Compliance Manager: Group Regulatory Compliance

About the role

The Compliance Manager at Wise is entrusted with owning and evolving the essential frameworks that protect our global operations and preserve our market position. This role is pivotal in ensuring that our expanding fintech business adheres to the highest standards of ethics, regulation, and integrity across all jurisdictions. You will architect and manage the systems that align our activities with legal requirements worldwide, directly supporting our mission of borderless money movement for millions of customers. Success in this position requires a proactive leader who builds robust structures from the ground up and continuously improves our compliance landscape through disciplined execution. This position reports to the Group Regulatory Compliance Team and offers a hybrid work model, balancing focused collaboration in the London office with productive remote work. The role operates within standard business hours, 9:00 to 18:00, reflecting our commitment to sustainable and predictable workflows.

What you'll do

You will own the design, implementation, and maintenance of our global compliance infrastructure, establishing the operational backbone for ethical conduct at scale. This involves creating sustainable frameworks that mitigate risk and ensure adherence to laws across all markets we serve, requiring a meticulous and systematic approach. Your work will directly enable our business growth by removing regulatory friction and building trust with regulators and customers. You will architect the policies and controls that translate complex legal requirements into clear, actionable standards for our teams worldwide. This role demands a strategic thinker who can translate high-level regulatory expectations into practical, operational reality.

• Global Policy and Ethics Framework Ownership: You will design, implement, and maintain the core structures for Anti-Bribery & Corruption (ABC), Gifts, Entertainment & Hospitality (GEH), and Conflicts of Interest. This includes ensuring these frameworks are effective, legally sound, and consistently applied in every operating jurisdiction where Wise operates. You will oversee the implementation of these standards across all teams, embedding a culture of integrity.
• Conflicts and Registry Governance: You will be responsible for the operational design, management, and enforcement of our global registers, including potential conflicts databases and regulatory registries. This involves ensuring that our policies and standards are communicated, understood, and embedded throughout the business, maintaining the integrity of our internal oversight and audit processes.
• Enterprise Risk and Governance Reporting: You will lead the Enterprise-Wide Risk Assessment (EWRA) for compliance where required, translating complex risk data into clear narratives and metrics. A core part of this will be preparing high-quality governance reports and Management Information (MI) for the Board and Senior Management, highlighting emerging risks and control effectiveness. Your analysis will serve as a critical input for strategic decision-making and resource allocation. You will act as a key advisor to internal and external stakeholders on complex cross-border compliance initiatives and regulatory interactions.
• Third-Party Risk Management: You will own the framework for managing vendor and partner compliance, establishing the standards for due diligence and ongoing monitoring. This involves running rigorous due diligence, reviewing risk assessments, and overseeing the implementation of mitigation plans in collaboration with the Third Party Risk Management function to ensure third-party relationships do not expose Wise to undue risk.
• Individual Accountability and Conduct: You will manage Wise's alignment with global individual accountability standards, ensuring that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and understood. This includes overseeing regulatory "Fit and Proper" assessment frameworks and tracking conduct-related certifications across our regional entities to maintain a consistent standard.
• Policy Breach and Investigation Oversight: You will oversee the end-to-end process for investigating internal policy breaches, ensuring a consistent and fair approach is applied. This ensures that root causes are identified, lessons are learned systematically, and corrective actions are implemented effectively to strengthen our control environment.
• Consumer Protection and Transparency: You will provide group-wide horizon scanning, testing, and monitoring against evolving global consumer protection legislation and payment transparency standards. This proactive approach safeguards our customers, ensures regulatory compliance, and protects our reputation in a competitive market.
• Future-Proofing and Automation: You will actively identify opportunities to enhance, automate, and streamline our compliance activities, challenging the status quo to improve efficiency and effectiveness. A key focus will be replacing manual tracking with scalable, system-first solutions that improve accuracy, reduce risk, and free up capacity for higher-value work.
• Cross-Functional Partnership and Culture: You will partner dynamically with the People Team, Compliance Learning, Third Party Risk Management, and other key stakeholders to ensure a cohesive approach to ethics and compliance. You will support the drafting and delivery of engaging, clear ethics and compliance training that reinforces our global culture and values.

Requirements

To succeed in this role, you will bring a strong background in compliance and ethics within a regulated environment, demonstrating a consistent track record of integrity and judgment.

• Experience: A minimum of 5 years of proven experience in Financial Crime Compliance, Regulatory Compliance, or Governance within a financial institution, bank, mature fintech, or another highly regulated or publicly traded U.S. or international business. This experience should include hands-on responsibility for policy management, oversight of regulatory registries, and delivery of governance reporting to senior stakeholders.
• Regulatory Knowledge: A deep understanding of anti-bribery legislation such as the UK Bribery Act and US FCPA, as well as global standards concerning conflicts of interest. You will also have a baseline knowledge of individual accountability regimes and general consumer protection legislation relevant to financial services.
• Operational Excellence: You move beyond understanding regulations to building the processes, approval hierarchies, and automated platforms that make compliance function at Wise. You are adept at leveraging software and platforms to manage processes and identify enhancements, using data to drive decision-making and improve control effectiveness.
• Communication and Influence: You possess exceptional drafting skills, able to explain complex regulatory concepts to non-specialist audiences without losing essential nuance. You have the confidence to provide constructive feedback to senior leaders on matters of ethics and accountability, fostering a culture of transparency and trust.
• Analytical Problem Solving: You are a rigorous thinker who uses data to diagnose compliance patterns. You can analyze metrics and policy breaches to engineer lasting procedural fixes, balancing regulatory requirements with practical business needs.
• Collaboration and Drive: You are passionate about improving processes and seeing projects through to completion. You are self-motivated, with a can-do attitude, and thrive while collaborating across different regions, demonstrating Wise values through your actions. You build strong partnerships with stakeholders to drive compliance outcomes effectively.