieve results and manage competing priorities.
• Support procedure reviews and document updates.
• Exhibit excellent verbal and written communication skills; develop communications (written and presented) to support findings.
• Assist with compiling metrics for periodic reporting on team activities with key stakeholders.
• Demonstrate problem-solving and analysis skills with attention to detail.
• Supports the company’s commitment to risk management and protecting the integrity and confidentiality of systems and data.

Minimum Qualifications

• Education and/or experience typically obtained through completion of a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Business Administration, Finance, Accounting or related field.
• Demonstrated experience in audit, operational risk or other risk management roles or prior testing and quality assurance experience.
• Minimum of 8 progressive years of experience in risk and compliance management within financial services industry.
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