Recruiting A Senior Compliance Manager for Regional Banking Group

Opportunity

While this was not a particularly unusual or challenging assignment in terms of the requirements of the role or the technical professional skills required, the language requirements did make it more challenging. Our client required a Senior Compliance Manager to be based in Germany, who was registered with Bafin, who would also hold responsibility for compliance oversight of their Spanish entity and other EU branches. Ideally the candidate would speak English, German and Spanish.

Approach

The simple statistics is what drives the issue here. There are only so many compliance professionals of a certain level with the appropriate regulatory registration in Germany who are willing to consider a new role at any given point in time. Adding in the unusual mix of languages exacerbated the situation, which required a detailed targeted search looking at the local market for regulatory experience but also searching for candidates who were either Spanish ex-pats living in Germany or candidates who had worked, studied or lived in Spain in the past. We also utilised recommendations from Spanish ex-pats in Germany in our existing network as well as looking at branches of Spanish companies in Germany.

Outcome

Following the rolling of many stones, the search yielded a candidate with the required mix of seniority, experience, regulatory status and linguistic abilities. The candidate was attracted to the Senior Compliance Manager position by the opportunity to use their language skills and travel in Europe and now splits their time between Frankfurt and Madrid, an arrangement they felt would be very difficult to achieve in most companies. Their role is helping the company successful manage their international compliance needs.