Financial Crime Operations Executive Manager

You will be accountable for delivering safe, sustainable and high-quality operational outcomes across one or more financial crime disciplines. These may include Transaction Monitoring, Enhanced Customer Due Diligence, Customer and Payment Screening, fraud-related investigations, remediation, Suspicious Matter Report preparation, specialised risk queues, Quality and Performance, or other enabling capabilities.

You will lead through a period of significant regulatory, technological and operational change. Working closely with Financial Crime Operations, Financial Crime Compliance, Risk, Quality Assurance, Strategy and Performance, Technology and Transformation teams, you will ensure effective detection, investigation, escalation and mitigation of financial crime risk.

The role requires an enterprise leader who can balance customer, risk, people and performance outcomes while building a future-ready operation.

The existing role profile also establishes responsibility for Australian financial crime operations, close collaboration across Operations, Risk, Compliance, Quality and Technology, and leadership of the India-based team.

Reporting to: General Manager, Financial Crime Operations, CBA India

Roles & Responsibilities:

Strategic and operational leadership

• Lead the strategy and execution of a large and complex Financial Crime Operations portfolio.
• Translate enterprise and Economic Crime Services priorities into clear operational plans, measures and accountabilities.
• Deliver agreed service, quality, productivity, customer and risk outcomes.
• Maintain effective oversight of operational capacity, queue health, demand, productivity, ageing, service levels and emerging risks.
• Ensure the operating model remains sustainable, scalable and aligned to changing business and regulatory requirements.
• Provide clear, timely and evidence-based reporting to senior leadership and governance forums.
• Make sound decisions across competing priorities, balancing immediate operational requirements with long-term strategic outcomes.
• Support operational resilience and continuity through effective workforce, succession and contingency planning.
• The current FCO operating model includes Transaction Monitoring, CDD/KYC, screening and focused risk queues, Performance and Enabling capabilities, and Quality Assurance, with a future-state focus on rationalised leadership spans and increased work complexity.

Financial crime risk and governance

• Promote strong risk ownership and ensure financial crime risks are identified, assessed, escalated and managed within applicable frameworks.
• Maintain effective oversight of operational controls, incidents, issues, quality results, audit actions and remediation commitments.
• Ensure operations comply with relevant policies, procedures, regulatory obligations and agreed risk appetite.
• Oversee complex investigations and escalations, ensuring decisions are appropriately evidenced, documented and governed.
• Partner with Compliance, Risk and Quality teams to interpret requirements and implement them consistently across operations.
• Champion a proactive risk culture where colleagues feel safe and accountable to identify concerns, challenge decisions and raise emerging risks.
• Ensure changes to processes, controls, detection approaches and operational procedures are assessed and implemented through appropriate governance.
• FCO governance includes oversight of operational risks, queue performance, process changes, detection-rule changes, policy application, issues and incidents, and the prioritisation and implementation of change.

Transformation, simplification and technology

• Lead the successful operational implementation of strategic change, including new processes, platforms, analytical models and risk-based detection and investigation approaches.
• Identify opportunities to simplify work, improve controls, remove duplication and increase operational efficiency.
• Use data and insights to improve decision-making, workforce deployment, quality and customer outcomes.
• Champion responsible adoption of automation, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to improve financial crime detection and operational effectiveness.
• Ensure new technology and process changes are supported by appropriate operational readiness, capability, controls and governance.
• Build a culture of curiosity, experimentation and continuous improvement while maintaining effective risk management.

Stakeholder engagement

• Act as a senior FCO representative and trusted partner between the India-based operation and Australian business, operations, risk and compliance teams.
• Build strong, transparent and constructive relationships with senior stakeholders across Economic Crime Services, Financial Crime Compliance, Risk, Quality Assurance, Technology, Transformation, Workforce and Human Resources.
• Surface risks, dependencies and trade-offs early and provide practical recommendations to support decisions.
• Influence outcomes across organisational boundaries without relying solely on formal authority.
• Promote a whole-of-organisation mindset and ensure that local delivery decisions support broader enterprise outcomes.
• Represent the portfolio in senior operational, risk, governance and transformation forums as required.

People and culture leadership

• Lead and inspire a large, diverse workforce through a clear sense of purpose and shared accountability.
• Build a strong leadership team with clear responsibilities, effective spans of control and robust succession plans.
• Attract, develop and retain high-quality financial crime and operations talent.
• Coach senior leaders to strengthen strategic thinking, risk ownership, commercial judgement and people leadership.
• Set clear performance expectations and ensure fair, consistent and timely performance and development conversations.
• Build capability through targeted learning, cross-skilling, leadership development and career pathways.
• Foster an inclusive and psychologically safe environment where diverse perspectives are welcomed.
• Role-model the organisation’s values and leadership principles, including care, courage and commitment.
• Strengthen engagement, wellbeing and connection across teams while maintaining accountability for outcomes.

Success measures

Success in the role will be demonstrated through:

• Sustainable achievement of service, quality, productivity and customer outcomes.
• Effective management of operational and financial crime risks.
• Timely identification, escalation and closure of incidents, issues and control gaps.
• Strong audit, assurance and regulatory outcomes.
• Successful implementation and embedding of strategic change.
• Improved process efficiency, simplification and use of technology.
• Strong colleague engagement, capability and leadership succession.

Essential Skills:

Essential

• Significant senior leadership experience in Financial Crime Operations in banking, compliance, risk operations or a comparable regulated environment.
• Demonstrated experience leading large, complex and multi-layered operational teams.
• Strong knowledge of one or more financial crime areas, including Transaction Monitoring, AML/CTF operations, ECDD/CDD/KYC, customer or payment screening, fraud investigations, SMR/SAR processes, remediation or quality oversight.
• Proven ability to lead safe operational delivery while managing risk, quality, customer and productivity outcomes.
• Strong understanding of operational risk, controls, incidents, issues, governance and assurance.
• Experience leading transformation, technology-enabled change or operating-model redesign.
• Ability to interpret complex information and translate it into clear strategic and operational decisions.
• Strong executive communication, influencing and stakeholder-management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to build high-performing leadership teams and strong succession pipelines.
• Experience working across geographies, cultures or global delivery models.
• Strong data literacy and ability to use operational and risk insights to drive decisions.

Desirable

• Knowledge of Australian financial crime and AML/CTF regulatory expectations.
• Experience supporting Australian banking or financial-services operations.
• Exposure to financial crime case-management, screening, analytics or workflow platforms.
• Experience using automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning or advanced analytics in an operational or financial crime setting.
• Experience with Lean, Six Sigma, agile delivery or continuous-improvement methodologies.

Education Qualification:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a relevant discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
• Professional certification such as CAMS, CFE or another recognised financial crime, risk or compliance qualification is desirable

If you're already part of the Commonwealth Bank Group (including Bankwest, x15ventures), you'll need to apply through Sidekick to submit a valid application. We’re keen to support you with the next step in your career.

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