Head of Compliance

Head of Compliance | Remote | South African-Qualified | AI Native | Global Fintech

Title: Head of Compliance - South African Qualified & AI Native

Salary: Negotiable, dependent on experience. Top-quartile package

Reports to: CEO

Contract: Remote, Permanent, full time

Seniority: Senior / Head of function

Benefits: Equity options and a home-office budget

Non Negotiable: SA-Qualified (CAMS,RE5, FSCA, FICA/FAIS), SumSub, AI Native

Overview

SATĀYA is representing a confidential search on behalf of a fast-scaling global fintech platform operating at the intersection of AI, tokenised assets, and real-world investing.

With tens of thousands of clients across multiple jurisdictions and backing from respected international investors, this is a business that has already earned its credibility and is now building the compliance infrastructure to match its ambition.

This is not a role for a box-ticker or clock watcher. We are looking for an operator and a builder: an AI fanatic who is ruthless about standards and almost forensic about detail. You read the FSCA handbook as logic to be engineered, not paperwork to be filed. You move at the speed of the tools you work with, you ship, and you would rather automate a problem out of existence than manage it by hand forever.

Your use of AI is systematic to the point of being mechanical: structured workflows, repeatable pipelines, and outputs engineered to come back the same way every run, never improvised. Above all, you carry a true start-up mindset: when something looks finished, that is precisely the moment you start pulling it apart to find what could be sharper.

"Good enough" is not in your vocabulary; there is only the next level up. The right person is rare precisely because they pair genuine regulatory rigour with the instincts of an engineer who is never quite satisfied.

A note on what we are actually looking for

This search is roughly 80% character and 20% credentials. The qualifications further down are the bare minimum and entry ticket, not the differentiator. We will assume you can clear them. What we are really looking for is the person.

Ideal Candidate Profile

1) You are an AI fanatic.

Systematic to the point of being robotic about AI. You treat AI as an engineering discipline: structured workflows, documented prompts, repeatable pipelines, and outputs you can reproduce and audit every single time.

You do not just use the tools, you build with them every day, and you can point to compliance work you have already automated. You do not prompt and pray. You live on the frontier. You are early to every model and capability, already using things most people have not heard of yet, and you have an opinion on which tool wins for which job and why.

2) Forensic attention to detail and ruthless about standards.

Zero tolerance for sloppy controls, gaps, or "good enough"; you raise the bar wherever you go. Nothing slips past you. When a control looks airtight, you assume it is not yet, go looking for the crack, then build the check that closes it for the whole team. Equally clear with technical and non-technical audiences. You can brief a regulator and a product engineer in the same afternoon and lose nothing in translation.

3) An operator through and through.

Bias to action, ships working systems, and would rather solve a problem in software than carry it manually forever. You measure yourself in output, not activity. You close the loop, take the decision, and own the result rather than escalating it upward. You build the function, you do not inherit it. Thin resources, ambiguity, and a blank page energise you rather than stall you.

4) A start-up mindset.

You are never finished. The moment someone thinks something looks perfect, is the moment you find the angle that makes it better. You are always levelling up, and you expect the same of everyone around you. You are wired methodically. You think in systems and checklists, you document as you go, and you would rather over-engineer a process than trust it to memory or luck.

5) Intellectually relentless and competitive.

You will work shoulder to shoulder with a founder who is exceptionally sharp and openly competitive. He is not looking for someone who agrees with him. He wants a genuine sparring partner who is better than him in this domain and who will tell him, with evidence, when he is wrong.

You hold your ground, push back hard, and raise the level of every conversation you are in. Being challenged energises you, and so does winning the argument on merit. You are quietly the best in the room at most things you turn your hand to, and you want to be around people who actually stretch you.

You play to win and you keep score. You are here to build something category-defining, not to maintain a function, and the idea of an easy, comfortable role bores you. You want to build cool things alongside people operating at the very top of their game.

Scope of Role

1) AI-Native Compliance Architecture

• Design and build autonomous and semi-autonomous compliance agents using agentic AI tooling (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini) to run FICA and FAIS reporting pipelines.
• Treat every AI workflow as a system to be documented, versioned, and reproduced, not a one-off prompt: same inputs, same reliable outputs, every time.
• Automate routine compliance tasks, surface risk intelligently, and turn a lean team into a force multiplier.
• Build and maintain a living suite of policies, SOPs, risk assessments, and procedures that reflect both regulatory requirements and operational reality.

2) Regulatory Oversight & Engagement

• Hold ultimate responsibility for the business meeting all applicable South African regulatory requirements, with primary focus on FSCA, FICA, and FAIS.
• Maintain and develop Category I, and ideally Category II, FSP compliance frameworks.
• Lead direct engagement with regulators and own the regulatory correspondence end to end.
• Stay ahead of emerging legislation in crypto and digital assets, and translate change into operational action, including Travel Rule and blockchain monitoring obligations.

3) Enablement & Product Partnership

• Partner with product, operations, and customer-facing teams to embed compliance thinking at every stage.
• Design and deliver internal training that lands with non-compliance colleagues.
• Build a culture where regulatory standards are understood and owned across the organisation, not siloed in one team.

4) AML, KYC/KYB & Data Integrity

• Lead the organisation's approach to AML, data protection, and broader risk management.
• Oversee KYC and KYB review processes and maintain the quality and integrity of due-diligence outputs.
• Apply CAMS-grade thinking to transaction monitoring as an automated, always-on process.

Qualifications & Experience (the bare minimum)

• A degree in Law, Finance, Investments, or Accounting, and an FSCA-recognised qualification.
• Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS).
• Passed the RE5 exam.
• Category I, and ideally Category II, FSP experience.
• Crypto compliance experience, including the Travel Rule and blockchain monitoring.
• Minimum 5 years in compliance or risk management in a similar role, ideally within high-growth fintech.
• Excellent working knowledge of FICA and FAIS and an expertise in risk management principles.
• Hands-on experience with Sumsub across KYC, KYB, blockchain analytics, and transaction monitoring is non-negotiable.

Tech Stack

• AI tooling: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini
• Verification and monitoring: Sumsub (KYC/KYB, Travel Rule, blockchain analytics)
• Transaction monitoring: Crystal Intelligence
• Crypto custody: Fireblocks
• Operations and comms: Google Workspace, Slack
• Design and wireframing: Figma

Why This Opportunity

• Direct API access to the CEO and a real seat at the table on compliance and AI strategy.
• Work where AI is the foundation, not a buzzword, and help automate the future of asset investing.
• A high bar. You will be surrounded by people who operate at your level.
• Fully remote flexibility with a world-class home-computer budget.
• Top-quartile compensation plus equity in a high-growth AI-fintech business.

This represents a confidential search conducted on behalf of our client. To protect the confidentiality of the business, specific company details will be shared exclusively with shortlisted candidates. Please note this role involves a structured assessment process: candidates should be prepared to demonstrate both technical compliance knowledge and applied AI capability as part of the selection journey. If you have not received a response within two weeks, please consider your application unsuccessful at this time.