This Candidate is an extremely impressive Compliance Manager with over 18 years of experience in Risk & Compliance gained within both Magic Circle & Off Shore law firms.
For the past 6+ years, they have been managing a team of 12 at an Offshore Law Firm in South Africa. This line management includes training, managing performance and conducting regular one-on-ones and appraisals.

They are currently the escalation point for complex Conflicts and CDD/EDD issues. They have sound knowledge of complex ownership structures and are familiar with dealing with UHNW
clients in locations such as the Middle East, Russia, and Asia as well as having US experience from their time at a Magic Circle Law Firm.
They love the people management side of their role. They enjoy mentoring and leading the team, as well as helping people "mature" throughout their careers.
They previously lived in the UK, back in 2020 they were considering moving back but with the pandemic happening, it wasn't the right timing. They are now ready to explore coming back to London again.

They have a dual passport so will not require visa sponsorship.

Experience

Compliance Manager | Offshore Law Firm | May 2018 - Present

The purpose of the role is to ensure that the organisation remains compliant with its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing obligations during the course of client take-on. The role entails business-as-usual activities in addition to participating in projects relating to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing ("AML/CFT") and sanctions in relation to client take-on and/or periodic reviews that are required to be completed for AML/CFT purposes.

• Manage the centralised Customer Due Diligence (“CDD”) team to include recruitment, training, appraisal, performance management and motivation.
• Continue the deployment of policies and procedures to the CDD team and wider business
• Manage matter allocation and associated workflows across the team
• Act as a SME on AML and CFT queries in relation to client take-on
• Apply a risk-based methodology to the determination of CDD
• Make recommendations for improvements to the end-to-end client onboarding process and the QA process managing the introduction of any agreed enhancements.

Achievements:

• Manage operational issues including recording of issues identified and tracking actions to resolve through to completion
• Manage the output of Compliance Monitoring findings
• Form part of the escalation process for high-risk and/ or complex matters that require senior management input and making decisions on whether matters need to be referred for approvals
• Manage the training and communication of process updates to various business areas
• Advise and support the business on any recruitment, systems and training and deployment requirements
• Project activities in relation to client onboarding, processes, systems and controls
• Developed and implemented a Centralised Conflicts Checking Process; removing the responsibility from the Fee Earners to focus on client billing
• Designed a comprehensive MI programme, monitoring team productivity and risk assessments per jurisdiction

Assistant Service Delivery Manager | Magic Circle Law Firm | Oct 2016 - Mar 2018

• Manage the firm’s risk exposure and provide advice to the firm on a range of legal and compliance issues relating to business acceptance (including conflicts, confidentiality, client due diligence, sanctions, and reputational and commercial risk). Responsible for the day-to-day management of the Centre Business Acceptance team, while also dealing directly with business acceptance requests

Achievements:

• Service delivery, continuous improvement and reporting across the Legal Department
• Ensuring all KPIs are met or exceeded
• Ensuring the quality, speed and accuracy of all deliverables, data and information originating from the team
• Assist the new team with upskilling their analysis of trickier matters
• Recruiting of new team members
• Using Lean Six Sigma to simplify workflow; reducing emails by 60%
• Setting up and developing the Centre-based team

Conflicts Research Manager | Magic Circle Law Firm | Nov 2015 - Oct 2016

Achievements:

• Managing the team and scheduling and delegating individual duties and tasks
• Developing work practices and updating procedures regularly to deliver better working standards and service delivery
• Assisting the team with queries and training new members
• Management of a diverse team, including recruitment, engagement, appraisals, holiday allocation and setting objectives
• Works closely with the Senior Management within the Legal Department to ensure a consistent and integrated service is delivered
• Maintaining the Conflicts of Interest Working Practices
• Compiling daily and weekly reports
• Ongoing training and improvement of the team
• Piloted and implemented a new out-of-hours process slashing the number of reports run and emails sent by 50%
• Successfully managed team through redundancy process resulting in no drop in productivity and efficiency

Conflicts Researcher & Senior Conflicts Researcher | Magic Circle Law Firm | Apr 2006 - Oct 2015

• Communicating directly with the partners to ensure that all information regarding a potential mandate is received
• Using official sources to confirm client name changes
• Proofreading legal documents for spelling and grammatical errors and editing file descriptions before they become 'live' for use
• Constructing, updating and maintaining the Risk Register
• Ensuring that all external changes to the database have been checked and verified
• Running conflicts reports on our bespoke conflicts system and creating tailor-made search strings in order to create the most effective reports for analysis
• Maintaining order on the conflicts database

Security Guard | Magic Circle Law Firm | Jan 2004 - Mar 2006

Temp roles Various Agencies

• Travelled within South Africa and then overseas; working mainly in the hospitality industry and temping through agencies.

Education

Higher Grade (including English and Mathematics) | Matric
Certificate Project Management and Leadership