About Column

For companies building financial technology and transforming the financial services space, the biggest bottleneck to their growth and innovation is often the underlying banks and infrastructure stack they rely on. We have spent our careers founding and scaling companies like Plaid, Square, SoFi, Blend, and Affirm, and have seen this problem firsthand — builders and developers needing to partner with traditional banks, and creating API and abstraction layers over the patchwork that is the bank, its core, and many other vendors. All of this results in a complex (and often expensive) banking supply chain involving a user, fintech, BaaS middleware provider, bank, core and the Federal Reserve.

At Column, we set out to simplify and fix this. We are a bank and a software company built from the ground up, offering builders and developers technology-forward banking solutions that cut out the hundreds of vendors, middleware providers, and abstraction layers. This means a safer, more transparent, and less costly banking supply chain. Come build with us!

The opportunity

As the Head of Risk Operations, you will play a pivotal role in building Column’s operational and strategic muscle. Acquiring, onboarding and monitoring our customers is the most critical function at Column - we’re designing and implementing a new standard. We are committed to going beyond industry and regulatory expectations in our approach to managing the risk associated with our customer and partner relationships - we are also committed to thinking differently, and innovating how we perform critical risk and compliance activities so that they hum with precision and operate like a Tesla-level factory. 

As a result, we are not necessarily looking for someone who grew up in banking for this position. Instead, we are looking for someone who will challenge the status quo, utilizing their highly strategic, operational, and product-oriented mindset to weave technology and automation into our Risk Operations. This individual will oversee a team of operational and risk professionals who execute customer and partner due diligence, as well as ongoing monitoring and compliance testing of their programs with Column. The Head of Risk Operations is responsible for creating a system to ensure that this team’s execution is flawless, and can effectively scale as we hit the accelerator on customer growth. This individual will help influence our growth strategy more broadly as a member of the Column leadership team, and will partner closely with leaders across our engineering, business, and go-to-market teams to implement our vision.

This position will report to our CEO and Chief Risk Officer. This role will be based in person in our Presidio-based office in San Francisco (3-4 days/week), and we will support relocation for the right candidate. 

What you’ll do

• Lead and manage a world-class team overseeing customer and partner due diligence and onboarding processes, as well as ongoing monitoring and testing (i.e. ‘Risk Operations’)

• Set the strategy, vision, and action plan for up-leveling Column’s approach to Risk Operations in a way that:

  • Exceeds regulatory expectations

  • Creates a frictionless experience for our customers

  • Scales so that our team gets better, not bigger

• Partner cross-functionally with individuals across the team (Engineering, Go-to-market, Business, Legal, Risk, Compliance) to execute that plan and launch new automation, tooling improvements, and clear operational standards

• Become an expert on Column’s value proposition, products, customer base, risk and compliance programs, policies, and tools - while we don’t expect you to be an expert on this Day 1, you will need to learn quickly

• Build trust and strong relationships across Column’s customer and partner portfolio, surfacing and responding to feedback on how we can improve our customer-facing Risk Ops processes and tools to create an industry-leading experience

• Stay closely engaged with evolving industry and regulatory expectations regarding risk and compliance best practices - always be looking around the corner and anticipating how we will need to evolve our operations to stay one step ahead of expectations

• Provide periodic reporting on Column’s Risk Operations to Management and the Board

What you’ll need to be successful

• 10 years of experience in strategy and business operations in a high-growth environment; prior experience at a top-tier management consulting firm preferred

• 5 years of people management experience (managing teams that are 5 people in size), including experience hiring and holding teams accountable to high-performance standards

• Proven track record of designing and implementing factory-like operational processes that utilize automation and innovative tech

• Ability to jump into new situations and quickly solve problems, with an eye towards architecting solutions that will scale

• Hyper-organized approach to project management, including coordinating efforts across multiple teams; comfort juggling multiple projects and priorities is critical

• Scrappy, roll-up-your-sleeves attitude - we thrive because we work harder, are more creative, and have zero ego when it comes to getting our hands dirty to build a business

• Familiarity with the banking and fintech industries is preferred, but not required - an interest in becoming an expert in this space, however, is a must

What you’ll get from us

• Flexible PTO

• Competitive medical, dental, and vision plans (including options 100% subsidized by Column)

• FSA HSA options

• 401(k) plan

• Commuter benefits

• Sponsored lunches and dinners

We look forward to hearing from you

Column is committed to working with the best and brightest people from the broadest talent pool possible. We value bringing together a team with different perspectives, educational backgrounds, and life experiences, and believe a diversity of ideas is what allows us to develop the best solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.

If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation during the application and recruiting process, please reach out to accommodations@column.com.

We participate in the E-Verify program in certain locations as required by law. Learn more about the E-Verify program here.