Managing Director, Enterprise KYC

Royal Bank of Canada•Seattle, WA

6d•Onsite

About The Position

Ensure the bank’s integrity and regulatory compliance by leading a unified, risk-aligned KYC program across all jurisdictions. This role drives consistent customer due diligence, strengthens financial crime defenses, and enables a trusted client experience through clear standards, strong governance and operational excellence.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience.
15+ years of experience in AML/KYC, financial crimes compliance, or regulatory risk with global financial institutions.
Deep expertise in global KYC regulations (e.g., FINTRAC, OSFI, FATF, MAS, FinCEN, EU AML directives).
Proven track record leading large, complex, multi-jurisdictional KYC programs.
Demonstrated ability to influence senior executives and regulators.
Experience driving technology-enabled transformation in KYC or financial crimes operations.
Strong leadership presence, exceptional communication skills, and the ability to translate complex concepts into actional strategies.
A ‘completer-finisher’.
Self-starting and results focused.
Proactive and energetic with a ‘can-do’ approach.
Ability to handle ambiguity in a professional manner.
Intuitive and inquisitive thinker – demonstrated critical thinking skills.
Ability to impact, influence and take initiative.
Ability to understand and articulate financial crime risks.

Responsibilities

Define and own the global KYC strategy, ensuring alignment with enterprise risk appetite, regulatory expectations, and business priorities.
Establish and maintain global KYC policies, standards, and procedures, ensuring consistency across regions while accommodating local regulatory requirements.
Chair global KYC governance forums and represent KYC in enterprise risk committees.
Balance long term transformation of the KYC framework with day-to-day operational realities.
Collaborate with the three lines of defense to ensure program effectiveness and efficiency.
Oversee the bank’s global KYC risk framework, including customer due diligence (CDD), enhanced due diligence (EDD), ongoing monitoring, and periodic reviews.
Serve as point of contact for regulators on KYC matters, partnering with regional MLROs to ensure coordinated responses.
Monitor emerging regulatory trends and proactively adapt the KYC program to evolving expectations.
Anticipates regulatory shifts and positions RBC ahead of expectations.
Ensure emerging risks, such as synthetic identification, are properly identified and remediated.
Partner with KYC operations functions in the first line of defense on timely reporting and provide oversight to ensure timely, accurate, and high-quality onboarding and refresh activities across business segments.
Enterprise center of expertise for evolving KYC industry practices, technology and vendors
Drive continuous improvement through automation, data quality initiatives, workflow optimization, and risk-based segmentation.
Partner with Technology and Data teams to advance digital KYC capabilities, including AI-enabled screening, identity verification, and workflow orchestration while building scalable, efficient, and risk aligned KYC processes.
Collaborate with stakeholders to develop and execute KYC analytics.
Oversight of testing of associated KYC controls (including design and execution).
Work closely with business line leaders to ensure KYC processes support growth while maintain strong risk controls.
Collaborate with FCC, Fraud, Legal, Privacy, and Operational Risk teams to ensure an integrated financial crimes KYC framework.
Partner with global KYC teams across regions fostering a culture of accountability, inclusion, and continuous learning.
Develop talent pipelines and succession plans for critical KYC leadership roles.
Promote a high-performance culture grounded in transparency, empowerment, and operational discipline.
Build trust and alignment across global business and risk partners.