Operational Risk Manager

Manager, GRM AI TransformationCircle (NYSE: CRCL) is one of the world's leading internet financial platform companies, building the foundation of a more open, global economy through digital assets, payment applications, and programmable blockchain infrastructure. Circle's platform includes the world's largest regulated stablecoin network anchored by USDC, Circle Payments Network for global money movement, and Arc, an enterprise-grade blockchain designed to become the Economic OS for the internet. Enterprises, financial institutions, and developers use Circle to power trusted, internet-scale financial innovation.Circle is committed to visibility and stability in everything we do. As we grow as an organization, we're expanding into some of the world's strongest jurisdictions. Speed and efficiency are motivators for our success and our employees live by our company values: High Integrity, Future Forward, Multistakeholder, Mindful, and Driven by Excellence. We have built a flexible work environment where new ideas are encouraged and everyone is a stakeholder.As Manager, GRM AI Transformation, you will help lead the reinvention of how Circle's Global Risk Management (GRM) organization operates — moving it from today's manually intensive processes to an AI-native operating model in which intelligent agents run core workflows end to end, and people focus on judgment, oversight, and the highest-stakes decisions. Reporting to the leader of GRM's AI transformation, you will partner with process owners across compliance, financial crime, security, financial risk, and enterprise risk to define an ambitious vision for every process, challenge long-held assumptions about how the work must be done, and translate that vision into a portfolio of AI applications and reusable capabilities that scale across the organization. This role sits at the intersection of business process transformation, risk management, and applied AI: you will drive change management and the mindset shifts it requires, stand up the shared building blocks and guardrails that make AI safe and responsible, and coordinate closely with Circle's central AI team and AI leaders across the company to advance an enterprise-wide transformation. Success means a GRM that decouples business growth from headcount, moves at machine speed, and preserves the risk-management discipline and controls that Circle's customers, regulators, and markets rely on.What you'll work on:Lead workshops and working sessions with GRM process owners to reimagine their processes from first principles and define an ambitious AI-native "future state" vision for each one.Challenge long-held assumptions and drive the mindset shift from "today's processes with AI added on" to processes designed natively around intelligent agents — bringing rigorous business-process-optimization and transformation discipline to the effort.Help build GRM into an AI-native organization whose core processes are led by agents, with people focused on judgment, exceptions, and oversight.Champion consistent execution of Circle's AI Risk Management framework across all GRM AI developments — ensuring every AI-native process is risk-assessed, appropriately controlled, and shipped with the guardrails and human-in-the-loop oversight needed to keep AI safe, responsible, explainable, and auditable.Help shape GRM's AI-native vision and target architecture, including a foundation of reusable "primitives" — modular capabilities that provide common functionality once and are leveraged by many different business processes rather than rebuilt for each.Champion a "build once, reuse everywhere" model, prioritizing and sequencing these foundational building blocks so they unlock and accelerate the broader portfolio of process-level AI initiatives.Drive the development of the AI applications most pivotal to GRM's transformation — from scoping and requirements through build, testing, launch, adoption, and measurable impact.Translate risk and compliance domain needs into clear solution designs, success criteria, and outcomes, partnering closely with process owners, builders, and engineering to keep initiatives moving.Partner with Circle's central AI team and with AI leaders across other (non-GRM) organizations to align on shared platforms, standards, and best practices and to advance enterprise-wide AI transformation.Coordinate and enable GRM's community of AI drivers and hands-on builders, and represent GRM's priorities in enterprise AI forums — feeding GRM use cases into shared infrastructure and bringing enterprise capabilities back into GRM.Own and continuously improve GRM-level reporting on the AI transformation — maintaining a clear view of initiatives in flight, progress against roadmap, measurable impact, blockers, and dependencies.Prepare updates and materials for GRM leadership, executive reviews, and risk committees, and keep GRM's roadmap aligned with the central AI team's programs and cadence.What you'll bring to Circle:Core Requirements:7+ years of experience in business process transformation, operational excellence, management consulting, product/program management, or a related discipline, including leading process redesign or automation initiatives that changed how work gets done.A demonstrated ability to reimagine and optimize complex business processes — mapping current state, designing a bold future state, and driving the organizational change and mindset shifts required to get there.Strong working fluency with modern AI, including generative AI and agentic / AI-native concepts, and a track record of applying it to real business problems. You do not need to be an ML engineer, but you must be able to think in terms of what AI can do and design processes around it.Experience driving cross-functional initiatives end to end — from vision and scoping through delivery, adoption, and measurable outcomes.Excellent facilitation and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to lead workshops, constructively challenge senior process owners, and build alignment across diverse teams.Exposure to risk management, compliance, financial crime, security, or another regulated, control-oriented domain — or the ability to quickly build credibility with risk and compliance stakeholders.Strong program and portfolio management skills, including tracking multiple concurrent initiatives, reporting to leadership, and managing dependencies, roadblocks, and roadmaps.A builder's mindset and comfort operating in ambiguity, with high autonomy and a bias for action.Excellent communication skills, with the ability to distill complex, technical, and cross-functional work into clear narratives for executives and committees.A strong sense of responsibility for doing things the right way — building AI solutions with appropriate governance, controls, and guardrails from day one.Preferred Requirements:Experience in financial services, fintech, crypto / digital assets, or another regulated environment.Hands-on experience building or configuring AI solutions (e.g., agents, LLM workflows, automations) using modern low-code / no-code or AI development tools.Experience partnering with central or shared AI, data, or platform teams and contributing to reusable, enterprise-scale capabilities.Familiarity with AI governance and responsible-AI frameworks (risk-based oversight, human-in-the-loop, explainability, auditability).Background in management consulting, transformation, or operational excellence (e.g., Lean / Six Sigma), at a top firm or on an in-house transformation team.Certification or formal training in project / program management, change management, or process improvement.Circle is on a mission to create an inclusive financial future, with transparency at our core. We consider a wide variety of elements when crafting our compensation ranges and total compensation packages.Starting pay is determined by various factors, including but not limited to: relevant experience, skill set, qualifications, and other business and organizational needs. Please note that compensation ranges may differ for candidates in other locations.Base Pay Range: $157,500 - $205,000We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, or any other protected status required by the laws in the locations where we hire. Additionally, Circle participates in the E-Verify Program in certain locations, as required by law.Should you require accommodations or assistance in our interview process because of a disability, please reach out to View email address on click.appcast.io for support. 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