Vice President - Financial Crimes Risk Intelligence & Assessment Office

711 MS Smith Barney, LLC; New York (NY); On-site; USD 115,000 - 205,000; Full time

Job summary

Morgan Stanley is seeking a Financial Crimes Risk Intelligence & Assessment Officer (VP) to support the Firm’s First Line Financial Crimes program for Wealth Management and U.S. Banks.

You will lead risk assessments, translate signals into controls, and work with business and analytics teams to strengthen governance. The role requires 7+ years of AML experience, strong analytical skills, and collaboration with cross-functional partners to design scalable risk solutions in a fast-paced

Qualifications

• 7+ years of relevant experience with BSA/AML regulations within financial services or regulators.
• Experience conducting risk assessments within a risk-based framework.
• Knowledge of Financial Crimes laws/regulations and first-line procedures.
• Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree preferred.
• ACAMS or equivalent AML certification/license.

Responsibilities

• Execute portfolio and thematic financial crimes risk assessments across customer types, products, services, delivery channels, and geographies.
• Prioritize findings and mitigation actions through reviews and deep dives.
• Assess risks for new and existing clients and communicate mitigation plans.
• Use KYC/EDD, case management, adverse media, screening, and monitoring outputs to identify patterns and control gaps.
• Translate findings into risk decisions and governance reporting.
• Collaborate with senior leaders and data teams to align requirements and deliver scalable controls across business lines.
• Support decisions on transactions that may create financial crimes risk and establish escalation pathways.

Skills

Financial crimes investigations

Time management

Analytical thinking

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in business/finance

Master’s degree in business/finance/law (plus)

Tools

MS Office (Excel/PowerPoint/Word/Access)

Job description

Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm that conducts its business through three principal business segments—Institutional Securities, Wealth Management (WM), and Asset Management. Morgan Stanley provides comprehensive financial advice and services to its clients including brokerage, investment advisory, financial and wealth planning, credit and lending, deposits and cash management, annuities, insurance, retirement, and trust services. As a market leader, the talent and passion of our people is critical to our success. Together, we share a common set of values rooted in doing the right thing, putting clients first, leading with exceptional ideas and a commitment to diversity and inclusion. Morgan Stanley can provide a superior foundation for building a professional career – a place for people to learn, achieve, and grow.

Department Profile

The Risk Intelligence & Assessment Office supports the firm’s ability to make risk-based financial crimes decisions by delivering risk intelligence, policy engagement and guidance, and strategic solutions that strengthen controls and reduce operational inefficiencies across Wealth Management, E*TRADE, U.S. Banks, and Investment Management business lines. A core component of the function is program-wide financial crimes risk identification using tools, analytics, and intelligence to evaluate large datasets—including customer populations, due diligence attributes, screening, transactions, products, channels, and geographies—identify emerging trends and typologies, and translate insights into control enhancements, risk mitigation, and governance reporting.

Responsibilities

The Financial Crimes Risk Intelligence & Assessment Officer (VP) supports and executes the Firm’s First Line Financial Crimes program for Wealth Management and U.S. Banks. The role helps set program strategy, provides advisory and oversight support, and conducts tool-enabled portfolio and program-level risk assessments. The Officer converts data signals into defensible risk decisions and control actions while partnering with the business and second- and third-line stakeholders to maintain compliance with applicable standards, policies, procedures, laws, and regulations. The role partners with Business, Technology, Compliance, Legal, Operations, and Risk Management to translate financial crime risks, typologies, and regulatory expectations into practical control requirements and embed them into processes and governance.

• Execute portfolio and thematic financial crimes risk assessments across customer types, products and services, delivery channels, and geographies.
• Prioritize findings and measurable mitigation actions through emerging-risk reviews, heightened-risk portfolio reviews, and targeted deep dives.
• Assess financial crimes risks for new and existing clients and recommend, document, and communicate mitigation and escalation plans.
• Use KYC/EDD, case management, adverse media, screening, transaction monitoring, customer risk rating, and dashboard outputs to identify patterns, anomalies, exposure changes, and control gaps.
• Translate findings into risk decisions, client actions, control enhancements, and governance reporting.
• Apply investigative and intelligence-led experience to identify and operationalize trends and typologies, working directly with tools or with analytics teams.
• Incorporate external advisories and red flags into monitoring hypotheses, thematic reviews, training, and escalation criteria.
• Analyze cross-border risks and determine how jurisdiction-specific concerns—including corruption, sanctions, ownership transparency, complex structures, and high-risk industries—affect U.S. AML/KYC requirements and controls.
• Apply U.S. AML/CFT and BSA/AML requirements to KYC, customer risk assessment, and control design.
• Develop scalable first-line guidance and procedures and support compliance with applicable regulations, standards, and policies.
• Develop and report portfolio risk indicators, trend and typology insights, and control performance metrics.
• Use multiple sources—including intelligence, tool outputs, portfolio analytics, process reviews, control testing, and frontline feedback—to challenge assumptions, test hypotheses, and identify emerging or non-obvious risks.

