Founder's Associate

Sanction Scanner; Üsküdar; On-site; TRY 450,000 - 900,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Direct access to CEO

Comprehensive health benefits

Learning & development budget

Documented growth path

International environment

Job summary

Sanction Scanner in Istanbul seeks a Founder's Associate to work side-by-side with the CEO, turning decisions into finished work and owning cross-functional initiatives. You will be involved in board prep, investor updates, pricing decisions, and reporting cadences while coordinating with Sales, Marketing, Product, Finance and Customer Success.

This on-site role requires 3–6 years in a generalist high-growth setting, fluent English and Turkish, strong Excel and presentation skills, and a bias

Qualifications

• 3–6 years of experience in management consulting, investment banking, venture capital, a high-growth startup, or a comparable generalist role.
• Fluent English, written and spoken. Fluent Turkish is also required.
• Strong Excel and presentation skills to build models and board-quality slides.
• Written clarity to turn meetings into actionable items.
• Extreme reliability; nothing handed to you is dropped or delayed.
• Low ego with high agency; willing to do unglamorous work to get it right.
• Based in Istanbul and able to work on-site with the CEO; some weekends may be required for key events.
• RegTech, compliance or financial services familiarity is a plus.
• Fluency with AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, automation platforms).

Responsibilities

• Run the founder's week with briefs, logs, and follow-up until actions are closed.
• Own 3–5 cross-functional projects with no current owner.
• Support investor decks, KPI packs, data rooms, and monthly updates with CEO and Finance.
• Turn HubSpot and internal data into clear, actionable insights.
• Coordinate across Sales, Marketing, Product, Finance and Customer Success to ensure delivery.
• Prepare meeting agendas, notes, decisions, owners and deadlines for leadership reviews.
• Draft internal announcements and investor communications in the founder's voice.
• Handle miscellaneous tasks from financial models to process improvements or event support.

Skills

Management consulting

Investment banking

Venture capital

Generalist role

Fluent English

Fluent Turkish

Excel

Presentation skills

Written clarity

Reliability

Cross-functional collaboration

On-site Istanbul

Job description

Join Sanction Scanner as a Founder's Associate!

At Sanction Scanner, 2x Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA Winner & 3x Deloitte Turkey Fast 50 Winner, we help financial institutions in 70+ countries fight financial crime with our compliance platform. We are scaling into the US and DACH, preparing our next funding round, and consolidating everything into one product, Fusion. The CEO sits at the center of all of it.

He needs one person next to him who turns decisions into finished work. That is this role.

This is not an assistant role, and it is not a strategy advisory role. You sit beside the founder, take the messy half of everything on his desk, and close it.

Why You'll Love Working with Us

• Front-Row Seat: You will be in the room for board prep, investor conversations, US market entry and pricing decisions, at a stage in your career when most people are still building slides for someone else.
• Compression: Three years here is worth ten somewhere else. International expansion, hiring, and product decisions, all from the inside, in your first year.
• Real Ownership: You own projects end-to-end, not tasks. If it lands with you, it is yours to close.
• A Launchpad, Not a Plateau: This seat is designed to graduate you into a functional leadership role (revenue ops, strategy, product, country lead) within 18 to 30 months. That is the plan from day one.
  

What You'll Be Doing

• CEO Leverage: Run the founder's week. A one-page brief before every meeting, a written decision log after it, and relentless follow-up until every action item is closed.
• Special Projects: Own 3 to 5 projects at a time that have no other owner yet. Recent examples: US entity and go-to-market setup, analyst relations, pricing rework, partner program design, a new reporting cadence.
• Investor & Board Support: Build board decks, KPI packs, data rooms and monthly investor updates together with the CEO and Finance.
• Business Analysis: Pull the numbers from HubSpot and internal systems and turn them into a clear answer. Not dashboards for the sake of dashboards, but the number and the recommendation that follows from it.
• Cross-Team Follow-Through: Sit between Sales, Marketing, Product, Finance and Customer Success, and make sure what the CEO agreed with each team actually ships.
• Meeting & Comms Discipline: Agendas, notes, decisions, owners and deadlines for leadership meetings, weekly business reviews and all-hands.
• The Founder's Second Brain: Draft his internal announcements, customer follow-ups, LinkedIn posts and investor emails in his voice.
• Whatever Else It Takes: Some weeks it is a financial model, some weeks it is fixing a broken internal process, some weeks it is standing at our booth at an industry event in Frankfurt. Nothing is beneath this role.

• 3 to 6 years of experience in management consulting, investment banking, venture capital, a high-growth startup, or a comparable generalist role.
• Fluent English, written and spoken. You will write to investors, analysts and tier-1 banks. Fluent Turkish is also required.
• Strong Excel and presentation skills. You can build a model and a board-quality slide without being walked through it.
• Written clarity. You can turn a messy 60-minute meeting into 10 lines a busy person can act on.
• Extreme reliability. Nothing handed to you is ever dropped, forgotten or silently delayed.
• Low ego, high agency. You are happy to do the unglamorous 80% of a job in order to get the last 20% right.
• Comfortable being corrected directly and quickly, and moving on without friction.
• Based in Istanbul and able to work on-site, alongside the CEO. The standard week is Monday to Friday, and you are willing to work the occasional Saturday during board prep, fundraising, launches and major events.
• RegTech, compliance or financial services familiarity is a plus, not a requirement.
• Fluency with AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, automation platforms)

Please Read This Before You Apply

This role is demanding and we would rather be honest now than lose you in month three.

• This is an on-site role in Istanbul, next to the CEO. The standard week is Monday to Friday, but in reality Saturdays/Sundays happen. We are expecting to be connected.
• You will not manage a team. Your leverage comes from execution, not from headcount.
• You will not be the final decision-maker on strategy. You prepare the decision, make your case once, and then execute what is decided fully.
• Priorities shift fast. If you need a stable and predictable quarter, you will be uncomfortable here.
  If you read all of that and still want the seat, you are exactly who we are looking for.

Benefits

• Competitive Compensation: Salary set at the top of the market band for your experience level, plus an annual performance bonus tied to clear objectives.
• Direct Access: You work next to the CEO every single day. There is no closer view of how a company is actually run.
• Comprehensive Health Benefits: Full private medical coverage.
• Learning & Development Budget: Annual budget for courses, certifications and conferences, plus international travel to industry events with the CEO.
• A Documented Growth Path: Formal reviews at 12 and 24 months against a written plan to move you into a leadership seat.
• International Environment: An award-winning team across Turkey, MENA, DACH and the UK.

Hiring Process

1. 20-minute intro call
2. 60-minute interview with the CEO
3. A short paid case study, roughly 4 hours of work, reflecting a real problem from the CEO's desk
4. Final conversation and reference checks