Vice President, AML and Fraud Risk Technology

Job Description Summary

Partners at all levels of the organization to develop, implement, and execute an organization-wide IT strategy that optimizes employee capabilities, achieves the organization's strategic objectives, and delivers competitive advantage.

Job Description

This position follows our hybrid-friendly schedule, so you get the best of both worlds – flexibility and collaboration. In office days will be 2-3 per week averaging 10-12 days per month in our St Petersburg, FL Corporate Office.
 

Job Summary

The Vice President, AML and Fraud Risk Technology, is a senior leader within the Technology organization, responsible for shaping and executing the strategy, architecture, roadmap, and delivery of innovative technology solutions that enable advanced Anti-Money Laundering (AML), fraud prevention, and financial crime risk management capabilities. This role is central to developing scalable, regulatory-compliant, and intelligence-driven platforms that utilize cutting-edge technologies—including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and advanced analytics—to proactively detect, prevent, and mitigate financial crime risk across the firm's core business segments.

Reporting into the Technology organization, this executive is a key enabler of the enterprise’s Financial Crime Risk Framework, responsible for delivering secure and resilient technology solutions that power real-time monitoring, behavior analytics, sanctions screening, and case management systems. The VP will lead initiatives to develop holistic, end-to-end solutions that incorporate advanced analytics and emerging technologies—such as graph analytics, cloud-native architectures, natural language processing (NLP),  and real-time data streaming—to enhance detection capabilities, support investigative workflows, and strengthen cross-functional compliance and financial crime risk operations.

This role works in close partnership with Financial Crimes, Enterprise Risk, Legal, Internal Audit, Segment Risk Officers, and enterprise data and infrastructure teams to ensure timely, accurate, and actionable risk intelligence. Additionally, the role plays a critical part in supporting regulatory readiness, ensuring platforms and controls meet evolving global compliance standards and supervisory expectations.

Responsibilities

• Act as the primary technology faceoff to the AML and Fraud teams, translating compliance needs into actionable technical requirements, gathering feedback on system performance, and ensuring solutions directly support investigative and regulatory workflows.

• Define and own the target-state architecture for the firm’s AML, Fraud, and Financial Crimes technology ecosystem—designing scalable, modular platforms that enable advanced detection, investigation, and compliance capabilities across all business segments.

• Develop and maintain the application strategy and roadmap for core AML and fraud systems—including transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, KYC/CDD, case management, and fraud analytics—ensuring integration with enterprise systems and data flows.

• Architect end-to-end solutions that translate regulatory and policy requirements into configurable application workflows and microservices-based components, enabling automation of alerts, investigations, reporting, and escalation logic.

• Define the strategic application of AI and machine learning within the AML and Fraud technology ecosystem—identifying high-impact use cases such as anomaly detection, entity resolution, and alert prioritization, and ensuring model integration aligns with platform architecture, regulatory expectations, and operational needs.

• Lead the buildout of a unified Financial Crimes Data Platform—integrated with the Risk and Controls data platform -- designing ingestion pipelines, common risk ontologies, and analytics-ready data models that serve AML operations, compliance officers, and fraud investigators.

• Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Security, and Data Engineering teams to implement solutions  that support flexible deployment, real-time analytics, and secure integration across the enterprise.

• Represent technology during regulatory audits, exams and validations.

• Provide architectural oversight for the selection, integration, and customization of third-party AML/Fraud solutions—ensuring vendor technologies align with enterprise standards and support extensibility, observability, and resilience.

• Lead the rationalization and modernization of legacy financial crime applications, driving convergence onto strategic platforms and decommissioning redundant or siloed systems.

• Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders—including Compliance, Risk, Operations, and Data Governance—to ensure application capabilities align with business needs, regulatory requirements, and control expectations.

• Establish and enforce architectural standards, patterns, and best practices for AML and fraud application development, integration, and lifecycle management.

• Oversee agile delivery teams in the design, development, and deployment of new features and platform capabilities, ensuring delivery quality, scalability, and operational performance.

• Oversee financial planning and vendor management for AML and fraud technology initiatives, including managing multi-million-dollar budgets and leading contract negotiations with third-party solution providers

• Deliver architectural documentation, technology roadmaps, and executive-level presentations that guide platform investment decisions and inform enterprise risk technology strategy.

• Champion modernization initiatives focused on platform reengineering, containerization, orchestration, and adoption of real-time processing frameworks to support evolving AML and fraud use cases.

Qualifications

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Finance, or a related field (Master’s preferred).

• 15+ years of experience in financial services technology, with 10+ years in  AML,  fraud  risk, and finance-related systems leadership.

• Strong track record of implementing enterprise-grade technology solutions in support of financial crimes risk management.

Technical Expertise

• Deep knowledge of AML and Fraud platform design and architecture, including transaction monitoring, case management, sanctions screening, and KYC/CDD systems.

• Experience building scalable, secure enterprise platforms

• Experienced in the  design, development, and deployment of AML and fraud solutions on cloud platforms

• Proficient in integrating third-party financial crime tools into enterprise ecosystems, including customization and performance tuning.

• Strong background in data engineering and analytics, including real-time data streaming, data lakes, and batch processing frameworks.

• Familiarity with AI/ML techniques applied to financial crime detection, including anomaly detection, alert scoring, and network analysis—ensuring alignment with model governance and regulatory expectations.

• Deep understanding of regulatory technology requirements, including compliance with BSA/AML, FinCEN, OFAC, and other global frameworks.

Leadership & Communication

• Proven ability to lead and mobilize cross-functional teams across Risk, Technology, and Operations to deliver high-impact AML and Fraud technology initiatives.

• Trusted partner to senior executives, with a strong track record of influencing decision-making through clear, compelling communication and data-driven insights.

• Skilled at navigating complex, matrixed organizations—aligning diverse stakeholder priorities and driving consensus on strategic technology investments.

• Recognized for driving innovation in financial crime technology—leading the adoption of emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics to improve detection efficiency and investigative effectiveness.

• Strong team-building capabilities with a focus on cultivating high-performing, collaborative, and agile engineering organizations; committed to talent development and leadership mentoring.

• Proven experience in managing multi-million-dollar budgets and leading contract negotiations with AML/fraud solution vendors.

• Known for bridging business and technology effectively—translating regulatory and operational challenges into scalable, forward-looking solutions.

• Adept at leading enterprise-wide transformation programs that enhance financial crime risk posture, modernize platforms, and streamline operations.

Education

Bachelor’s: Computer and Information Science (Required), Bachelor’s: Data Science, Bachelor’s: Information Technology

Work Experience

Manager Experience - 10 to 15 years

Certifications

Travel

Less than 25%

Workstyle

Hybrid

At Raymond James our associates use five guiding behaviors (Develop, Collaborate, Decide, Deliver, Improve) to deliver on the firm's core values of client-first, integrity, independence and a conservative, long-term view. 

We expect our associates at all levels to:
•  Grow professionally and inspire others to do the same
•  Work with and through others to achieve desired outcomes
•  Make prompt, pragmatic choices and act with the client in mind
•  Take ownership and hold themselves and others accountable for delivering results that matter
•  Contribute to the continuous evolution of the firm

At Raymond James – as part of our people-first culture, we honor, value, and respect the uniqueness, experiences, and backgrounds of all of our Associates.  When associates bring their best authentic selves, our organization, clients, and communities thrive. The Company is an equal opportunity employer and makes all employment decisions on the basis of merit and business needs. 

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