Chief Compliance Officer - UK

About Clear Street:

Clear Street is building financial infrastructure for today’s institutions. Founded in 2018, Clear Street is an independent, non-bank prime broker replacing the legacy infrastructure used across capital markets. 

We started from scratch by building a completely cloud-native clearing and custody system designed for today’s complex, global market. Clear Street’s proprietary prime brokerage platform adds significant efficiency to the market, while focusing on minimizing risk and cost for clients. Our goal is to create a single source-of-truth platform for every asset class, in every country, and in any currency.

By combining highly-skilled product and engineering talent with seasoned finance professionals, we’re building the essentials to compete in today’s fast-paced markets.

The Role:  

Clear Street’s mission is to become a single-source platform that serves a variety of investor types across multiple asset classes on a global scale. The Clear Street U.K. team is bringing Clear Street’s established equities, options, and fixed-income prime brokerage business to a new market. 

• Overseeing compliance ensuring the firm complies with laws, regulatory requirements, policies and procedures covering conduct of business compliance and financial crime matters.
• Establishing standards and ensuring the implementation of procedures are effective and efficient in identifying, preventing, detecting and correcting non-compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
• Overseeing and monitoring the implementation of the compliance programme.
• Providing guidance, advice, and training to improve business understanding of related laws and regulatory requirements.
• Providing strategic direction to Management/Board on compliance.
• Preparing and presenting clear and concise compliance reports to the Board.
• Interaction with regulators on compliance issues.
• Oversee the development and execution of the compliance risk assessment covering Compliance and financial crime risks.
• Overseeing and coordinating internal compliance reviews (desk-top reviews) and monitoring activities (market abuse and insider trading, AML, ABC, Fraud and sanctions).
• Independently investigating and acting on matters related to compliance and AML.
• Coordinating efforts related to internal and external audits, reviews and examinations.
• Oversee all regulatory reporting processes for compliance ensuring adherence with regulations and regulatory expectations.
• Participating in committees as required.
• Providing appropriate input into, guidance and delivery of, the Compliance training program.
• Maintaining oversight of regulatory developments and determining appropriate representation at industry forums as appropriate.
• Regularly interfacing with the relevant regulatory bodies and, based on their guidance / requirements, adjusting compliance activities and priorities as appropriate.
• Help drive a positive conduct and culture agenda within the firm.

Key Responsibilities:

• This role will hold SMF 16/SMF17 responsibility.
• Reporting to the CEO, the Chief Compliance Officer and MLRO (CCO) will serve as the primary interface with the FCA, in its capacity as the lead regulator.
• The CCO will input into the firm’s business strategy and be responsible for defining and implementing the Compliance strategy, which delivers against the business strategy.
• The CCO will act as the 'ambassador' of the Compliance function within the firm. As such, the CCO will be responsible for increasing the profile of the function throughout the business, and ensuring appropriate interaction between the function and the business on a day-to-day basis.
• The CCO will be accountable for and oversee the delivery of the Compliance Monitoring Programme.

Requirements:

• At least 10+ years of compliance experience within the financial services industry, specifically within prime brokerage, custody and clearing businesses
• Bachelor's Degree in Finance, Economics, or related field
• Strong product knowledge and regulatory experience within prime brokerage, custody and clearing  
• Experience writing and implementing policies and procedures, as well as remediating existing ones
• Proven ability to directly interact with regulators, understand their requests and provide guidance to the firm
• Strong research skills; analytical and problem-solving skills; and attention to detail
• Ability to identify, develop and recommend "best practices"
• Excellent communication, especially writing skills

We Offer:  

At Clear Street, we offer competitive compensation packages, company pension contribution, full medical and dental. Our belief has always been that we are better as a business when we are all together in person, and we therefore look to collaborate in person three days per week.  

Our top priority is our people. We’re continuously investing in a culture that promotes collaboration. We help each other through challenges and celebrate each other's successes. We believe that modern workplaces succeed by virtue of having high-performance workforces that are diverse — in ideas, in cultures, and in experiences. We put in the effort to make such a workplace a daily reality and are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.