Head of Compliance & Bank Partnerships

ABOUT TENSEC Tensec is building the AI-native operating system for global trade. We help freight forwarders, shipping lines, customs brokers, and logistics providers manage cross-border operations for their importer and exporter clients. We’re starting with FX and payments, expanding into quoting and booking, with trade finance to follow. Cross-border B2B trade is a $50 trillion market that still relies on generic enterprise software and manual workflows. We’re live in the US, Mexico, and Brazil, expanding globally, and onboarding enterprise customers that manage billions of dollars in annual trade flows. Founded in 2023, Tensec brings together a team from Meta, PayPal, Credit Karma, Goldman Sachs, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. We’re backed by Quiet Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, Renegade Partners, Clocktower, and WillowTree. Your mission Our ability to grow in Brazil depends on the confidence of our banking partners and the quality of our compliance work. Your role will be to build the compliance function and banking relationships behind Tensec's growth in Brazil. You've earned a bank's trust before, and you know how to get things done inside a fintech. Here, you bring both together. You'll work directly with our COO in New York, and partner with a dedicated tech enablement team to turn your ideas for better compliance into working tools. The role is hands-on: your team handles real-time transaction review, while you set the standard, review their work, and take every escalation yourself. Outcomes — your first 12–18 months - Own Brazil's compliance program end to end. KYB/KYC onboarding, AML/CFT monitoring, BCB/BACEN reporting, and COAF obligations all run to a standard you set, with your review behind every escalated call. - Become the counterpart Brazilian banks trust. Manage the day-to-day relationships, renegotiate fees, FX spreads, and service levels as volume grows, and land at least one new banking relationship that expands what Tensec can do. - Ship the first real improvement to compliance tooling. Work with tech enablement, Product, and Engineering to automate a piece of review, reporting, or partner-response work that's still manual today. - Keep Tensec audit-ready at all times. Controls, records, and documentation hold up under a real regulatory exam or partner audit — no scramble when one lands. - Shape how Tensec expands in Brazil. Flag regulatory changes, licensing openings, and tax shifts that affect the business before they turn into deadlines. Also on your plate - Own local LGPD compliance and track Brazil's AI regulatory framework, translating changes into practical requirements. - Coordinate with compliance colleagues in the US and Mexico so the group program stays aligned while Brazil's local requirements are met. - Handle the reporting, documentation, and due diligence Brazil owes to financial partners in the US, Europe, and Asia — colleagues elsewhere own those relationships, you make sure Brazil holds up its end. - Develop your direct report and build the processes a growing compliance team will need. What you bring - Hands-on Brazilian compliance experience, you've personally run KYB, filed BCB/BACEN reports, handled COAF obligations, and worked through an audit or exam. Bank-side or fintech-side, either path works. - Fluency in the BCB/BACEN framework, AML/CFT rules, and licensing requirements for payments and FX. - Real credibility with banking partners, you've run several relationships at once, worked through hard issues, and have counterparts who trust you. - Judgment to know what to decide yourself and what to escalate. - A systems mindset, you notice repetitive work and can turn it into clear requirements for vendors and engineers. - Fluent English , you'll use it daily with the COO in New York and international partners. How you work - You do the work, not just set the strategy, reviewing real transactions and handling real escalations, not only building process from a distance. - You don't need to write code, but you're curious enough to tell a technical team exactly what a good tool should do. - You know what to decide on your own and when to bring in the COO. - You represent Tensec directly with regulators and banks, no one else needs to vouch for you in the room. Nice to have - Experience building a compliance function at a startup from scratch. - Background in cross-border payments or FX. - A track record negotiating banking terms. - Hands-on experience standing up compliance technology. - LGPD experience specific to financial services. - Existing relationships with Brazilian regulators or senior banking executives. Compensation & benefits - Competitive base salary and equity participation - Vale-refeição/alimentação (meal/food voucher) - Plano de saúde (health insurance) - Paid time off and local statutory holidays - Learning and development budget Equal opportunity Tensec is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. Tensec is a diverse and inclusive company committed to growing a diverse and inclusive team. We invite people of all backgrounds and identities to apply. Additionally, we encourage everyone to share which pronouns you wish for us to use when addressing you (i.e., she/her, he/him, they/them). We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. Please let your recruiter know if you require an accommodation during the application or interview process.