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Open nowFirst seen 6 days ago

Director - Financial Crime & Compliance Investigations - Sydney

Search & Counsel132 open roles

Where
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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Your applicationOpen nowDirector - Financial Crime & Compliance Investigations - SydneySearch & Counsel · Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

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This job: first seen 6 days ago

The posting

We are seeking an experienced financial-crime and compliance-investigations practitioner to join our client in Sydney at Director level. The successful candidate will lead delivery on AML / CFT, sanctions and financial-crime-investigation workstreams under Partner-led investigations strategy and regulator-facing positioning, operate as a senior delivery practitioner alongside Partners during investigation windows, and build the named-account and law-firm-partner relationships that underpin future origination at Senior Director and Partner level. Specific qualifications, regulatory fluency and tooling are detailed in the sections that follow.

Confidential Client. Applying to this position means that you are interested to have an initial confidential discussion about how we can help you to identify and join a new financial crime and compliance investigations practice. With your authorisation we will exclusively run the entire application and recruitment process for you, keeping you apprised at every step. With over 30 years' combined experience of helping the most talented financial-crime practitioners to make safe exits to launch rewarding new careers, we have the experience, network and ability to help you.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Lead delivery on AML / CTF, sanctions-evasion, trade-based money-laundering (TBML), market-abuse, anti-bribery and proliferation-financing investigations - often with Australia-NZ-PNG-APAC overlay - in support of Partner-led investigations strategy and regulator-facing positioning, delivering hypothesis design, transaction-data reconstruction, written deliverable and adversarial-context defensibility, while building the named-account and law-firm-partner networks that underpin future personal origination at Senior Director and Partner level.
  • Lead delivery on Look-Back Reviews (LBR), Transaction Monitoring Look-Backs (TML) and Suspicious-Matter Investigations following AUSTRAC / ASIC / DOJ / OFAC enforcement-decision exposure - notably in the Westpac, CBA, NAB, Crown and Star pattern: extract, normalise and interpret transactional populations from core-banking systems (such as Temenos T24, Finastra Fusion or Mambu), payment-message stores (SWIFT FIN / MT, NPP) and screening-engine evidence trails.
  • Deliver sanctions-evasion case work covering DFAT autonomous, OFAC / UN / EU / UK sectoral and SDN-list typologies, dual-use-goods diversion under the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012, vessel-deception patterns, and integration with AUSTRAC enforcement, AFP and ACLEI referral pathways.
  • Lead delivery on market-abuse and insider-trading investigations on ASX-listed populations: pattern-analysis on order-and-trade lifecycle, communications-and-trading-correlation, ASX Operating Rules compliance and counterparty mapping; deliver findings defensible to ASIC market-conduct standards under the Corporations Act 2001.
  • Run trade-finance forensic reviews on letters-of-credit, documentary-collections, structured-trade-finance and supply-chain-finance populations; identify TBML typologies including over-and-under-invoicing, phantom-shipments, multi-invoicing and circular-shipment patterns.
  • Engage with MLROs, Heads of Financial Crime and external counsel on written-deliverable defensibility; serve as investigations liaison to AUSTRAC, ASIC, ACCC, AFP, ACLEI and ATO under Partner direction where required.
  • Build emerging client relationships and contribute to named-account development at General Counsel, Head of Financial Crime, MLRO, Chief Compliance Officer and Audit Committee Chair level, and at relevant law firm partner level - under Partner direction.
  • Mentor and advocate for managers and senior managers - supporting their delivery on financial-crime-investigations methodology, championing their development needs at engagement-staffing rounds, and sponsoring their upskilling on emerging methodology and AI tooling - and apply industry-standard financial-crime tooling at investigation depth in support of investigative outcomes.

