American Express

Director - Tech Risk & Control

American Express • $160K — $200K *
New York, NY 10285In-Person
Finance & Insurance
5 - 7 years of experience
Today
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Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 6+ years of experience in operational risk management or related disciplines.
  • Proven leadership experience with tech risk and control teams, driving strategic outcomes.
  • Established credibility with senior tech and security leaders as a trusted advisor.
  • Ability to simplify complex technical issues into actionable business insights.
  • Strong background in using data and metrics for risk trend analysis and decision making.
  • Experience leading large-scale risk mitigation and transformation initiatives.
  • Familiarity with embedding risk in product development and operational processes.
  • Experience with AI/GenAI to enhance risk advisory processes.

Responsibilities

  • Lead and develop a high-performing Risk Advisory team for GCST and USCDT.
  • Establish trusted-advisor relationships with SLT leaders, balancing risk management and business priorities.
  • Provide strategic risk advice, linking technical issues to business outcomes.
  • Assess risk posture using data to identify trends and emerging risks proactively.
  • Drive actionable remediation plans for effective risk reduction across portfolios.
  • Oversee large-scale risk management initiatives for resource allocation and alignment.
  • Develop data-driven risk solutions to improve insights and efficiency in reporting.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to lead innovative risk management initiatives.
  • Collaborative work culture fostering continuous learning and development.
  • Engagement with cutting-edge technologies and AI-related advisory processes.
  • Ability to influence and work with senior leadership on high-impact decisions.
  • Work on a dedicated team supporting key technology portfolios.
Full Job Description
Job Description

Role Summary

The Director, Control Risk Advisory - GCST & USCDT, is a strategic advisory leader dedicated to supporting two Senior Leadership Team (SLT) members and their Technology organizations: Global Commercial Services Technology (GCST) and U.S. Consumer Services and Digital Technology (USCDT). The role provides an independent, forward-looking view of technology, information security, operational, and control risk; delivers clear and decision-oriented risk reporting; identifies emerging trends and leading indicators; and helps the two organizations prioritize pragmatic risk-reduction actions in alignment with business strategy, delivery commitments, and risk appetite. For GCST, the Director connects risk advisory to the GCS vision of backing businesses so they can do more business and to its mission of being the undisputed leader in financial and membership services for businesses while responsibly driving double-digit revenue growth, with particular attention to modernizing foundational capabilities and improving governance and controls. For USCDT, the Director supports the technology capabilities that power U.S. consumer products, Membership experiences, digital acquisition, banking, payments, marketing, travel, dining, Ads & Offers, and other mobile- and web-enabled experiences. The Director leads and develops a high-performing advisory team and champions responsible use of AI and GenAI to improve advisory effectiveness, operational efficiency, and decision quality.

Portfolio Focus
  • GCST: Serve as the dedicated Control Risk Advisory partner to GCST leadership, connecting technology risk reporting, risk reduction, and prioritization to GCS business priorities, growth objectives, client needs, foundational modernization, and stronger governance and controls.
  • USCDT: Serve as the dedicated Control Risk Advisory partner to USCDT leadership across the technology portfolio that enables U.S. consumer products and experiences, including digital acquisition, banking, payments, marketing, travel, dining, Ads & Offers, and mobile- and web-enabled capabilities that strengthen the value of Membership.
  • Across both Technology organizations: Establish a consistent, comparative view of risk posture; surface cross-portfolio themes and dependencies; support transparent trade-off decisions; and focus leadership attention and resources on the highest-priority, highest-impact risk-reduction opportunities.


