Financial Crimes Framework & Innovations Manager

Pleo; Greater London; Remote; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Your own Pleo card

Lunch & meals allowance

Private healthcare

25 days holiday + public holidays

Hybrid or fully remote options

Mental health & well-being support

Parental leave

Job summary

Pleo in the United Kingdom is seeking a Financial Crime Framework & Innovation Manager to lead the KYC/AML and sanctions screening team across UK and EU/EEA. The role combines hands-on work with strategic oversight, guiding a remote team of five specialists and collaborating with Operations, Product, Engineering and Legal to strengthen controls.

You’ll drive end-to-end change, deploy AI and automation to reduce manual effort, and prepare for EU AML Regulation.

Qualifications

• Significant experience designing and improving financial crime frameworks, controls and operating models in the UK or EU
• Experience across multiple entities and jurisdictions (UK and EU/EEA)
• Experience managing specialists while staying hands-on
• Track record of leading change end-to-end from stakeholders to delivery
• Demonstrable experience driving innovation, e.g. AI-enabled workflows or automated controls
• Ability to translate complex financial crime concepts into practical guidance

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the financial crime framework for KYC, AML/CFT and sanctions across UK and EU/EEA
• Lead and support a remote team of specialists, building trust and a real sense of team
• Drive change end-to-end, from spotting the gap to embedding the fix with Operations
• Use automation and AI to reduce manual effort and improve decision quality
• Lead the move to a new screening vendor through to go-live
• Shape readiness for EU AML Regulation
• Manage regulatory audits and inspections, and help set the team’s annual strategy

Skills

KYC/AML frameworks

Regulatory compliance

Leadership

Remote team management

AI automation

Job description

About Pleo

Messy spend management is tricky business. And tedious processes are a lose-lose situation for all involved, not just finance. At Pleo, we’re changing that. We build spend solutions that make managing money seamless, empowering, and surprisingly effective for finance teams and employees alike - with a vision to help all businesses ‘go beyond’.

The word ‘Pleo’ actually means ‘more than you’d expect’, and living by that mantra has been the secret to our success over the last 10 years.

Now, we’re at a pivotal moment in our journey; every move we make has a direct impact on our 40,000+ customers, our business, and our collective success. We need people who take pride in uncovering customer needs, who turn complex problems into simple solutions, challenge the way things are done (respectfully), and always aim high. With great ambitions driving us forward, we can’t say we’ve got this whole thing figured out. And frankly, that’s half the fun! What we can say is that we’re a driven, progressive, and, importantly, a kind bunch of 850+ people from over 100 nationalities, all committed to delivering the future of business spending, together.

About the role

We’re looking for a Financial Crime Framework & Innovation Manager to lead our KYC Framework & Controls team in Pleo’s first line of defence. The team owns our financial crime framework across the UK and EU/EEA, covering KYC, AML/CFT and sanctions screening. You’ll lead a team of specialists while staying hands-on, owning change end to end across multiple entities and jurisdictions. Compliance is a given; the bigger opportunity is using AI and technology to cut manual effort and sharpen our controls. We welcome all backgrounds, so apply even if you don’t tick every box.

Who you’ll be working with and reporting to

You’ll report to our DK/EEA MLRO and lead a remote team of five financial crime specialists. You’ll partner with Operations, who run our KYC processes, plus Product, Engineering, Legal, Compliance and our separate transaction monitoring team.

What you’ll be doing

As a Financial Crime Framework & Innovation Manager, you will:

• Own and evolve Pleo’s financial crime framework for KYC, AML/CFT and sanctions screening across the UK and EU/EEA

• Lead and support a remote team of specialists, building trust and a real sense of team

• Drive change end to end, from spotting the gap to embedding the fix with Operations

• Use automation and AI to reduce manual effort and improve decision quality

• Lead our move to a new screening vendor through to go-live

• Shape our readiness for the EU AML Regulation

• Manage regulatory audits and inspections, and help set the team’s annual strategy

On the roadmap: the screening vendor migration (go-live planned for Q1) and the EU AML Regulation, which applies from July 2027. We’re also finalising a new financial crime operating model, so some responsibilities may shift.

