Director-Risk Management

About American Express

At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. From delivering differentiated products to providing world-class customer service, we operate with a strong risk mindset, ensuring we continue to uphold our brand promise of trust, security, and service.

As part of Team Amex, you'll experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career. Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.

Impact in this Role

The Director-Risk Management is responsible for establishing and governing enterprise consistency for financial crimes risk assessments, control design and effectiveness evaluation, and regulatory response execution.

This role ensures that Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Sanctions and Anti-Bribery & Corruption (ABC) and related financial crimes risks are proactively identified, measured, controlled, and remediated in alignment with enterprise risk appetite and regulatory expectations. The Director drives consistency, sustainability, and defensibility across the first line of defense and serves as a strategic partner to business unit control management teams, process owners and Regulatory Exam Lifecycle Management.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design, implementation, and continuous enhancement of enterprise wide financial crimes risk assessment methodologies (e.g., RCSA, inherent risk assessments, new product risk assessments).
• Ensure risk assessments reflect regulatory guidance, enforcement trends, emerging typologies, and business model evolution.
• Drive credible challenge and risk transparency within business units.
• Integrate risk assessment outputs into control testing, monitoring, and remediation prioritization.
• Establish enterprise standards for financial crimes control design, documentation, and operating effectiveness.
• Identify thematic control gaps and systemic weaknesses across business lines.
• Drive control rationalization and optimization to eliminate redundancy and increase sustainability.
• Lead 1LOD coordination for regulatory examinations and supervisory reviews, responses and commitments related to financial crimes.
• Develop structured response strategies that are fact-based, well-evidenced, and defensible.
• Establish and maintain 1LOD FCRM exam readiness standards, including evidence expectations, documentation quality, and governance artifacts.
• Govern and monitor the financial crimes issue lifecycle within the first line of defense (issue ageing, severity trends, repeat findings etc.) and execute on cross business unit issues and remediation.
• Escalate material risk exposures to executive leadership with clear impact articulation.
• Deliver executive-ready reporting on financial crimes risk posture, control health metrics, regulatory commitment status, emerging risk themes.
• Build and scale a high-performing team of financial crimes risk professionals.
• Establish standardized playbooks and toolkits across the COE and the first line teams for exam readiness, risk assessment and control effectiveness.
• Enhance data utilization and automation within risk assessment and control testing processes.
• Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and proactive risk management within 1LOD.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of direct experience supporting regulatory exams, audits, or supervisory interactions.
• Strong understanding of financial crimes regulatory expectations (e.g., OCC, FRB).
• Demonstrated experience coordinating multi-stakeholder, time-sensitive responses under regulatory scrutiny.
• Deep knowledge of AML, Sanctions, ABC, and related financial crimes regulatory frameworks.
• Strong command of RCSA methodology and control testing frameworks.
• Experience with regulatory remediation governance and sustainability validation.
• Advanced issue management and root cause analysis capabilities.
• Strong analytical and data interpretation skills.
• Executive presence and ability to engage credibly with regulators and senior leadership.
• Strong risk judgment and decision-making under ambiguity.
• Ability to operate in a complex, matrixed global organization.
• Structured program management and disciplined execution orientation.
• High integrity and commitment to strong risk culture.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex control and risk concepts into clear, regulator-appropriate narratives.
• Strong judgment, attention to detail, and ability to operate effectively in ambiguity.

Key skills/competency

• Financial Crimes Risk Management
• AML (Anti-Money Laundering)
• Sanctions Compliance
• Anti-Bribery & Corruption (ABC)
• Regulatory Compliance
• Risk Assessment Methodologies (RCSA)
• Control Design & Effectiveness
• Regulatory Examinations
• Issue Management
• Program Management