In addition, other Key responsibilities include:

• Collaborate with senior business leaders, Second Line, Technology, Internal Audit, Compliance, Legal, Operations, and data teams to align requirements and deliver scalable controls across business lines.
• Support decisions on transactions and activities that may create financial crimes risk, including escalation pathways, risk acceptance rationale, and compensating controls.
• Translate international risk considerations into U.S. AML/KYC requirements and design mitigants when foreign documentation, registries, or legal constraints create gaps.
• Apply beneficial ownership requirements and analyze ownership and control structures for legal entity customers.
• Support responsible use of approved AI-enabled capabilities by defining use cases, requirements, controls, validation considerations, and documentation consistent with model risk management expectations.

Required Experience and Qualifications

• 7+ years of relevant experience with BSA/AML regulations within the financial services industry and/or at a financial services regulator (e.g., FINRA, SEC, OCC, Federal Reserve Bank, etc.).
• Financial crimes investigative experience, such as investigations, intelligence-led reviews, complex EDD, or suspicious activity typology development, with demonstrated ability to identify and communicate trends using financial crimes tools or large-scale analytics.
• Experience conducting client, thematic, portfolio, or program-level financial crimes risk assessments within a risk-based framework.
• Experience translating regulatory expectations and typology insights into practical first-line controls, procedures, and governance routines.
• Knowledge of Financial Crimes laws/regulations and best-practice First Line procedures, including risk-based customer due diligence consistent with supervisory expectations.
• Bachelor’s degree in business, finance, or related field.
• Master’s degree in business, finance, law, or related field (plus).
• ACAMS (CAMS) or equivalent AML certification/license.
• Preferred: experience with model or tool risk, governance, or validation for AML/BSA systems.
• Ability to: Work effectively in a fast-paced, high-profile environment. Analyze and synthesize complex information and communicate typologies, data signals, and investigative rationale clearly to technical and non-technical audiences. Turn tool outputs and portfolio analytics into actionable controls, escalation thresholds, and operating guidance. Identify issues, investigate root causes, and deliver scalable solutions that reduce operational friction and strengthen risk coverage. Demonstrate leadership, manage teams, and influence without direct authority. Demonstrate integrity and professionalism and handle confidential information with discretion. Think innovatively within a controlled, risk-based framework and use investigative, analytical, and process-based methods to identify financial crimes risk.

Additional Skills

• Strong time management and planning skills.
• High proficiency in MS Office (Excel/PowerPoint/Word/Access).
• Comfort working with large datasets and analytical outputs, including dashboards, segmentation, and trends, and translating insights into clear risk actions in partnership with data and analytics teams.
• Exposure to AI applications in financial crimes is desirable, including awareness of data quality, bias, explainability, governance, validation, and control considerations.
• Innovative, continuous-improvement mindset focused on better tool use, streamlined investigative decisions, and stronger risk detection.
• Familiarity with external typology and red-flag publications and the ability to apply them to monitoring, training, and risk assessments.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM MORGAN STANLEY

At Morgan Stanley, we raise, manage and allocate capital for our clients – helping them reach their goals. We do it in a way that’s differentiated – and we’ve done that for 90 years. Our values - putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back - aren’t just beliefs, they guide the decisions we make every day to do what's best for our clients, communities and more than 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. At Morgan Stanley, you’ll find an opportunity to work alongside the best and the brightest, in an environment where you are supported and empowered. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work-life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry. There’s also ample opportunity to move about the business for those who show passion and grit in their work. To learn more about our offices across the globe, please copy and paste https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-offices into your browser. New York: Expected base pay rates for the role will be between $115,000 and $205,000 per year at the commencement of employment. However, base pay if hired will be determined on an individualized basis and is only part of the total compensation package, which, depending on the position, may also include commission earnings, incentive compensation, discretionary bonuses, other short and long-term incentive packages, and other Morgan Stanley sponsored benefit programs. Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse in experience and background. Our recruiting efforts reflect our strong commitment to a culture of inclusion, where individuals are hired, developed, and advanced based on their skills and talents. Our workforce reflects a broad cross-section of the global communities in which we operate, bringing a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences. For more information, please visit: https://www.morganstanley.com/people-opportunities/eeo. At Morgan Stanley, we advise, originate, trade, manage and distribute capital for people, governments and institutions, always with a standard of excellence and guided by our core values. Morgan Stanley is dedicated to providing first-class service to our clients, in a way that reflects our commitment to creating a more sustainable future and fostering stronger communities around the world. In each line of business, we strive to demonstrate our belief in the power of transformative thinking, innovative strategies and leading-edge solutions—and in the ability of capital to work for the benefit of all society. What We Do