Anti-Financial Crimes Senior Compliance Specialist

Description and Requirements
Role Value Proposition:
MetLife's Global Risk Management organization serves as a strategic enterprise partner to enable responsible growth in our role as a leading and innovative provider of global protection planning and retirement and savings solutions to tens of millions of customers worldwide. The department is committed to building a best-in-class second line of defense for risk identification, measurement, and mitigation.
Within Global Risk, Compliance Risk Management (CRM) provides for shared ownership of risk management and better coordination of risk prioritization across the company. CRM is responsible for designing and delivering a framework to help MetLife embed compliance and ethical behavior standards in business processes while enabling performance and growth. In its role as a strategic advisor, CEC focuses on existing and emerging risks, partnering constructively with the businesses and functions to implement strong processes, establish effective controls, and foster a culture of compliance. CRM monitors regulatory and industry trends and changes in order to develop and implement appropriate global and regional policies and procedures.
The Anti-Financial Crime Compliance team (AFC) within CRM is responsible for the effective implementation, maintenance and continuous improvement of global compliance programs for MetLife businesses relating to Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Economic & Trade Sanctions and Anti-Bribery & Corruption (AB&C) compliance risks. This individual contributor position is responsible for carrying out global obligations with respect to the function of AFC and relevant company policies and compliance with applicable international and local laws/regulations with anti-money laundering, sanctions and anti-bribery and corruption. The role entails supporting compliance teams globally with anti-money laundering, sanctions, and anti-bribery & corruption risk mitigation, remediation and compliance risk management efforts.
Key Responsibilities:

• Drive success within the Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Sanctions Compliance (SC) and Anti-Bribery & Corruption (AB&C) compliance programs by providing advice and guidance on the design of 1st line controls to adequately mitigate financial crimes risks in MetLife's global operating model, and conduct, coordinate or guide risk-prioritized testing, monitoring and surveillance activities to assess the adequacy of controls.
• Engage with 1 st and 2 nd line personnel on anti-financial crime program elements by providing effective challenge and strategic advice on program design, risk assessment control effectiveness, and monitoring and testing activities.
• Assess and respond to internal and external escalations for AML, Sanctions and AB&C compliance activities and serve as a global subject matter expert for day-to-day support for internal partners.
• Provide oversight of AML transaction monitoring activities and the investigation and reporting of suspicious activity in the U.S.
• Contribute to the management of compliance risk by performing, coordinating or supporting the identification and analysis of compliance risk exposure in connection with non-financial risk assessments and review of processes to identify non-adherence (actual or potential). Provide sound advice on required process changes to mitigate the risk of non-adherence.
• Assess and contribute to the development, implementation and continuous refinement of business and corporate function processes to compliance risks including processes to identify and ensure internal partners comply with legal and regulatory obligations for AML, SC and AB&C compliance.
• Sanctions Compliance (SC): Act as a global subject matter resource for day-to-day support to internal partners in the administration of the enterprise's sanctions and PEP watchlist screening program and provide advice and guidance to help ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations, internal policies and procedures.
• Support internal stakeholder engagements in relation to various projects, internal audits and regulatory examinations, by preparing, coordinating and reviewing deliverables.
• Collaborate alongside internal teams such as Global Technology & Operations to lead the development, testing, implementation, and continuously improvement of watchlist screening and PEP filters, rules and thresholds to ensure the SC screening systems operate effectively to meet internal and external (e.g. OFAC Sanctions Compliance) expectations or requirements.
• Lead or coordinate the analysis of sanction alerts escalated to the AFC and prepare appropriate reports (e.g. Blocked or Rejected Transaction reports and Specific License Applications) with applicable regulatory or government agencies.
• Keep abreast of US OFAC and local regulatory developments impacting MetLife operations and anticipate issues or interpret expectations derived from OFAC enforcement and other sources of regulatory expectations to manage compliance risk.
• Coordinate the timely and accurate completion of critical reports to keep CRM management, and relevant partners informed of the current status of AML, Sanctions and AB&C activities.
• Identify financial crimes compliance training needs and support development of content for business and corporate function units. As appropriate, deliver ad-hoc AML, Sanctions, or AB&C compliance training for various groups.
• Manage all aspects of assigned financial crimes compliance assignments (e.g., compliance initiatives) including providing status reporting regarding deliverables, dependencies, risks and issues, and communicating across compliance leadership including preparing reports and presentations for senior or executive level leadership.
• Additional duties as they arise based on CRM priorities or regulatory developments in the financial crimes compliance landscape.

Essential Business Experience and Technical Skills:
Required:

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience.
• Strong compliance risk management initiative experience including ability to effectively coordinate and balance multiple projects and competing priorities in a time-sensitive environment, under pressure, and meeting deadlines.
• Strong understanding of risk management and issue remediation principles.
• Ability to build relationships with key risk partners and interface with the business and corporate functions in order to facilitate the successful implementation of the Enterprise AML/ABC programs globally.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to summarize and digest content quickly and clearly.
• Detail oriented mindset with strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to identify and resolve issues with minimal supervision.
• Be proactive and influential to deal with rapid changes, and capable of handling multiple and competing priorities simultaneously.
• Work independently as well as collaboratively across CRM and other business and corporate function lines to enable proper alignment for the execution of the financial crimes' compliance programs.
• Experience with supporting vendor-based solutions including sanctions watchlist screening systems (e.g., Actimize, Oracle, Fiserv).
• Perform change impact analysis to assess the potential implications of modifications to the AML and Sanctions screening monitoring strategy for the global operation.

Preferred:

• 8 years of relevant work experience in AML, Sanctions and AB&C Compliance and with a medium to large size global financial or insurance services institution preferred.
• Strong AML, Sanctions and AB&C compliance risk management experience including subject matter expertise, suspicious activity investigation and reporting, compliance training, watchlist screening analysis and experience with the development of rules, filters and thresholds preferred.

The salary range for applicants for this position is $103,100 - $137,400.
Benefits We Offer
Our U.S. benefits address holistic well-being with programs for physical and mental health, financial wellness, and support for families. We offer a comprehensive health plan that includes medical/prescription drug and vision, dental insurance, and no-cost short- and long-term disability. We also provide company-paid life insurance and legal services, a retirement pension funded entirely by MetLife and 401(k) with employer matching, group discounts on voluntary insurance products including auto and home, pet, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and accident insurance, as well as Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and digital mental health programs, parental leave, volunteer time off, tuition assistance and much more!
About MetLife
Recognized on Fortune magazine's list of the 2024 "World's Most Admired Companies" as well as the 2024 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For ®, MetLife , through its subsidiaries and affiliates, is one of the world's leading financial services companies; providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to individual and institutional customers. With operations in more than 40 markets, we hold leading positions in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Our purpose is simple - to help our colleagues, customers, communities, and the world at large create a more confident future. United by purpose and guided by empathy, we're inspired to transform the next century in financial services. At MetLife, it's #AllTogetherPossible . Join us!
Equal Employment Opportunity/Disability/Veterans
If you need an accommodation due to a disability, please email us at [email protected]. This information will be held in confidence and used only to determine an appropriate accommodation for the application process.
MetLife maintains a drug-free workplace.
$103,100 - $137,400
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