Risk Manager

Company Introduction

Highnote was founded in 2020 by former executives from Braintree, PayPal, Lending Club, and Visa with the goal of simplifying payments for emerging enterprises with an all-in-one card issuance and full-stack acquiring platform. In other words, Highnote connects merchants and businesses to the most advanced virtual payments platform - the industry’s first built-for-purpose unified solution for virtual card issuing - extensible through developer friendly open APIs capable of handling the most complex payment processing business flows. Our mission is to help merchants and businesses grow by accelerating their digital transformation with innovative virtual payments products.

Since launching the company in October 2020, Highnote has raised over $90m in funding from Oak HC/FT, Costanoa Ventures, and XYZ Ventures (among others) to help accelerate their time to market and growth. Also invested in Highnote is Bill Ready (current President of Commerce at Google, and former COO of Paypal, and CEO of Braintree and Venmo) and Renaud Laplanche (Co-Founder & CEO of Upgrade, and former Co-Founder & CEO of Lending Club.)

Highnote is headquartered in San Francisco and currently has remote team members in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and New York City. The team is currently 95 people and growing!

Job Description

Highnote is looking for a Risk & AML Manager to develop and head up risk operations. This is an opportunity to bring your prior experience and tool kit to an early stage company where you will work with customer support, compliance, product and engineering leadership to build and scale risk operations. Ideal candidates will have been hands-on leaders in risk operations at a high growth payments company and will have fulfilled a variety of risk/AML roles. Deep knowledge of USA PATRIOT Act, OFAC, BSA/Anti-Money Laundering principles, Know Your Business and Know Your Customer processes, fraud investigation processes and requirements, regulatory requirements, and operationalizing risk monitoring programs for bank, card, or similar industries is a must.

What you’ll need to be wildly successful

• As the Risk & AML Manager, you’re able to document, develop and operationalize risk procedures, identify and drive requirements for future state risk management tools, systems and reporting. You understand how to translate the written foundational processes into application, growing a smoothly operating, agile team. You contribute to strengthening policies and procedures to reflect evolving risk operations. You can determine where product and program enhancements may translate to time and cost savings.  
• Focus on quality while maintaining high-quantity output. This role requires an individual who can tackle problems and queues efficiently, while still maintaining a high-level of accuracy needed for risk-related matters. A solid risk operations knowledge base in a fintech related field and to say “you learn quickly” is a gross understatement.
• Maintain a strong and healthy sense of curiosity. You have a desire to understand the root-cause to any problem, evaluate explanations provided, and perform due diligence to validate your understanding. This spans across all aspects of your work, from reviewing new applications, to investigating leads, to participating in testing discussions with sponsor banks, and to verifying suspicious behavior understanding that the findings can have serious implications. 
• Empathy for customers and an ability to glean insights from customer communication and behaviors. You have an innate ability to feel the customer’s pain while balancing the risk and regulatory requirements to process payments. You can articulate the why behind the what with clarity and defend your position without disclosing confidential details. You can quickly identify genuine concerns and potentially suspicious behaviors from answers customers share. You act as a teacher helping others understand the risk requirements.
• Ability to assess the big picture with a refined detail-oriented approach. You are able to contribute risk requirements to enterprise-wide initiatives while not losing sight of the day-to-day needs and team operations.

What you’ll be doing

Risk Analysis 

• Perform Know Your Business and Know Your Customer reviews on behalf of our customers in accordance with the Customer Identification Program to verify accuracy and intent in order to obtain an account.
• Verify application details and documents provided to ensure they meet criteria outlined in policies, are valid and legitimate.
• Analyze transaction data to identify fraud, credit, and compliance risks and perform risk mitigating actions where appropriate.  
• Investigate and complete comprehensive due diligence on accounts that flag in transaction monitoring, chargeback activity, AML, fraud, and sanctions reports.
• Communicate to Subscribers about reviews using clear and concise communication skills in order to obtain a clear understanding of account usage and performance.
• Document risk decisioning with supporting evidence and capture risk mitigation actions taken.
• Accurately escalate cases to the head of compliance and/or complete referrals for Suspicious Activity Reporting when necessary 

Leadership

• Manage team of risk analysts conducting the KYB/KYC manual reviews and transaction monitoring
• Set service level objectives and workforce management to meet or exceed those objectives 
• Partner with compliance, customer support, product management, and sponsor banks to ensure alignment with compliance obligations and customer experience.
• Develop, document and refine risk processes in partnership with Compliance and create risk training materials for new hires and cross training.
• Develop system, tools and reporting requirements based on your functional expertise as a risk analyst and manager. 
• Define and adapt risk approaches to ever-evolving trends in order to protect the company against risk posed by operations and subscriber activity.
• Develop reporting for executive management on risk performance, inclusive of team metrics, customer experience, and service level agreements.

What we are looking for

• Deep knowledge of risk management at a financial services company (preferably fintech and issuing) - minimum 7 years
• Understanding of and specialization in OFAC, AML and Fraud Investigations, and Suspicious Activity Reporting referrals
• 3-5 years of experience building and operating a risk and fraud management program and team in a fintech or bank 
• Experience developing processes and metrics to manage a risk queue 
• Data driven and tech savvy 
• Hands on leadership able to work in a queue, conduct investigations and manage a team
• Clear, articulate communicator with a customer focused approach 
• Startup mentality - the ability to take ownership of projects while operating in a collaborative environment and a strong desire to learn from and grow with other team members.
• Proven ability to proactively, efficiently, and accurately assess risks in a fast-paced environment
• Track record of creative problem-solving, excellent written and oral communication skills, and creation of strong and trusted cross-functional relationships.

What it takes to be successful

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, who is able to form relationships while also getting results.
• Humble and friendly personality with an open and honest communication style and the ability to collaborate across all areas and levels.
• Action oriented; no task is too small or insignificant for you.
• Take ownership and deliver results in a fast-paced and sometimes ambiguous environment.