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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Compliance Coordinator

πŸ’° $50,000 - $85,000

ComplianceRisk ManagementLegalOperationsFinance

🎯 Role Definition

The Compliance Coordinator supports the organization's compliance program by coordinating regulatory monitoring, risk assessments, policy maintenance, training, and internal investigations. This role acts as a point of contact for business teams, vendors, and regulators, maintains compliance documentation and registers, and drives remediation activities to reduce regulatory risk. Ideal candidates demonstrate strong attention to detail, experience with monitoring tools and compliance frameworks (AML/KYC, GDPR, SOX, FINRA/SEC where applicable), and excellent stakeholder communication skills.


πŸ“ˆ Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Compliance Analyst
  • Regulatory Affairs Assistant
  • Operations or Risk Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Senior Compliance Analyst / Specialist
  • Compliance Manager
  • Risk & Controls Manager
  • Head of Compliance / Director, Compliance

Lateral Moves:

  • Internal Audit
  • Regulatory Affairs
  • Vendor Risk Management
  • Privacy Analyst

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Monitor and review daily compliance alerts and exception reports (including transaction monitoring, AML/KYC screening, sanctions lists), triage issues, and coordinate investigations to determine remediation or escalation.
  • Maintain and update the compliance program documentation, including policies, procedures, compliance manuals, registers, and escalation matrices to ensure current regulatory requirements are reflected.
  • Conduct routine and ad-hoc compliance testing and sampling across business units (e.g., client onboarding, transaction surveillance, recordkeeping) and prepare detailed findings, risk ratings and remediation plans.
  • Coordinate and manage regulatory filings and reports, including timely submission to regulators and internal stakeholders, ensuring accuracy and audit readiness.
  • Support periodic risk assessments and control self-assessments (CSAs) by collecting evidence, interviewing process owners, documenting control gaps and tracking remediation activities to closure.
  • Perform third-party/vendor compliance due diligence by reviewing vendor contracts, questionnaires and risk scores; escalate high-risk findings and monitor ongoing vendor performance.
  • Deliver and track mandatory compliance training programs (e.g., anti-bribery, privacy, information security, insider trading) for employees and contractors and maintain training records and completion metrics.
  • Assist with consumer privacy and data protection compliance (GDPR, CCPA) including DPIA support, data subject request handling, and coordination with legal and IT for remediation.
  • Investigate employee allegations and whistleblower reports, prepare investigation notes, coordinate interviews, and ensure confidentiality consistent with policy and local law.
  • Maintain the compliance calendar and manage deadlines for license renewals, regulatory reports, training cycles, and audit deliverables to ensure timely completion.
  • Liaise directly with regulators, auditors and external legal counsel during examinations and audits; prepare responses, evidence bundles and executive summaries for leadership.
  • Support SOX and internal control testing by documenting control descriptions, preparing evidence packages, and coordinating remediation activities with process owners.
  • Track regulatory change and emerging risks by monitoring regulator guidance, industry publications and law updates; recommend program changes and prepare impact assessments for senior management.
  • Prepare periodic compliance metrics, dashboards and board-level reports on program effectiveness, open issues, remediation status and key risk indicators (KRIs).
  • Execute client and account remediation activities, including documentation review, follow-up calls, escalations and control strengthening recommendations to reduce recurring findings.
  • Update and manage sanction screening and watchlist processes, ensuring systems are tuned, false positives are managed and escalation workflows are followed.
  • Create and maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs) and job aids for frontline staff and business partners to ensure consistent compliance execution.
  • Support the development and roll-out of regulatory change projects, working with cross-functional teams (IT, Legal, Ops) to implement new controls, system rules or workflow changes.
  • Maintain strong recordkeeping discipline: file management, retention schedules and evidence logs to support audits and regulatory inquiries.
  • Map business processes to applicable laws, regulations and internal policies to highlight control gaps and recommend practical remediation measures.
  • Facilitate periodic fraud and AML scenario testing, tabletop exercises and mock regulatory exams to validate readiness and strengthen the control environment.
  • Escalate material compliance risks to management and compliance leadership with recommended next steps, timelines and owners for remediation.
  • Assist in budget planning and vendor contract oversight for compliance tools, monitoring platforms and third-party advisors.

