Head of Financial Crimes Compliance

ABOUT DAKOTA Dakota is a stablecoin infrastructure platform powering modern financial products through regulated money movement, stablecoin orchestration, and cross-border settlement. We serve institutional clients — fintechs, payment service providers, marketplaces, and enterprises — through an API-first platform that abstracts the complexity of custody, compliance, settlement, and banking partnerships. We are a remote first team across North America and Europe. We value high quality work, clear thinking and ownership. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Financial risk and advisory - Serve as senior FCC point of contact and SME on fiat and digital assets; contribute to the FCC framework. - Identify and assess money laundering, terrorist financing, sanctions, fraud and other illicit finance risks across digital asset products, clients, counterparties and transaction flows, including blockchain, wallets, custody models, and stablecoins. - Provide risk-based advice and effective challenge across the product and client lifecycle: new initiatives, product approvals, onboarding and material changes. - Assess cross-business and cross-regional impacts, promoting consistent minimum standards and documented treatment of regional variances. Controls and program oversight - Partner with first-line and other teams to design, enhance and oversee controls for CDD/EDD and KYC, sanctions screening, blockchain analytics, transaction monitoring, case management, investigations, suspicious activity escalation and recordkeeping. - Review AML programs and internal control structures, including automated solutions, through policy and procedure reviews, gap analyses, risk assessments and regulatory compliance assessments. - Identify and escalate material risks and control weaknesses, and oversee agreed remediation. FCC technology, models and data - Lead implementation of FCC technology solutions, including onboarding blockchain analytics and digital asset intelligence vendors and managing vendor relationships. - Develop transaction monitoring scenarios aligned to products, services and risk appetite. - Lead testing, tuning and optimization of transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, customer risk rating and detection, before production and on an ongoing basis. - Validate AML models across those same areas. - Perform and oversee data reconciliation, lineage and quality testing; interpret complex analyses to identify patterns, risks and conclusions. - Improve data quality, system capabilities and automation to strengthen preventive and detective controls. Regulatory engagement and governance - Monitor new laws, regulations, guidance, enforcement actions and industry practice, and translate them into practical requirements and action plans. - Support engagement with regulators, auditors and independent reviewers, including exam preparation, information requests and remediation of findings, as necessary. - Develop policies, procedures, training, metrics, and governance materials for senior stakeholders and committees. Leadership and relationships - Lead multiple complex FCC initiatives from initiation to completion, on time, within budget and to stakeholder expectations. - Manage teams, delegating effectively to managers and mentoring junior and mid-level staff, while still being hands-on. - Build strong relationships with executives, business, technology, Risk and Audit partners, and industry forums or trade associations. - Lead stakeholder discussions, identify new opportunities to add value, and deliver special projects as assigned. QUALIFICATIONS - 7+ years in Financial Crime Compliance, Compliance, Legal, Risk, Internal Audit or a related control function, preferably at a financial institution or regulated digital assets business. - Practical experience in legal, financial, technical, risk or compliance background is preferred. - Deep knowledge of AML, CTF, sanctions and fraud risk frameworks, including CDD, transaction monitoring, investigations, regulatory reporting and common typologies. - Working knowledge of blockchain and digital assets, or experience assessing financial crime risk in new products, technologies or payment models. - Track record building controls for digital assets risk, including work with blockchain analytics vendors. - Experience conducting risk assessments and designing, implementing or overseeing financial crime controls. - Hands-on design and implementation of FCC technology, including transaction monitoring rule development, tuning and CIP systems, and TM systems. SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES - Analytical: understands complex product structures, workflows, transaction flows and data dependencies; analyzes issues independently and turns conclusions into actionable recommendations. - Regulatory interpretation: translates complex, evolving expectations into practical guidance, control requirements and executable plans. - Communication: excellent written, verbal and presentation skills; explains complex issues, risk decisions and metrics clearly to all levels, including senior management. - Collaboration and influence: works across functions and regions with positive intent, influences stakeholders and provides constructive, independent challenge. - Delivery: strong project, time and change management; prioritizes multiple initiatives under time constraints in a dynamic environment. - Mindset: strategic, inquisitive, proactive and solutions-oriented; anticipates emerging trends and favors sustainable control enhancement and appropriate automation. - Discretion: handles sensitive and confidential information and treats colleagues with compassion and respect. HOW WE WORK At Dakota, we value people who: - Strive for excellence - Practice extreme ownership. - Experiment fearlessly and learn quickly. - Stay close to customers. - Communicate clearly and directly. WHAT WE OFFER - Engaging problems that increase economic freedom globally - Competitive salary and equity - Remote work, no commuting to the office - Health, dental, and vision insurance - Regular team events and off-sites