Formed in 1934, Telhio began as a credit union for Columbus Telephone Company (now AT&T) employees. Telhio now serves over 70,000 member-owners throughout central and southwest Ohio. As one of the largest credit unions in Ohio, Telhio is a strong financial institution that continues to serve its members through extraordinary service, innovative financial solutions and community involvement. After generations of service and growth, we never lose focus of our three core values - Caring, Commitment, and Integrity.
Summary:
The Vice President, Financial Crimes (AML & Fraud) provides enterprise leadership for the Credit Union’s financial crimes risk program across BSA/AML, OFAC/sanctions, and fraud risk management. This role designs and executes a risk-based strategy to prevent, detect, investigate, and report suspicious activity; ensures compliance with applicable laws and regulations; and strengthens member and operational protections against fraud and financial crime. As the designated BSA/AML and OFAC Officer, this leader serves as the primary point of accountability for the Credit Union’s AML/OFAC program governance, regulatory readiness, examination management, and board reporting. The role partners closely with Fraud Operations, Security, IT, Digital Banking, Member Services, Lending, and Legal/Compliance functions to drive effective controls, analytics, training, and continuous improvement. As the designated Fraud Officer, this role is accountable for the enterprise fraud risk management framework, including fraud strategy, governance, detection, investigations oversight, and loss mitigation across all products, channels, and payment rails. The Fraud Officer provides executive leadership and independent challenge to ensure fraud risks are identified, assessed, and managed consistent with the Credit Union’s risk appetite, regulatory expectations, and member‑first principles. This designation includes ownership of fraud risk reporting, escalation of material fraud issues, and regular communication to executive leadership and the Board on fraud trends, losses, control effectiveness, and emerging threats.
Responsibilities:
Enterprise Financial Crimes Leadership (AML / OFAC / Fraud)
- Own and execute the Credit Union’s enterprise financial crimes strategy across BSA/AML, OFAC, and fraud, aligned to the organization’s risk appetite and strategic objectives.
- Establish and maintain the financial crimes governance framework, including policies, standards, procedures, risk assessments, and control monitoring.
- Define and monitor KPIs/KRIs, trend analysis, and program performance metrics; drive continuous improvement and control effectiveness.
- Anticipate and respond to emerging financial crime threats (e.g., synthetic identity, account takeover, mule activity, payment scams, crypto‑related risks) and ensure controls evolve accordingly.
BSA/AML & OFAC Officer Accountabilities
- Serve as the designated BSA/AML and OFAC Officer, accountable for overall program effectiveness, independence, and regulatory compliance.
- Direct the enterprise BSA/AML risk assessment, including customer/member risk segmentation, product and channel risk analysis, and control enhancements.
- Oversee suspicious activity monitoring and investigations, including alert governance, SAR decisioning, filing quality, and timeliness.
- Ensure OFAC compliance, including sanctions screening governance, interdiction processes, escalation and clearing decisions, and required reporting.
- Provide regular reporting to the CRO, executive leadership, and the Board or designated committee on AML/OFAC risk posture, issues, and remediation progress.
Fraud Officer Accountabilities
- Serve as the designated Fraud Officer and single point of accountability for the Credit Union’s enterprise fraud risk management framework.
- Establish fraud governance, strategy, and standards across all products, channels, and payment rails (e.g., cards, ACH, wires, P2P, checks, RTP/instant payments).
- Oversee fraud risk identification, detection, investigations governance, and loss mitigation, ensuring alignment with risk appetite and member‑first principles.
- Own fraud risk reporting and escalation, including communication of material fraud events, trends, losses, and control effectiveness to executive leadership and the Board.
- Provide independent challenges to fraud operations and business partners to ensure risks are appropriately identified, assessed, and managed.
Investigations, Case Management & Law Enforcement Coordination
- Oversee complex investigations involving suspicious activity, identity theft, elder financial exploitation, internal misconduct, and organized fraud.
- Ensure strong case management standards, evidence preservation, documentation quality, and escalation protocols.
- Coordinate regulatory and law enforcement requests (e.g., subpoenas, 314(a) requests) in partnership with Legal and Compliance.
Regulatory Exams, Audits, and Issue Management
- Participates with examiners and auditors for AML/OFAC and fraud-related reviews, coordinate materials, walkthroughs, and responses.
- Ensure timely updates to policies, procedures, and training based on regulatory guidance, examination feedback, and emerging risks.
People Leadership & Training
- Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing financial crimes team (AML investigations, OFAC, fraud risk, analytics, and/or QA as applicable).
- Establish role clarity, performance standards, training plans, and professional development pathways.
- Ensure enterprise-wide training and awareness for BSA/AML, OFAC, and fraud prevention—tailored to roles and risk exposure.
Cross-Functional Partnership
- Collaborate with Compliance, Risk, Operations, Lending, Digital Banking, Member Experience, Security, IT, and HR to embed financial crimes controls.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree Finance, Criminology, Risk Management, or related field (or equivalent experience)
- 10+ years of progressive experience in financial crimes compliance, AML/BSA, OFAC/sanctions, and/or fraud risk management within a financial institution.
- 5+ years in people leadership with demonstrated ability to develop teams and build sustainable programs 3-5 years Interpreting financial data.
- Demonstrated experience leading BSA/AML and OFAC programs including risk assessment, monitoring, investigations, SAR governance, and exam management
- Proven track record partnering with senior leaders, influencing across functions, and presenting to executives/Board committees
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience as (or direct support to) a designated BSA Officer/AML Officer in a credit union or similarly regulated institution.
- Professional certifications: CAMS, CFCS, CFE, CRCMP, CIPM, or comparable credentials.
- Experience implementing or optimizing AML/fraud systems (transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, case management, identity verification, fraud detection tools).
- Experience with data analytics, dashboards, and reporting (e.g., Power BI/Tableau) and partnering with data science/engineering teams.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
- Strong working knowledge of fraud typologies and controls across digital channels and payments
- Possesses expert written, oral and interpersonal communication skills.
- Excellent judgment, investigative rigor, and ability to operate effectively in sensitive and time-critical situations
What you will earn:
- Competitive pay
- Benefits: medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance
- 6% matching and immediately vested 401(k) plan
- Paid holidays, vacation and personal time
- Opportunity for personal career growth, continued education and mentorship programs
- Volunteer opportunities impacting the local community
Physical Demands
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
While performing the duties of this job, you will need to have good manual dexterity as well as speaking and hearing ability. This position requires sitting; some reaching; standing; some stooping or kneeling. The employee must occasionally lift and move up to 50 pounds. It is expected that the employee will read, compile, compute and record numerical and statistical data. Must drive occasionally.
This is a Non-Collective Bargaining Unit
Telhio is an Equal Opportunity Employer
