Director of Compliance Operations

About the role

Payhawk is seeking a Director of Compliance Operations to lead and scale its KYC and Monitoring teams. The role combines operational leadership with rigorous compliance, aiming to turn compliance into a competitive advantage while keeping the customer experience central.

Key responsibilities

• Lead, scale and develop the KYC and Monitoring teams, setting measurable targets and fostering a culture of ownership.
• Define, build and own operational metrics (KPIs, SLAs, quality scores) and use them for daily performance management.
• Create FTE forecasting and capacity models to ensure the team is right‑sized for growth across markets.
• Optimize and re‑engineer processes for speed, quality and cost, removing manual steps and bottlenecks.
• Champion automation and AI in onboarding and monitoring workflows, partnering with Product and Engineering.
• Manage third‑party vendors and tooling, holding them to service and quality standards.
• Ensure audit‑ and regulator‑ready operations, handling alerts, escalations and SLA management.
• Collaborate cross‑functionally with Compliance/MLRO, Risk, Product, Engineering and customer‑facing teams.

Required profile

• Proven experience leading and scaling operational teams in a high‑growth environment.
• Deep fluency in operational management, KPI/SLAs, capacity forecasting and data‑driven performance.
• Strong focus on process optimisation, automation and the ability to work hands‑on with data and dashboards.
• Experience managing third‑party vendors and tooling, and operating in audit‑ready environments.
• Excellent people‑management skills with a customer‑first mindset.
• Solid understanding of KYB processes for corporate customers and transaction/card monitoring.

Required skills

• AI and automation implementation in operational workflows.
• Data querying and dashboard creation.
• Capacity forecasting and KPI development.
• Third‑party vendor and tooling management.

What we offer

• 30 days paid holiday.
• Monthly commuting allowance and use of the Payhawk product.
• Health and fitness membership, private healthcare and L&D budget.
• Exchange policy to other Payhawk offices and regular team‑wide events.