Required Qualifications and Skills:

  • Recognised financial-crime credential, such as CAMS, CFE, CGSS, CFCS, GIA (Governance Institute of Australia), or qualified-lawyer status with regulatory specialisation - typically multiple at this level.
  • At least 8 years of relevant experience in financial-crime investigations, AML / CTF remediation, sanctions case work, market-abuse investigations or qualified-legal practice with substantive direct exposure to financial-crime investigations.
  • Demonstrable track record of leading delivery on transaction look-back reviews, sanctions-evasion case work, market-abuse investigations or trade-finance forensic reviews - in support of Partner-led investigations strategy and regulator-facing positioning, delivering hypothesis design, data-reconstruction and written deliverable.
  • Direct experience working with senior client stakeholders (General Counsel, Head of Financial Crime, MLRO, Chief Compliance Officer, Audit Committee Chair) and Australian regulators (AUSTRAC, ASIC, ACCC, AFP, ACLEI, ATO).
  • Working knowledge of the Australian financial-crime framework: the AML / CTF Act 2006 and the Tranche-2-extension regime to lawyers, accountants and real-estate agents (effective 2026), the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Cth), the Criminal Code (Cth) cross-border bribery framework framework and Combatting Foreign Bribery Act 2024, ASIC market-misconduct provisions and Insider-Trading framework under Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act 2001, the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012 dual-use-goods regime, AUSTRAC enforcement-decision pattern (notably Westpac / CBA / Crown / Star), and the ATO related-party / transfer-pricing investigations framework.
  • Working knowledge of cross-border financial-crime frameworks: FATF Methodology and Recommendations, EU 4AMLD / 5AMLD / 6AMLD, US BSA / FinCEN / OFAC / DOJ enforcement pattern, UK MLRs 2017 and POCA 2002, and the Wolfsberg Group standards.
  • Familiarity with industry-standard financial-crime tooling, including transaction-monitoring platforms (such as NICE Actimize, SAS AML, Oracle Mantas, Featurespace ARIC or Quantexa), name-screening platforms (such as Refinitiv World-Check One, Dow Jones Risk Center or LexisNexis Bridger), KYC / CLM platforms (such as Fenergo or Pega CLM), trade-surveillance platforms (such as NICE Actimize, NASDAQ SMARTS or Eventus Validus), and crypto-tracing platforms (such as Chainalysis, TRM Labs or Elliptic) at investigations depth.
  • High-agency operating style with strong judgement under regulator-deadline pressure and the methodological discipline to ensure findings are evidence-based, structured and defensible.
  • Calm, credible communication style suited to senior MLRO / regulator engagement, audit-committee reporting and counsel-led privileged-investigation work.

Preferred Experience:

  • Multiple stacking credentials, such as CAMS plus CFE plus CGSS, or CAMS-FCI plus CCFI plus GIA - the recognised pattern at this level on multi-vector financial-crime mandates.
  • Prior regulator alumni status at AUSTRAC, ASIC, ACCC, AFP, ATO, or international peers (FCA / SEC / DOJ / FinCEN / OFAC / SFO).
  • Royal Commission or Commission-of-Inquiry advisor experience.
  • Postgraduate study in finance, law, public policy, governance or a related discipline.
  • Cross-border investigations experience across Australia / NZ / PNG and the broader APAC region.
  • Crypto-asset investigations and on-chain tracing experience.
  • Track record of converting one-off investigations engagements into multi-year monitorship, look-back-retainer or outsourced-investigations work.
  • Established or emerging relationships with law firm partners in financial-services regulatory, regulatory enforcement, white-collar crime, internal-investigations and class-action / privacy-litigation practices who instruct financial-crime investigations work.
  • Continuous-learning posture and active engagement with the AI developments reshaping financial-crime investigations: candidates who track tooling shifts (such as Quantexa contextual decisioning, Featurespace ARIC adaptive behavioural analytics, AI-driven sanctions-screening enrichment under DFAT autonomous and OFAC sectoral regimes, or ML typology detection on TBML populations under the AUSTRAC Tranche-2-extension perimeter), share that knowledge with managers and senior managers, and have a track record of supporting team upskilling on emerging methodologies.

Compensation:

Competitive package commensurate with seniority and experience, including base, performance-based bonus, long-term incentives and (where applicable) partner-track participation.

Next Steps:

This opportunity is open to Australian citizens, permanent residents and qualified candidates with relevant Australian work-rights status who match the above criteria. Please apply to receive prompt contact from an experienced and specialist financial crime and compliance investigations recruitment consultant.

Search & Counsel is a trading style of Feltan Associates Pte Ltd; an international Executive Search, Recruitment and Consulting business based in Singapore, licensed and regulated by the Singapore Ministry of Manpower to conduct recruitment services for clients. UEN: 202225620G. EA Licence 23S1672. All rights reserved.

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