Responsibilities

  • Lead, mentor, and coach a high-performing Risk Advisory team aligned to the GCST and USCDT portfolios, setting a clear strategic vision, creating an inclusive culture of continuous learning, and using feedback and metrics to strengthen individual and team performance.
  • Establish credibility and trusted-advisor relationships with the GCST and USCDT SLT leaders and their senior Technology teams, balancing effective risk management with GCS and U.S. Consumer business priorities, delivery commitments, growth objectives, and strategic outcomes; provide clear, candid, evidence-based challenge while maintaining strong partnerships and influencing decisions without direct authority.
  • Provide strategic risk advice across GCST and USCDT product, platform, and service areas, helping leaders make informed decisions by translating complex architectures, engineering practices, control environments, and technical issues into concise business-risk implications tied to customer, colleague, growth, and operational outcomes.
  • Assess and report risk posture using data, metrics, leading indicators, and trend analysis to identify emerging risks before they become material events; deliver portfolio-specific and cross-portfolio insights that move leadership conversations from historical reporting toward predictive, comparative, and decision-oriented action.
  • Drive pragmatic risk reduction across GCST and USCDT by converting risk insights into actionable remediation plans, measurable outcomes, clear ownership, and sustainable control improvements; help leaders prioritize investments and capacity toward the most consequential risks and accelerate delivery through strong execution discipline.
  • Oversee and integrate complex, large-scale risk management and mitigation initiatives across the two portfolios, ensuring appropriate resource allocation, timely execution, escalation, and alignment.
  • Independently develop lightweight, data-driven risk solutions for GCST and USCDT, including querying and integrating structured data, consuming APIs, automating recurring analysis, and developing dashboards or visualizations that provide timely portfolio and cross-portfolio risk insights while reducing dependency on manually produced Excel and PowerPoint reporting.
  • Coordinate with product development and service delivery teams to embed Operational Risk Management and control considerations throughout product lifecycles, technology change, and ongoing service operations.
  • Compile and apply lessons learned and best practices from product launches, technology changes, risk events, and control outcomes to improve proactive risk identification and decision-making.
  • Support mergers, acquisitions, and significant business or technology change from a control-environment and risk-posture perspective, as applicable.
  • Assess the needs of business and functional leaders to strengthen understanding of Operational Risk Management, technology risk, information security risk, governance, and controls; facilitate targeted risk awareness and education.
  • Accountable for building strong relationships with senior stakeholders who manage highly complex and diverse portfolios.
  • Demonstrate advanced executive communication to drive clarity and translate complex technical and risk information into concise, actionable narratives and compelling storytelling.
  • Champion the responsible adoption of AI, GenAI, automation, and data-driven capabilities to enhance advisory effectiveness, risk sensing, analysis, and decision quality while maintaining appropriate governance, security, and risk controls.
  • Apply approved Generative AI capabilities to accelerate research, analysis, synthesis, workflow automation, and risk reporting for the GCST and USCDT portfolios; identify and implement appropriate AI-enabled solutions while understanding associated security, data, accuracy, and governance considerations.
  • Establish governance expectations for responsible use of AI in risk assessments, control monitoring, analysis, and documentation, including appropriate oversight, escalation, and accountability.
  • Adapt leadership and advisory approaches to evolving technology, regulatory expectations, business priorities, and emerging risks while maintaining strategic focus and delivery.
  • Collaborate effectively across GCST, USCDT, Technology, Information Security, Product, Risk, Compliance, Audit, and Control Management to create consistent and efficient risk practices, share insights and cross-portfolio themes, and align risk decisions to GCS, U.S. Consumer, and enterprise objectives.
  • Demonstrate strong leadership agility to navigate a rapidly evolving technology and regulatory landscape, adapt leadership style to changing business priorities, embrace continuous learning, and lead teams and stakeholders through ambiguity while maintaining strategic focus and delivery.


Qualifications

  • 6+ years of experience in operational risk management, technology risk, information security risk, control management, Internal Audit, or a related risk discipline, with demonstrated understanding of critical risk-management lifecycle activities.
  • Experience leading technology risk and control teams and setting strategic direction while operating autonomously and driving measurable outcomes.
  • Demonstrated credibility with senior technology and security leaders, including experience supporting broad product, platform, or business-aligned technology portfolios as a trusted advisor who can challenge constructively and escalate appropriately.
  • Proven ability to translate complex technical and risk issues into executive-level business insights, portfolio reporting, prioritization decisions, and measurable risk-reduction outcomes.
  • Strong track record of using risk data, metrics, and analytical techniques to identify trends, detect leading indicators, evaluate scenarios, and influence decisions.
  • Experience leading complex mitigation, remediation, transformation, or control-improvement initiatives through influence, execution discipline, and cross-functional accountability.
  • Experience embedding risk and control considerations into product development, technology change, service delivery, or operational processes.
  • Experience establishing governance routines, decision forums, escalation paths, and executive risk-reporting mechanisms that enable transparent, comparative, and timely portfolio decision-making.
  • Experience facilitating risk awareness, education, or capability building for business, technology, or product leaders and teams.
  • Experience applying or enabling AI/GenAI, automation, or advanced analytics to improve risk advisory, monitoring, analysis, or operational efficiency, with appropriate governance and human oversight.
  • Experience working across geographically distributed and diverse teams and stakeholders in a complex matrixed environment.
  • Financial-services experience preferred.

