ARQ is one of the fastest-growing fintechs in the world. Our mission is to redefine how people interact with money across borders, building the infrastructure to move value seamlessly. We're still early in our journey, which means every person who joins shapes the future of our product, culture, and growth. If you're excited by big challenges, global impact, and the chance to grow fast with a world-class team, ARQ is the place to do it.
The Role: General Manager, Licensing Colombia
You will lead ARQ's regulated entity in your jurisdiction, serving as the accountable executive before local regulators and supervisory authorities. Your core focus will be securing and maintaining our operating licenses, navigating the regulatory approval process end to end, and building the operational infrastructure required for ARQ to operate legally and sustainably in market. You will manage the entity's day-to-day operations, overseeing governance structures, internal controls, and operational processes, ensuring the entity is well-run and positioned for sustainable growth as the business scales. You will also own the local credit risk framework, ensuring lending activity is managed responsibly and in line with both regulatory expectations and ARQ's credit strategy and risk frameworks. You will work closely with global legal, risk, operations, product and compliance teams.
What you'll be doing
You will be accountable for the regulated entity's licensing standing, compliance posture, and operational readiness within your jurisdiction, working in close coordination with global teams.
Own end-to-end operational management of the regulated entity, including AML, KYC and KYB, fraud, safeguarding, complaints, regulatory reporting, internal controls, customer support, and audit readiness
Ensure full compliance with local laws, license conditions, and internal policies, maintaining a robust risk management and control framework
Serve as the primary point of contact for local supervisory authorities, leading regulatory inspections, implementation tables, and audits
Drive the entity through each stage of the regulatory approval timeline, from constitution approval through to go-live audit, ensuring milestone readiness at every step
Draft, implement, and operate local credit and risk policies in line with regulatory frameworks and the regulator expectations
Own the local credit risk framework, including drafting and operationalizing credit policies, overseeing credit decisioning processes, and ensuring lending activity is managed in line with regulatory requirements and ARQ's internal risk appetite — working closely with the global credit and risk teams to maintain consistency across the group
Maintain close coordination with global legal and compliance teams to ensure policies, controls, and reporting are consistent with both local requirements and group standards
Manage the day-to-day operations of the regulated entity, ensuring it is structured and ready for sustainable growth; this includes overseeing operational processes, maintaining adequate staffing and governance structures, coordinating with global product and engineering teams to ensure local operational requirements are met, and building the internal controls and reporting cadence needed to scale compliantly as the business grows
Act as the local signatory and board-level representative where required by the regulator or entity governance structure
What you'll need
7+ years of experience in a regulated financial institution, fintech, or financial services environment, with direct exposure to licensing, operations, or risk management
Hands-on experience working within local regulatory frameworks in your jurisdiction, including direct interaction with supervisory authorities
Demonstrated ability to draft and operationalize risk, operations and compliance frameworks, including credit policy, AML/KYC controls, and operations
Strong stakeholder management skills, particularly with regulators, external advisors, and internal legal and compliance teams
Exceptional organizational ability and attention to detail, with a rigorous due diligence mindset suited to high-scrutiny regulatory environments
Structured problem-solving and the ability to navigate complex processes and extract decisions from ambiguous situations
High ownership mentality with proven ability to drive outcomes across long regulatory timelines
Nice-to-haves
Direct involvement in licensing processes in banking, payments, wealth, or crypto
Experience leading or supporting a regulated entity through an implementation table or go-live audit
Prior experience at a financial regulator, central bank, or supervisory authority
Prior background at a top-tier consulting firm (BCG, Bain, McKinsey)