Senior Director, Head of Strategic Licensing

Kraken

Kraken

Sales & Business Development
United States
Posted 6+ months ago

Building the Future of Crypto

Our Krakenites are a world-class team with crypto conviction, united by our desire to discover and unlock the potential of crypto and blockchain technology.

What makes us different?

Kraken is a mission-focused company rooted in crypto values. As a Krakenite, you’ll join us on our mission to accelerate the global adoption of crypto, so that everyone can achieve financial freedom and inclusion. For over a decade, Kraken’s focus on our mission and crypto ethos has attracted many of the most talented crypto experts in the world.

Before you apply, please read the Kraken Culture page to learn more about our internal culture, values, and mission.

As a fully remote company, we have Krakenites in 70+ countries who speak over 50 languages. Krakenites are industry pioneers who develop premium crypto products for experienced traders, institutions, and newcomers to the space. Kraken is committed to industry-leading security, crypto education, and world-class client support through our products like Kraken Pro, Kraken NFT, and Kraken Futures.

Become a Krakenite and build the future of crypto!

The Team

The Strategic Licensing Team is a new function with the objective of developing global regulatory strategies and securing licenses for new products and services in the geographies we operate in or plan to expand into.

While our Regional Managers and their compliance teams will ultimately operate the businesses and licensing requirements, Kraken is seeking a centralized team to oversee strategy development and scale license acquisition. In addition, this team will ensure our licensing commitments are in alignment with the Corporate Operating Model.

We are seeking a leader to manage this team and achieve strategic regulatory and licensing outcomes.

The Opportunity

  • Lead and develop the global regulatory strategy for Kraken

  • Develop cross-functional partnerships with legal, finance, and compliance teams to achieve maximum harmony in regulatory strategy and license acquisition

  • Partner with Regional Managers and Strategy teams to assure that go-to-market playbooks are holistic and inclusive of needed licensing requirements

  • Develop license acquisition project management best practices, including the development of repositories of common documents, operational flows, and license application responses

  • Develop strategies and execute on best-practices for the Corporate Operating model, which includes detail on our entity structure, product/regulatory mapping, banking and funding flows, brokerage model, and operational diagrams

  • Lead a team of associates across multiple licensing projects

Skills you should HODL

  • 10+ years of experience in financial services and/or crypto obtaining new operating licenses

  • Strong familiarity with how crypto businesses operate - fiat and crypto custody, exchange operations, order book, broker models, staking, OTC trading, etc.

  • Strong understanding of blockchain and crypto concepts, with the capability to explain highly technical concepts to less familiar parties

  • Past success in working directly with financial services regulators; ideally experience in obtaining new licenses

  • Experience with risk management topics that regulators tend to focus on; organizational governance operational controls, reporting, audits, cybersecurity, etc.

  • Experience managing a team of >5 people and concurrently managing multiple high priority initiatives

  • Experience with legal/regulatory vs business tradeoffs and dealing with uncertainty for new financial products that don’t have a multi-decade regulatory precedent

  • Excellent organizational and project management skills; experience in dealing with a shared services function that seeks to standardize processes across multiple functions and geographies

  • Strong crypto ethos

Nice to have

  • Legal background

#LI-PE #LI-Remote #USEU

Kraken is powered by people from around the world and we celebrate all Krakenites for their diverse talents, backgrounds, contributions and unique perspectives. We hire strictly based on merit, meaning we seek out the candidates with the right abilities, knowledge, and skills considered the most suitable for the job. We encourage you to apply for roles where you don't fully meet the listed requirements, especially if you're passionate or knowledgable about crypto!

As an equal opportunity employer, we don’t tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind. Whether that’s based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, veteran status or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state or local laws.

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