Financial-Crime Platforms and Regulatory Change Global Head — Private Wealth

The mandate

A supervisory review has exposed fragmented technology ownership across client due diligence, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, surveillance, case management and regulatory evidence in a global private-wealth institution. The platforms meet most local obligations, yet investigators cross systems manually, risk taxonomies differ by booking centre and overdue control findings compete with commercial releases for the same engineering capacity. The former global head left during the remediation cycle, and the CIO needs a permanent peer who can turn the control agenda into one executable technology portfolio without blurring first- and second-line accountability.

The successful executive will own an ongoing change and service portfolio expected to run between CHF 28 million and CHF 36 million annually, leading approximately 310 colleagues and partners across Switzerland, the United Kingdom, India and China. Scope includes the compliance technology value stream, financial-crime data lineage, interfaces to an Avaloq-centred wealth estate, vendor products, cloud adoption, operational resilience and the technology contribution to changing sanctions, anti-money-laundering, investor-protection, privacy, capital and reporting obligations. This is not a compliance-policy role: the seat makes technology and delivery decisions while the CRO and Head of Compliance own risk appetite, policy interpretation and formal risk acceptance.

By the first anniversary, at least 90% of high-severity technology findings must be closed or independently validated against dated plans; aged investigator cases attributable to platform failure must fall by 40%; and critical data elements for the six highest-risk client and transaction controls must carry tested lineage from source through alert and disposition. The executive must complete a board-approved workload disposition for public cloud, private cloud and retained estate, migrate two bounded regulatory services to the approved cloud landing zone, and prove recovery and provider-exit procedures without a material service or data-residency breach. Portfolio forecasting should remain within 7% of approved annual spend while mandatory commitments achieve at least 95% on-time delivery.

The role controls portfolio sequence, service priorities, architecture exceptions below the material-risk threshold, vendor performance action and staffing within the approved organisation. It may suspend a release, isolate a compromised interface, redirect up to CHF 3 million among sanctioned workstreams and require evidence remediation before a market deploys. Changes to risk appetite, acceptance of a material control gap, outsourcing of a critical function, expenditure above the board envelope, closure of a booking platform and regulatory representations remain with the designated executive or committee. The global head will have direct access to those forums and must record dissent when delivery evidence does not support a declared outcome.

The institution wants a leader who can run today's financial-crime estate while simplifying it, not a transformation sponsor insulated from production consequences. Core banking replacement, private-bank product strategy and front-office revenue targets are outside direct ownership, although each creates dependencies the portfolio must expose. After the first-year remediation measures, the permanent seat continues with regulatory horizon scanning, platform renewal, operating resilience, cost stewardship and succession across regional technology leaders. Its lasting test is whether new obligations enter a stable value stream instead of recreating a crisis programme for every deadline.

Why this seat is open

The predecessor departed after the board combined compliance-platform accountability and regulatory-change technology under one global leader. Interim coverage is preserving service and regulator correspondence, but it cannot make the enduring architecture, organisation and supplier decisions now due. The appointment is moving urgently because the next supervisory checkpoint and cloud investment tranche both require a single accountable technology plan.

What you will own

• Consolidate financial-crime and compliance technology into a governed value stream that makes mandatory change, platform health, service risk, capacity and spend comparable at each prioritisation decision.
• Reconcile the control inventory to applications, interfaces, data elements, rules, models, investigator workflows and retained evidence, naming an accountable technology owner for every material dependency.
• Direct closure of supervisory findings through demonstrable control outcomes, rejecting programme milestones that report document completion without production evidence or sustainable ownership.
• Decide workload disposition across retained infrastructure and approved cloud services, including data-residency constraints, encryption boundaries, resilience patterns, exit capability and residual cost.
• Reset platform and supplier architecture around client lifecycle, screening, monitoring, alert triage and case resolution while protecting live investigations and jurisdiction-specific obligations.
• Govern global regulatory releases through one integrated roadmap spanning financial crime, investor protection, privacy, market conduct, capital and benchmark-transition dependencies.
• Develop regional platform, programme and product leaders who can challenge control partners constructively, run severe incidents and succeed without recurring escalation to Zurich.

Candidate qualifications

• Led financial-crime platform and regulatory-change technology for a global private bank, wealth manager or comparably complex regulated financial institution.
• Managed a multi-country team across India, China, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, or an operationally equivalent four-region footprint, with direct executive accountability.
• Controlled an annual technology portfolio of at least US$25 million and can evidence how mandatory programmes, product change and platform resilience were prioritised within one capacity envelope.
• Delivered major obligations such as anti-money-laundering remediation, sanctions enhancement, PSD2, MiFID, LIBOR transition, Basel III or GDPR into production controls and retained evidence.
• Migrated regulated workloads to AWS or an equivalent hyperscale cloud while satisfying data residency, cyber, service continuity, third-party and exit requirements.
• Operated an Avaloq-centred or similarly integrated private-wealth estate and has resolved data-lineage or workflow failures spanning core banking, screening, monitoring and case management.

Non-negotiables

• Will be based in Zurich under a three-day office week and travel regularly to the United Kingdom, India and China for control, service and leadership reviews.
• Has personally faced regulators, board risk committees or independent monitors on technology-enabled financial-crime remediation and can distinguish closure evidence from progress reporting.
• Brings both live-service and strategic-change authority; programme-management credentials without production accountability are insufficient for this appointment.
• Will disclose all financial-services, technology-vendor, consultancy, investment and close-family conflicts and complete enhanced regulated-role screening.

1. 49 words maximum. State the largest private-wealth financial-crime technology estate you led: jurisdictions, team size, annual portfolio and platforms under your decision authority.
2. 49 words maximum. Which regulatory remediation did you take from finding to validated closure, and what production evidence persuaded the regulator or independent reviewer?
3. 49 words maximum. Describe one regulated workload you moved to AWS or another cloud. Which residency, resilience and exit controls changed your design?