What you bring

You’ll thrive in this role if you have:

• Significant experience designing and improving financial crime frameworks, controls and operating models in the UK or EU

• Experience across multiple entities and jurisdictions, covering UK and EU/EEA requirements

• Experience managing specialists while staying hands‑on

• A track record of leading change end to end, from stakeholders to delivery

• Demonstrable experience driving innovation, for example AI-enabled workflows or automated controls

• The ability to turn complex financial crime concepts into clear, practical guidance

It’s a bonus if you have:

• Led a screening vendor migration or a similar system implementation

• Hands‑on experience preparing for the EU AML Regulation

You might come from a fintech or a bank. If you’re from a larger bank, show us where you’ve owned broad scope.

Why is this role a good fit for you

This role is a good fit for you if:

• You want broad ownership across KYC, AML and sanctions

• You get energy from finding efficiencies and putting AI to work on real problems

• You lead specialists by building trust and giving them room

This role is not a good fit for you if:

• You want a pure people-management role. You’ll be in the detail as well as leading

• You need fully settled scope. Our operating model is being finalised, and some responsibilities may move

• You’d rather lead an office-based team. Yours is fully remote, and connection takes deliberate effort

How you’ll develop in this role

In your first six months at Pleo, you’ll:

• Take ownership of the screening vendor migration and lead it through go-live

• Take day‑to‑day ownership of the EU AML Regulation programme

• Bring your remote team closer together

Beyond that, you’ll lead the AI and efficiency agenda across financial crime, with room to grow your scope as the operating model matures.

Show me the benefits!

• Your own Pleo card (no more out‑of‑pocket spending!)

• Lunch is on us for your work days - enjoy catered meals or receive a lunch allowance based on your local office

• Comprehensive private healthcare - depending on your location, coverage options include Vitality, Alan or Médis

• We offer 25 days of holiday + your public holidays

• For our Team, we offer both hybrid and fully remote working options

• We use MyndUp to give our employees access to free mental health and well‑being support with great success so far

• Paid parental leave - we want to make sure that we’re supportive of families and help you feel that you don’t have to compromise your family due to work

The interview process

We want to ensure you are set-up for success and understand what will be expected of you. If your application is successful, our interview process is as follows:

• Intro call: A 30-minute chat with our Talent Partner to discuss the role and your background.

• Hiring manager interview: A conversation with the DK/EEA MLRO about your experience and leadership. 45mins.

• Pleo Challenge: Walk us through the efficiency opportunities you see in one of our processes. 1 hour.

• Peer interview: 1 hour

Transparency is important to us so we also wanted to share some insights about what we’re looking for in applications to ensure you can set yourself up for success!

We are receiving a really high volume of applicants but can only select so many for an intro call. Some of the key reasons why previous candidates didn’t make it past the application screening stage include:

• CV writing and content: we receive a lot of CVs, and many of them are AI-generated. We love seeing people leverage AI—it’s a big focus for us internally too—but without human intervention, these CVs can sometimes become generic and fail to show a candidate in the best light. What we're really looking for is the specific details of real impact that only you know from your previous experience. A top tip from us is to use the “Achieved X, as measured by Y, by doing Z” formula (credit: Laszlo Bock, ~2014) to give a really clear picture of what you’ve worked on. A final note: including links to your previous companies' websites is a huge help and allows us to truly understand your background!

• Application care: every single application we receive is reviewed by a human (yes, hundreds of them) because we believe that candidates' efforts should be matched by an equal level of human care. This means that we expect a similar level of attention put into your application. Read and answer the application questions carefully, they make a huge difference in our decision-making process.

• Profile to role fit: highlight most important aspects of the role, points that might get misunderstood, any specific industry requirements etc.