Chief Compliance Officer

River; Columbus (OH); On-site; USD 200,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited PTO

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401k

Catered in-office lunches

Job summary

River is building the world’s most trusted financial institution to empower people to own their financial lives through Bitcoin. We seek a Chief Compliance Officer to build and own the program end-to-end, including BSA, OFAC, policy, and regulatory engagement with regulators, examiners, and bank partners.

You will lead a growing team, maintain licenses, and drive OCC charter efforts while ensuring compliant product launches in a fast-growing fintech.

Qualifications

• Experience building and running compliance programs at a regulated financial institution.
• Proven track record managing regulatory exams and audits and relationships with regulators and banks.
• Direct experience with OCC processes; charter application experience is a strong plus.
• Systems thinker who builds lasting processes to prevent issues.
• Strong people leadership with team-building and development.
• Excellent communicator with regulators, Board, and engineers.
• Strategic and proactive, anticipating regulatory risk.
• Client-first mindset—protecting clients while satisfying regulators.
• Genuine culture carrier who elevates the team's standards.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and fast growth.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow River's compliance team and set operating standards.
• Own BSA/AML and sanctions (OFAC) programs end-to-end with governance.
• Develop and maintain compliance policies, procedures, and training.
• Manage compliance risk assessments and cross-functional prioritization.
• Establish independent testing and monitoring separate from day-to-day BSA work.
• Maintain state money transmitter licenses and support OCC charter efforts.
• Own regulator and bank partner relationships and license exams.
• Approve new products and features for compliance before launch.

Skills

BSA Officer experience

Regulatory exams

OCC processes experience

People leadership

Regulatory relationships

Strategic thinking

Communication skills

Compliance program management

Culture carrier

Ambiguity tolerance

Job description

At River we are building the world’s most trusted financial institution to empower people to take ownership of their financial lives through Bitcoin, the world’s only incorruptible digital money. We believe in a future where every person will have bitcoin savings, and every business will have bitcoin on the balance sheet. We obsessively design and build delightful products that help our clients buy, sell, secure, and use Bitcoin. We hold ourselves to a standard of trust and transparency that matches the seriousness of the money we're entrusted with.

River currently operates under state money transmitter licenses, and we're raising the bar on what a world-class compliance program looks like at every stage of our growth, including as we pursue an OCC national trust charter. We're looking for a Chief Compliance Officer to build and own that program end-to-end: someone who can manage our day-to-day compliance and regulatory obligations with rigor, serve as our BSA Officer, support the charter effort, and be a trusted voice with regulators, examiners, and bank partners as River grows into its next chapter.

River is growing quickly and has raised more than $50 million from leading investors, including Goldcrest, Kingsway, Polychain, M13, DG, and Valor. We have also released our company's financials and proof of reserves publicly, so all of our clients and employees can verify the robustness and growth of the business themselves.

What You Will Be Doing

• Lead and grow River's team of compliance analysts, setting the bar for how the team operates, hires, and develops
• Serve as River's BSA Officer, owning the BSA/AML and sanctions (OFAC) programs end-to-end, including policy, monitoring, investigations, and reporting
• Build and maintain River's compliance policies and procedures across the business, and run a company-wide training program that keeps pace with how River and the regulatory landscape are changing
• Own River's compliance risk assessment, and ensure the output drives cross-functional project prioritization to address gaps
• Develop and run an independent compliance testing and monitoring function, separate from day-to-day BSA monitoring
• Maintain River's state money transmitter licenses (MTLs), including renewals and license-specific exam readiness, while driving River's OCC national trust charter process forward with executive leadership, outside counsel, and consultants
• Own River's relationships with regulators and compliance leadership with our bank partners
• Manage all regulatory exams, audits, and third-party assessments, from prep through remediation
• Own compliance sign-off on new products and features before launch, so compliance is built in, not bolted on after the fact
• Build repeatable, scalable compliance systems and processes, not one-off fixes, so the program holds up as River grows
• Advise the executive team and Board on regulatory strategy and emerging risk, proactively rather than reactively
• Partner cross-functionally with Operations, Product, and Engineering to embed compliance into how River builds
• Act as a culture carrier for River, modeling how we think about trust, honesty, and rigor internally, not just in front of regulators

What We Look For In You

• Deep experience building and running compliance programs at a regulated financial institution, ideally with BSA Officer experience
• A track record of managing regulatory exams and audits, and building genuine, durable relationships with regulators and bank partners
• Direct experience with OCC processes; charter application experience is a strong plus
• A systems thinker, someone who solves the root problem and builds the process that prevents it from recurring, rather than patching the symptom
• Strong people leadership with experience building, managing, and developing a team of analysts
• Excellent communicator, equally comfortable in a room with examiners, the Board, or an engineer debugging a control
• Strategic and proactive, you see around corners on regulatory risk rather than waiting for it to arrive
• A client-first mindset, you see compliance as a way to protect and serve clients, not just satisfy a regulator, and you look for ways to say yes without compromising the program
• A genuine culture carrier, someone who raises the bar for how the people around them think and work
• Comfortable with ambiguity and the pace of a fast-growing company building something that hasn't been built before

Salary And Benefits

• Salary: $200,000 - $300,000 full-time
• Competitive compensation and equity
• Unlimited PTO
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401k
• Catered in-office lunches

Interview Process

• Introductory interview with River’s COO (30 minutes)
• First round interview block (1 hour with two River employees)
• Prompted written assessment
• Final round interview block (1 hour block with leadership, including River’s founder/CEO)