Director, BSA/AML Practice

Clusia; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Clusia is seeking a leader to head its BSA/AML independent testing practice, defining methodology, overseeing engagements, and collaborating with product and engineering to scale through software.

You will work closely with customers and compliance leadership at banks and fintechs, shaping the practice as it grows and expanding services beyond core testing.

Qualifications

• Significant experience conducting or leading BSA/AML independent testing, audits, or examinations for regulated financial institutions.
• Deep working knowledge of BSA/AML requirements including customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, SARs, sanctions, risk assessments.
• Experience designing testing procedures, sampling, evidence evaluation, and reporting.

Responsibilities

• Own BSA/AML independent testing engagements from scoping to final reporting.
• Define testing programs, evidence standards, and quality controls.
• Collaborate with product, design, and engineering to turn testing workflows into software.
• Maintain high quality for engagements and regulators.
• Help grow and hire the BSA/AML team as volume increases.
• Engage directly with customers and compliance leaders at fintechs, banks, and payments firms.
• Identify and build adjacent independent testing and regulatory assurance services.
• Support enterprise opportunities and relationships with sponsor banks.

Skills

BSA/AML testing

Audits

Regulatory compliance

Engagement leadership

Product collaboration

Job description

About Clusia

The next great assurance firm will be a software company. We’re building it.

Banks, fintechs, and payments companies spend billions every year on audits and independent testing they need to operate. Most of that work still runs through spreadsheets, document requests, email, and professional hours.

Clusia is building a different kind of firm. We deliver the assurance work ourselves, while proprietary software handles more of the evidence collection, preparation, and testing. Experienced professionals review the full engagement, make the judgment calls, and sign the final work.

We currently provide ACH audits and BSA/AML independent testing and are expanding across the regulatory assurance work financial companies buy every year.

Clusia was founded by Reed Switzer, founder of Hopscotch, which was acquired by Avalara, and Nolan Hendrickson, who previously led engineering teams within Microsoft Defender. We are venture-backed and building a small, high-talent-density team.

The Role

We’re looking for someone to lead Clusia’s BSA/AML independent testing practice.

This is not a role where you inherit an established practice and manage it. You’ll help define the methodology, conduct and oversee engagements, work directly with customers, and build the systems that allow the practice to scale.

You’ll work closely with our product and engineering teams to turn the way great BSA/AML testing is performed into software. The goal is to reduce the manual work surrounding an engagement without lowering the standard of the work itself.

Early on, you’ll be close to nearly everything: customers, testing, product, hiring, and business development. As the practice grows, you’ll build the team and own the business line.

Why Join

• Compliance tech is next up. We believe compliance is entering the same kind of transformation legal tech has seen over the last two years: large, high-stakes workflows being rebuilt around AI, collaboration, and better systems of record.

• We’re building a small, high-talent-density team. Clusia will remain lean by design. There will be few openings and the bar for talent is incredibly high.

• Your work will matter at global scale. The systems we’re building will power critical operations for some of the largest financial institutions and technology companies in the world.

• You’ll work with founders who have done this before. The founding team has built and sold venture-backed companies in the past and is applying those lessons to build Clusia with focus, urgency, and ambition.

What You’ll Do

• Own BSA/AML independent testing. Lead engagements from scoping through fieldwork, findings, management responses, and final reporting.

• Build the methodology. Define Clusia’s testing programs, workpapers, sampling approaches, evidence standards, and quality-control process.

• Build the product with us. Work directly with product, design, and engineering to turn manual testing workflows into software and increase the number of engagements each professional can support.

• Maintain a high bar for quality. Ensure every engagement is defensible, well-documented, risk-based, and suitable for sophisticated financial institutions and their regulators.

• Build the practice. Help hire and develop the BSA/AML team as customer volume grows.

• Work directly with customers. Become a trusted counterpart to compliance leaders at fintechs, payments companies, and banks.

• Expand what we offer. Help identify and build adjacent independent testing and regulatory assurance services where Clusia can deliver a meaningfully better experience.

• Help grow the business. Support important enterprise opportunities and relationships with sponsor banks and other distribution partners.

What We’re Looking For

• Significant experience conducting or leading BSA/AML independent testing, audits, or examinations for banks, fintechs, and other regulated financial institutions.

• Deep working knowledge of BSA/AML requirements, including customer identification and due diligence, transaction monitoring, suspicious activity reporting, sanctions, risk assessments, and related controls.

• Experience designing testing procedures, selecting samples, evaluating evidence, documenting findings, and producing final reports.

• Strong judgment. You know the difference between checking a box and determining whether a program actually works.

• Experience working directly with senior compliance, risk, audit, and banking stakeholders.

• Comfort building from scratch. There will not be a mature playbook waiting for you.

• Strong product instincts. You should be excited to sit with engineers and ask, “Why does an auditor have to do this manually?”

• A bias toward action and a willingness to stay close to the work as the practice grows.

• CAMS, CFCS, or comparable credentials are a plus.