Director, Sanctions Screening Operations

Company Description

Visa is a world leader in payments technology, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories, dedicated to uplifting everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

At Visa, you'll have the opportunity to create impact at scale — tackling meaningful challenges, growing your skills and seeing your contributions impact lives around the world. Join Visa and do work that matters — to you, to your community, and to the world.

Progress starts with you.

Job Description

We are seeking a seasoned compliance professional to manage Visa’s sanctions screening operations. This position will report to the Head of Global Sanctions and will support the Ethics and Compliance Department and work closely with business partners and other internal stakeholders. The Director for Sanctions Screening Operations will oversee, execute, and manage the sanctions screening of third parties across Visa with significant concentration on program design and execution. This leader will be responsible for managing a team of compliance professionals who will be responsible for investigating, dispositioning and escalating alerts generated from screening.

The candidate will primarily manage the screening operations as part of Global Sanctions Compliance and will partner with key stakeholders including colleagues in Legal, Regional Business, Government Engagement, Risk,and Visa account executives to provide guidance to the business day-to-day operations. This leader will act with urgency when conditions warrant and exercise outstanding judgement to take swift, decisive action when situations warrant.  

Job Responsibilities

As the Director, Sanctions Screening Operations, you will lead the sanctions operations and compliance process of merchant screening, alert reviews, investigation and monitoring of merchants for risk management, compliance with relevant laws and regulations, including Visa’s sanctions related regulatory requirement and in coordination with Visa’s Anti-Money Laundering (AML) team. As a sanctions and compliance subject matter expert, you will thoroughly understand the applicable global laws and regulations particular to merchants and their impact to Visa’s business. You may be called on to meet with regulators, OFAC staff and other officials regarding OFAC and other sanctions regulatory matters. You will develop, enhance, and implement the sanctions program on Merchant screening and its associated procedures to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations. You will regularly conduct sanctions training for relevant personnel, and you will oversee Merchant sanctions screening processes, including providing expertise for remediating any sanctions issues or risks that arise.  In partnership with Visa’s technology teams, you will design and execute screening tools / applications, including logic, thresholds, and application and will test and modify them as appropriate to enable effective and efficient compliance risk management solutions.

Additionally, you will:

• Coordinate and oversee an effective Global Sanctions Compliance Program screening process  utilizing industry best practices, regulatory guidance, and requirements
• Design program elements including, but not limited to policies and procedures, working group charters, KPIs, monitoring protocols to effectively manage the screening operations.
• Advise stakeholders of Sanctions trends, emerging risks, new or amended laws, regulations, or regulatory guidance.
• Recommends and implement changes and controls to mitigate risks in support of Visa’s global business strategy

• Analyze data, prepare, and present regional and global reports related to sanctions compliance risk assessments, and monitoring of sanctions related issues and escalations with senior management and global partners
• Work collaboratively across the business, coordinate with AML Team and partner with legal colleagues to drive program effectiveness
• Facilitate internal audit requests and ensure satisfactory resolution of any audit findings and recommendations
• Develop metrics and reports for executive leadership

This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications
• 10 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 8 years of work experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters/ MBA/JD/MD) or at least 3 years of work experience with a PhD

Preferred Qualifications
• 12 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or 8-10 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or 6+ years of work experien