Secondary Functions

  • Provide ad-hoc regulatory research and legal interpretation summaries for business stakeholders and prepare concise, actionable guidance.
  • Support continuous improvement initiatives, including automation of compliance workflows and optimization of alerting thresholds to reduce false positives.
  • Help implement GRC tools and maintain system configuration for workflows, issue tracking, attestations and reporting.
  • Collaborate with IT and Security teams to coordinate incident responses that have compliance or regulatory impact.
  • Participate in cross-functional projects to operationalize new products and services with full compliance risk assessments and remediation plans.
  • Serve as backup contact for compliance hotline intake, initial triage and routing to appropriate investigators or teams.
  • Build and maintain strong working relationships with business unit leaders to serve as a trusted advisor on day-to-day regulatory questions.
  • Support data requests for external audits, regulator examinations and internal analytics by extracting, validating and formatting required datasets.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Regulatory compliance knowledge: AML/KYC, OFAC/sanctions, BSA, GDPR, CCPA, SOX, consumer protection laws, industry-specific regulations (e.g., FINRA, SEC, HIPAA) as applicable.
  • Compliance monitoring tools and GRC platforms experience (e.g., MetricStream, RSA Archer, NICE Actimize, Fiserv, Smarsh, Actimize or similar).
  • Transaction monitoring and alert investigation skills (including SAR/STR preparation processes).
  • Vendor and third-party risk assessment and due diligence processes.
  • Policy and procedure writing: ability to draft and maintain clear, auditable compliance documentation and SOPs.
  • Internal controls testing and remediation tracking (control frameworks knowledge).
  • Data analysis and basic scripting or query skills (Excel advanced functions, SQL, Tableau/Power BI) to analyze trends and produce dashboards.
  • Case management and investigation documentation practices.
  • Regulatory reporting and exam preparation experience, including assembling evidence packages.
  • Privacy and data protection fundamentals: DPIA, data subject requests and data mapping.
  • Familiarity with financial crime typologies, fraud detection and prevention strategies.
  • Audit support experience: preparation of workpapers, evidence logs and change tracking.
  • Microsoft Office proficiency (advanced Excel, PowerPoint) for reporting and presentations.
  • Project management fundamentals: planning, stakeholder coordination and deadline management.

Soft Skills

  • Strong written communication: concise, regulator-ready reports and clear policy language.
  • Excellent verbal communication and stakeholder management to influence business partners and senior leaders.
  • High attention to detail and methodical approach to documentation and evidence gathering.
  • Analytical and critical thinking: ability to identify root causes and recommend pragmatic controls.
  • Ethical judgment and discretion handling confidential and sensitive information.
  • Time management and ability to prioritize competing deadlines and investigations.
  • Problem-solving and adaptability in fast-changing regulatory environments.
  • Collaborative mindset with cross-functional teams (Legal, IT, Ops, Audit).

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Legal Studies, Criminal Justice, Information Systems, or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's plus compliance-related certification (e.g., CRCM, CAMS, CCEP) or a Master’s degree in a relevant discipline.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Finance
  • Legal / Paralegal Studies
  • Risk Management
  • Information Systems / Cybersecurity
  • Criminal Justice / Forensic Accounting

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–5 years in compliance, risk, audit, AML, or regulatory roles.

Preferred:

  • 3+ years of hands-on experience in a compliance role supporting monitoring, investigations, regulatory reporting and policy development.
  • Experience in financial services, fintech, healthcare, or heavily regulated industries preferred.
  • Proven experience with compliance tools, case management systems and data analytics for compliance purposes.