B40 Leadership & Leveling Expectations
  • Independently handles complex work assignments that affect multiple teams, products, services, or risk domains and exercises sound judgment with limited direction.
  • Executes strategies with significant organizational impact and converts strategic objectives into measurable team and risk outcomes.
  • Makes independent decisions across products, services, risk priorities, and stakeholder needs, balancing technical depth, business context, regulatory expectations, and risk appetite.
  • Leads larger teams or departments, develops talent, establishes accountability, and makes key decisions that shape the advisory function and broader risk posture.
  • Demonstrates leadership agility in ambiguity, adapts to rapidly evolving technology and regulatory landscapes, and maintains strategic focus while accelerating delivery.

Core Capability Profile
  • High Technical Acumen: Deep technology, information security, cyber-risk, and modern engineering knowledge; translates technical complexity into business risk.
  • Autonomous Leadership & Strategic Execution: Sets vision, leads with minimal direction, and drives accountable, measurable outcomes.
  • Advanced Analytical Capability: Uses risk data, trends, metrics, and leading indicators to surface emerging issues and enable predictive risk management.
  • Executive Presence, Communication & Storytelling: Influences senior stakeholders through concise, clear, decision-oriented risk narratives.
  • Deep Risk Expertise: Applies strong technology, information security, governance, control, regulatory, and operational-resilience judgment.
  • Leadership Agility: Leads through ambiguity and changing priorities while sustaining learning, focus, and delivery.
  • AI & GenAI Adoption Mindset: Uses AI and GenAI responsibly to improve advisory effectiveness and decision quality while ensuring governance, security, and controls.
  • Pragmatic Risk Reduction & Delivery: Turns risk insight into practical mitigation, accountability, accelerated execution, and sustainable proactive risk reduction.
  • Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the United States is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.


About American Express

Amex provides industrial services to the coatings and linings sector, providing support for commercial, industrial, and maritime projects such as petrochemical, power, and water treatment industries. They offer painting services for steel structures, storage tank linings and coatings, pipelines, floors, and marine vessels such as ships, tugboats, and barges.

American Express Careers

Join the vibrant team at American Express, a global leader in financial services, and be part of a company that values innovation, leadership, and diversity. At American Express, we offer more than just job opportunities; we provide a platform for professional growth and a chance to be part of a culture that is committed to excellence and inclusive growth. Work You’ll Do At American Express, we are dedicated to helping our employees reach their full potential. With a variety of career paths available in areas such as technology, marketing, finance, and customer service, American Express is the perfect place to advance your career. Our team is composed of highly skilled professionals who thrive on innovation and collaboration. Join our team and contribute to a company known for its prestigious history of leadership in the credit card industry. Engage in meaningful work that makes a real impact on our global scale business operations. American Express Leadership and Development Programs We believe in nurturing the leadership skills of our employees with extensive training programs and leadership development opportunities. Our commitment to professional growth is evident in our comprehensive benefits package that supports both personal and professional development. Internship Opportunities Start your career with an internship at American Express and gain valuable industry experience. Our internships offer a chance to develop skills, work on challenging projects, and learn from leaders in the industry. Interns at American Express are considered integral members of the team and are given responsibilities that provide a real insight into their future career paths. Diversity and Inclusion At American Express, diversity and inclusion are at the core of our company culture. We are committed to building a diverse workforce and inclusive environment where every employee feels valued and inspired. We offer diversity training programs that empower our employees to thrive and lead in a global marketplace. Networking and Innovation Our employees enjoy unparalleled opportunities for networking and personal growth through our global connections and innovative projects. American Express encourages a culture of innovation that helps propel our company and your career forward. Career Benefits and Growth American Express is dedicated to the growth of its employees. We offer competitive benefits, including health, retirement plans, and family leave, ensuring that our team members have the support they need to succeed both at work and in their personal lives. Join Our Team Explore the job opportunities and open positions at American Express. We are continuously hiring talented individuals who are passionate about their careers and interested in working for a company that offers a dynamic and supportive environment. Stay Connected Keep up to date with the latest from American Express Careers by following our career blog and signing up for job alert emails. Tailor your subscription to receive updates that match your skills and interests. Discover the exciting and rewarding career opportunities that await at American Express. SEARCH AMERICAN EXPRESS JOBS Whether you are looking for a full-time position, an internship, or a leadership opportunity, American Express offers a path to a rewarding career. Join us and make a difference with your passion, creativity, and drive.
Learn more about American Express
Size
64,000 employees
Market Cap
$108.1 billion
Industry
Finance & Insurance
Net Income
$3.1 billion
Founded
1850
5 Year Trend
+3.5%
Revenue
$37 billion
NASDAQ
AXP
* Ladders Estimates

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