VP & Senior Counsel

At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. As part of Team Amex, you'll experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career.

Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.

The General Counsel's Organization (GCO) at American Express is seeking a Vice President & Senior Counsel to serve as a lead lawyer for Global Financial Crimes coordinating financial crimes legal services across the enterprise and International businesses. The successful candidate will join a Global Financial Crimes team as a key leader of subject matter experts who advise all American Express business lines, lines of defence and functions. This is a dynamic and skilled team of professionals who provide strategic advice to American Express on a critical area of risk management for the enterprise. This role will not only advise and lead advice for individual business lines or functional areas but will also advise the enterprise and its holistic enterprise risk management of financial crime risk and will be expected to be proactive and keep the big picture front of mind to ensure the advice and risk management supports strategic and industry priorities. This is also a role for thought leadership and staying at pace and ahead of industry and policy development to ensure state of the art financial crimes legal advice on emerging policy, business development and evolution of industry better practices. Collaboration skills will be key to manage the portfolio of work, adopt the big picture mind set and proactively advise American Express.

The Global Financial Crimes GCO team advises all lines of the American Express business and all lines of defense and other functional area. It is a team of subject matter experts, plugged into industry developments and emerging issues and opportunities evolving in financial crimes risk management. This team advises headquarters, senior management and parent and legal entity boards, across all business lines and geographies where American Express operates. It collaborates closely with teams in the GCO who advise the business areas on a day to day basis. Further, this team works closely with legal colleagues who advise the international markets where American Express does business and marries together subject matter support with local know how. Colleagues in Compliance, Risk and Internal Audit are key stakeholders and recipients of subject matter support. Global Financial Crimes works closely with Regulatory Relations and Government Affairs to support policy engagement and interpretation and engagement with regulators. From time to time, the team also supports teams in GCO who manage investigations and enforcement matters to supply subject matter expertise. This is a dynamic team of experts who collaborate across teams and borders to support the American Express enterprise and local businesses to manage financial crimes risk.

How will you make an impact in this role?

• Lead senior lawyer based in the EU to join a team of talented attorneys to provide legal and strategic advice on financial crime risk management across business lines, functions and geographies
• Provide senior and strategic leadership on delivering subject matter expertise to local markets and individual businesses, while maintain an enterprise lens
• Lead lawyers in the International markets, ensuring seamless team collaboration across time zones and responsibilities
• Support thought leadership for American Express both internally and engaging externally with industry groups and other forums
• Provide strategic financial crimes legal advice to senior management and legal entity boards
• Lead Global Financial Crimes for GCO including supporting function-wide initiatives and administration
• Manage external counsel and other third party relationships that support Global Financial Crimes provision of legal services
• Mentor and develop legal talent internally both within the Global Financial Crimes team and in the GCO function
• Support key strategic enterprise or multi-jurisdictional projects, ensuring excellent and efficient provision of subject matter services
• Collaborate across GCO teams to provide subject matter input in, e.g., regulatory engagements, policy initiatives, investigations, regulatory actions and enforcement
• Support Chief Counsel on team development and enterprise initiatives and ensuring robust stakeholder engagement model

Minimum Qualifications

• License to practice law in EU, UK and/or US
• 8-10 years of relevant work experience in a law firm and/or in-house corporate legal environment
• Direct experience advising on financial crime laws and regulations including anti-money laundering, sanctions and anti-corruption
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to balance priorities and enterprise frameworks
• Ability to communicate complex issues clearly and persuasively, in both written and oral format, and to synthesize complex issues for senior leaders
• Excellent collaboration and teamwork skills and ability to work well in cross-functional team settings
• Executive presence and ability to effectively interact at all levels within the organization and with external counterparties
• Proven ability to act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders
• Self-motivated, high level of personal energy and commitment
• Proven experience leading and collaborating with talented lawyers in multiple jurisdictions

Preferred Qualifications

Prior experience advising financial institutions and/or payment services institutions

Experience advising U.S. headquartered institutions, balancing EU/local laws with U.S. enterprise frameworks

We back you with benefits that support your holistic well-being so you can be and deliver your best. This means caring for you and your loved ones' physical, financial, and mental health, as well as providing the flexibility you need to thrive personally and professionally:

• Competitive base salaries
• Bonus incentives
• Support for financial-well-being and retirement
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits (depending on location)
• Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need
• Generous paid parental leave policies (depending on your location)
• Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location)
• Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program
• Career development and training opportunities

Offer of employment with American Express is conditioned upon the successful completion of a background verification check, subject to applicable laws and regulations.