Head of Compliance & MLRO, Upvest
+ Participation in our employee equity program
Investment API
Be an early applicant
Investment API
101-200 employees
Be an early applicant
+ Participation in our employee equity program
101-200 employees
Company mission
Upvest's mission is to make investing as easy as spending money and to enable businesses to build investment experiences their customers love.
Role
Who you are
- 7+ years of experience in compliance and AML within a UK-regulated investment firm, wealth manager, or brokerage
- Direct experience holding or being ready to hold SMF 16/17 (Head of Compliance & MLRO) status
- Proven expertise in the UK wealth/investments landscape, with a deep understanding of FCA rules (COBS, Consumer Duty)
- Significant experience with SIPPs/Pensions is highly desirable to support our retirement planning product expansion
- Strategic thinking with the ability to scale compliance practices in a high-growth, fast-paced fintech environment
- Pragmatic and commercial problem solving applied to the specific needs of our B2B and B2B2C business models
- Leadership experience in managing stakeholders and building a compliance-focused culture that supports business innovation
- A legal background (lawyer or significant legal experience) is considered a plus for interpreting complex regulatory frameworks
What the job involves
- As the Head of Compliance and MLRO, you are responsible for the strategic oversight and execution of our regulatory framework in the UK
- You will hold the SMF 16 and SMF 17 functions for Upvest Securities Ltd, acting as a senior business partner to ensure our growth is built on a foundation of regulatory excellence
- You will lead the development of a robust compliance and AML function that aligns with FCA standards and supports our ambitious product roadmap, including the launch of our SIPP (pensions) offering
- By fostering a "Compliance by Design" culture, you will enable Upvest to scale its financial infrastructure to millions of end-users while maintaining the highest levels of integrity and trust with regulators, clients, and partners
- Serve as the primary UK regulatory lead, holding the Senior Management Functions (SMF 16/17) and acting as one of the main points of contact for the FCA
- Lead the regulatory workstream for our UK SIPP launch, ensuring our pension products meet all specific tax and FCA requirements from day one
- Oversee Financial Crime prevention, providing AML guidance, and maintaining oversight of fraud, bribery, and sanctions risks
- Review and enhance the risk based Compliance Monitoring Programme (CMP). Ensure that our B2B partners are meeting their integrated compliance obligations
- Implement data-driven monitoring and reporting to ensure continuous adherence to COBS, CASS, SYSC, and the Consumer Duty
- Partner with Product, Engineering and Growth teams to integrate compliance considerations into the development of new investment products and automated workflows, and provide guidance and support for client discussions on regulatory topics where required
- Act as a senior advisor to the Board and Management providing independent challenge and translating complex UK regulatory developments into actionable strategic insights and policies
- Lead and develop a high-performing UK compliance function, fostering a culture of technical excellence, autonomy, and proactive risk mitigation
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Upvest is a fintech startup that empowers financial services companies to provide their customers with access to a full range of financial assets, including stocks, ETFs and crypto products. Upvest's investment API integrates seamlessly with its customers existing systems and is designed to scale easily, freeing companies from the need to develop their own brokerage and custody infrastructure from scratch.
As one of the few companies in Germany that is licensed for both the custody of traditional securities and crypto, Upvest is able to provide its services across Europe. Its solution has been readily adopted by some major players in the space including Ginmon, Vivid and ABN AMRO.
Upvest is backed by a number of Europe's largest tech VCs (Earlybird, Notion Capital, Partech, HV Capital, ABN AMRO Ventures) alongside American investment monolith BlackRock. In 2023, it closed a VC investment round, which the company has claimed is one of the largest in the German fintech arena. This was followed up by an impressive Series C at the end of 2024, which is being used to grow its team, enhance its product and cement its presence in the UK.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
40% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 9 rounds)
Mar 2026
$90m
LATE VC
Dec 2024
$105.1m
SERIES C
Total funding: $289.5m
Company benefits
- Greenfield projects - We’re building something quite complex. A first in Europe. This means you get to work with cutting-edge technologies, with no legacy code.
- Wellbeing - Everyone here has access to our in-house coach. You can have regular sessions to support you personally and professionally. We also believe it’s important to have time out to rest and recover, which is why we offer 30 days’ holiday.
- Development - In keeping with one of our values, ‘Learn and grow’, every Upvenger has access to a development budget. And in line with one of our other values, ‘Own the outcome’, how you make the most of it is up to you.
- Flexibility - We work in a hybrid set-up, with the team spread around Germany and other parts of Europe. We give you the choice and budget to work where you’re most comfortable and productive, either at home or in the office. You choose.
Company HQ
Kollwitzkiez, Berlin, Germany
Leadership
Martin Kassing
(Founder & CEO)They have experience in fintech, private equity and capital markets. Founded another fintech, Shop.co, which was acquired by Klarna.
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