Finance & Risk Lead Architect

Finance & Risk Lead Architect

Location: Charlotte, NC/Minneapolis, MN/Dallas, TX



Employment Type: Contract (C2C / 1099)

Position Summary

We are seeking a hands-on Finance & Risk Lead Architect to drive architecture initiatives supporting Corporate Finance, Regulatory Reporting, Capital Markets Accounting, and Investment Portfolio modernization. This role requires an experienced architect who combines deep financial-services expertise with enterprise architecture, modern data platforms, and AI-driven solution delivery.

The successful candidate will own architecture from strategy through implementation, delivering scalable, governed, and resilient solutions across mission-critical finance and risk platforms.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end architecture for Finance and Risk modernization initiatives.

• Define current-state, target-state, interim-state, and transition architectures with actionable implementation roadmaps.

• Architect enterprise solutions across corporate accounting, sub-ledger modernization, capital markets accounting, regulatory reporting, and investment portfolio management.

• Design enterprise information architecture including authoritative data sources, data products, governance, lineage, reconciliation, and auditability.

• Develop scalable integration architectures using APIs, Kafka/event streaming, ETL/ELT, cloud platforms, and object storage.

• Define reusable architecture patterns across applications, data, events, and cloud services.

• Support financial event processing, accounting workflows, close cycles, and GL/Sub-Ledger integration.

• Apply AI, GenAI, LLMs, and agentic AI to reconciliation, accounting controls, regulatory reporting, data quality, and operational efficiency.

• Ensure architecture aligns with governance, security, privacy, model risk management, and regulatory compliance.

• Collaborate with finance, risk, engineering, data, and executive stakeholders.

• Present architecture recommendations to Architecture Review Boards and senior leadership.

• Lead proof-of-concepts, reference implementations, and production-ready architecture deliverables.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in enterprise or solution architecture.

• 5+ years of experience in Corporate Accounting, Regulatory Reporting, Investment Portfolio, Capital Markets, or Finance Architecture.

• Strong Financial Services domain expertise.

• Experience designing enterprise data architecture including governance, lineage, reconciliation, metadata, and auditability.

• Strong knowledge of APIs, Kafka/event streaming, ETL/ELT, cloud platforms, and object storage.

• Experience with financial accounting event processing, sub-ledger architecture, and GL integration.

• Knowledge of regulatory reporting including Basel III, Basel III Endgame, CCAR, FR Y-9C, FFIEC, Broker-Dealer reporting, or Axiom.

• Hands-on experience implementing AI/ML, GenAI, LLM, RAG, or agentic AI solutions within finance or risk domains.

• Strong communication, leadership, and executive presentation skills.

• Ability to independently lead architecture initiatives from concept through implementation.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with TOGAF or other enterprise architecture frameworks.

• Experience with finance transformation and enterprise modernization programs.

• Experience building AI-enabled finance and regulatory reporting solutions.

• Background in large enterprise banking or capital markets environments.

• Experience mentoring technical teams and driving enterprise architecture standards.