Head of Risk & Compliance - UK

About Penfold

Hi were Penfold were building the pension of the future!

At Penfold were dragging pensions out of the dark ages with a modern tech-first platform that makes pensions engaging accessible and rewarding.

Were a growing team of 70 people across London and Tallinn backed by leading fintech investors. Having raised 20M we manage 1BN in pensions for over 100000 savers and thousands of businesses and were on track for profitability next year.

Why This Role Matters

As Head of Risk & Compliance youll be responsible for building and embedding the frameworks that allow Penfold to grow quickly without losing trust from regulators customers or our own teams.

This is a senior hands-on role where youll act as both a guardian and an enabler. Youll ensure we meet our regulatory obligations while helping product and operational teams move fast make confident decisions and build compliant products from day one.

Youll hold SMF16 (Compliance Oversight) and SMF17 (MLRO) responsibilities and play a key role in shaping Penfolds long-term approach to risk governance and accountability with a clear path toward a future Chief Risk Officer role as we scale.

What Youll Do

Build and Embed Risk & Compliance Frameworks

• Design implement and evolve Penfolds compliance and enterprise risk management frameworks ensuring theyre scalable proportionate and regulator-ready.
• Embed clear processes across the business supported by strong documentation governance and MI.
• Clearly define first-line ownership of risk and controls with Risk & Compliance providing effective second-line oversight challenge and support.
• Champion a culture where risk and compliance are understood owned and embedded across all functions not treated as a separate activity.
• Surface and prioritise high-risk areas supporting leaders and teams to put robust workable mitigations in place.
• Proactively identify gaps or weaknesses and address them before they become issues.

Hands-On Oversight & Assurance

• Maintain direct oversight of the most critical risk and compliance activity stepping in personally on high-impact or complex issues.
• Support teams across the business with pragmatic risk-based advice that enables confident well-informed decision-making.
• Work closely with Operations and customer-facing teams to understand real-world processes risks and pressures ensuring controls are practical and embedded rather than theoretical.
• Provide oversight and review of contractual risk ensuring commercial and customer contracts appropriately protect the business and that material obligations and liabilities are clearly understood and managed.
• Oversee the businesss insurance arrangements ensuring coverage remains appropriate and aligned to Penfolds evolving risk profile.
• Develop and evolve risk and compliance tooling dashboards and automation to support scalable oversight and timely decision-making.
• Use regulatory insight management information and internal data to anticipate issues before they escalate.
• Set the standard for thoughtful forward-looking compliance that supports Penfolds growth and culture.

Enable Product & Business Delivery

• Partner closely with Product and Technology to enable rapid compliant delivery of new features and propositions.
• Provide early regulatory input so compliance is built in not bolted on.
• Collaborate with Operations and Customer Support to ensure new journeys processes and changes are operationally sound well-controlled and deliver good customer outcomes.
• Help unblock delivery through clear risk-based decision-making.

Own Regulatory Oversight & SMCR

• Act as SMF16 and/or SMF17 ensuring systems and controls meet FCA HMRC and TPR expectations.
• Own Penfolds SMCR framework including Conduct Rules training and Senior Manager accountability.
• Act as a primary point of contact for regulators building open constructive and transparent relationships.
• Manage regulatory reporting audits and correspondence.

Lead the Risk & Compliance Function

• Lead coach and develop a growing Risk & Compliance team.
• Set clear priorities and delegate effectively while maintaining oversight.
  Build a strong risk culture across the business through training communication and visible engagement with first-line teams.

Strengthen Governance & Confidence

• Own Penfolds risk registers and support Board and executive risk discussions.
• Provide oversight of the firms approach to incident and breach management ensuring appropriate escalation root cause analysis and follow-up actions are completed and embedded.
• Ensure operational risk themes incidents and near-misses are captured analysed and translated into meaningful insight and action.
• Deliver clear MI and insights that enable confident evidence-based decisions.
• Act as a trusted advisor to the CEO COO and Board.
• Exercise sound judgement in ambiguous or fast-moving situations balancing regulatory expectations customer outcomes and commercial priorities.
  

Our interview process:

• Hiring manager interview
• Task-based interview with members of our Leadership team
• Culture fit interview (this is as much for you to get a better sense of us!)
• Final executive interview

Benefits:

Were working hard to create a working environment where people feel empowered to do their very best work make a big impact and enjoy what they do. Specifically our benefits package includes:

• Competitive salary regularly reviewed to ensure it reflects your impact and experience
• Meaningful share options youll own a part of Penfold and share in our success
• 10% employer pension contribution with no matching required (on top of salary)
• Private medical insurance through Vitality
• Unlimited holiday we care about outcomes not counting days off
• Hybrid working we value in-person collaboration and ask London-based team members to join us in the office a couple of days a week while trusting you to work where youre most effective
• Great community office space near Borough Underground station with free tea coffee soft drinks and snacks
• Weekly company lunch often from local favourites like Borough Market or Mercato Metropolitano
• Cycle to Work scheme allowing you to buy a bike tax-free and spread the cost
• Learning & professional development regular 360 feedback role-based progression and support for courses events and coaching
• Quarterly company socials and regular team meet-ups throughout the year
• Plus a host of other benefits see more at are 100% committed to building a diverse and representative team. Whatever your race religion colour national origin gender sexual orientation age marital status or disability - we want to hear from you. If you have questions about the role or the company or the interview process please let your recruiter know and were happy to answer these anonymously if that makes you feel more comfortable.

  Were all about giving every candidate the best chance to shine. If you require any reasonable adjustments to the job description application or selection process just let us know wed be happy to help. When it comes to hiring we focus only on your skills experience and how you live our values.

  As part of our hiring process we may record your interview and use AI tools to generate notes. This helps us capture details accurately and ensures a fair review by our hiring panel. By attending an interview with Penfold you consent to the use of recording and AI-generated notes for this purpose. If you have any concerns or would prefer not to be recorded please let us know in advance.

Required Experience:

Director