Director of Compliance and Issues Management

Job Description

Job Description

JOB Objective

The Director of Compliance and Issues Management provides strategic leadership and oversight for California Coast Credit Union’s compliance management system (CMS) and enterprise issues management framework. This role is responsible for ensuring the credit union maintains effective compliance governance, identifies, tracks, escalates, and remediates regulatory and operational issues, and adheres to credit union policy and all applicable federal and state laws. The Director leads the compliance team, partners with executives and business units to design and strengthen compliance controls, and oversees issue identification, reporting, remediation validation, and management reporting. The position plays a critical role in fostering a strong culture of compliance, accountability, and timely issue resolution across the organization.

DIMENSIONS ( the depth and breadth of the job in numeric or statistical terms):

• Leadership & oversight: Provides managerial oversight of compliance analysts, including workflow management, coaching, development, hiring, and performance evaluations.
• CMS ownership: Oversees key pillars of the CMS including, but not limited to, regulatory change management, compliance testing and analysis, policies & procedures, monitoring, complaint management, issues management, training, and issue remediation.
• Issues management governance: Owns the development and management of the credit union’s enterprise issues management framework, including intake, risk rating, root cause analysis, remediation tracking, validation, escalation, and management reporting.
• Cross‑functional SME: Advises senior leadership and business units on compliance risk, regulatory policy and impacts, and control effectiveness.
• Monitoring and reviews: Oversees risk‑based compliance monitoring and targeted reviews across operational, lending, marketing, and member‑facing functions.
• Compliance support: Provides timely, accurate compliance guidance to internal partners through the compliance help desk and contributes to issue resolution and documentation.
• Regulatory Interface: Supports AVP in interactions with auditors, regulators, and examiners; ensures the credit union remains exam‑ready.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:

The role has two direct reports.

NATURE & SCOPE:

The Compliance Director works independently and collaboratively under the direction of the AVP, Compliance & Legal, to manage compliance operations, prioritize department initiatives, and implement risk‑based compliance strategies. The role requires advanced regulatory expertise, strong leadership capabilities, and sound judgment in escalating issues.

Regulatory Change Management

• Oversees tracking, interpretation, and communication of regulatory changes from DFPI, NCUA, CFPB, FinCEN, OFAC, and other applicable agencies.
• Ensures regulatory changes are analyzed, documented, assigned, and implemented in partnership with business owners.
• Approves regulatory summaries and directs internal communication of impacts.

Policies, Procedures & Documentation

• Owns and maintains the organization’s policy management framework, ensuring it is structured, effective, and aligned with regulatory expectations.
• Ensures compliance-related documentation is current, accurate, and consistently reflects applicable laws, regulations, and internal standards.
• Reviews and approves policy and procedure updates drafted, reviewed, and edited by compliance staff.
• Oversees documentation governance, including version control, approval workflows, and retention practices.

Monitoring & Reviews

• Conducts or supports a minimum of six (6) risk‑based compliance reviews per year, focusing on the highest‑risk areas. identified through the Enterprise Risk Assessment.
• Issues formal written reports with ratings and remediation tracking. Furthermore, ensures monitoring program aligns with NCUA AIRES structure and regulatory expectations.
• Sets annual monitoring plans and priorities based on enterprise compliance risk assessments.
• Oversees review planning, testing methodologies, documentation standards, and reporting quality.
• Ensures issues are clearly articulated, risk‑rated, and remediated within defined timelines.

Issues Management & Remediation Oversight

• Owns the compliance and regulatory issues management process, including issues arising from compliance monitoring, audits, exams, complaints, risk assessments, and management self‑identified findings.
• Ensures issues are documented, risk‑rated, tracked, and remediated within established timelines.
• Reviews root cause analyses and remediation plans for sufficiency and regulatory alignment.
• Escalates overdue, high‑risk, or systemic issues to senior management and governance committees as appropriate.
• Produces recurring and ad‑hoc issues management reporting for executive management and the Board, including trend analysis and systemic risk indicators.

Complaint Management & Member‑Facing Oversight

• Oversees the complaint management program to ensure timely tracking, trend reporting, escalation, and regulatory alignment.
• Ensures complaint data is assessed for UDAAP patterns and systemic indicators and potential regulatory violations, like UDAAP.
• Reviews UDAAP considerations and provides guidance for marketing, disclosures, and member‑facing communications.
• Provides timely, accurate compliance guidance to business partners through the compliance help desk.

Audit & Examination Support

• Maintains CMS documentation and ensures exam‑readiness at all times.

BSA/AML & OFAC Support

• Collaborates with the BSA Officer to ensure alignment between CMS and BSA/AML/OFAC expectations.
• Oversees compliance responsibilities related to SAR/CTR quality review, Beneficial Ownership, OFAC screening, and fraud trends.

Cross‑Functional Compliance Guidance

• Serves as a compliance subject matter expert for operational, lending, marketing, digital banking, and branch teams.
• Provides independent challenge to business-unit decisions, controls, and remediation plans.
• Provides guidance that is well‑researched, timely, risk‑based, and operationally practical.
• Elevates systemic issues and emerging risks to senior leadership.
• Supports development and delivery of compliance training.
• Performs other duties as assigned by management.

Leadership & Department Management

• Supervises, mentors, and develops compliance analysts.
• Allocates resources, manages workloads, and sets department priorities.
• Builds department bench strength through structured development planning.
• Contributes to department budgeting and strategic planning.

Education, skills, & abilities

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Law, or a related field required; a graduate degree in a related discipline is preferred.
• Minimum ten (10) years of financial‑institution compliance experience, including leadership or supervisory roles; credit union experience preferred.
• Professional certifications such as CRCM (strongly preferred); CAMS, CIPP, CCBCO, or equivalent beneficial.
• Advanced knowledge of consumer compliance regulations, BSA/AML/OFAC, privacy, deposit operations, marketing, and lending regulations.

• Ability to recommend changes and revisions in a positive and constructive manner to employees at all levels of the credit union.

• Experience with a GRC framework; knowledge of the three lines of defense.
• Experience working with auditors, examiners, and regulatory agencies.
• Demonstrated experience designing, managing, or overseeing an issues management or remediation tracking framework within a regulated financial institution.
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to influence across all levels of the organization.
• Excellent analytical skills with the ability to translate regulatory requirements into operational practices.
• Comfort working with data, dashboards, and compliance management software (e.g., tracking tools, ticketing systems, Symitar data).
• High proficiency with Microsoft Office; Symitar experience preferred.
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Demonstrates sound judgment, independence, and appropriate regulatory‑based escalation practices.

MAJOR ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulatory expectations.
• Maintain a strong CMS with defined controls, testing, reporting, and governance.
• Lead, coach, and develop compliance analysts.
• Provide timely, actionable compliance guidance to internal stakeholders.
• Mitigate regulatory and operational risk while supporting strategic initiatives.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

• AVP Compliance & Legal; BSA/AML Officer; Compliance Officer
• Chief Audit & Risk Officer
• Lending, Operations, Marketing, Digital, Branch
• Internal Audit
• Regulators (NCUA/DFPI, potential for future with CFPB)

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

• Ability to tolerate periods of continuous sitting.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS

• Work is primarily performed within an office setting. Subject to standard background noise found in an office environment.

Note: Staff is expected to perform various tasks, projects and administrative duties as assigned.

Management reserves the right to assign or change duties and tasks to this position at their discretion.

Salary Range

$130,813.6560 - $163,517.0700