Assistant Manager - Forensics - FCC Ernst & Young AE

As an Assistant Manager, you ll build valued relationships with external clients and internal peers and develop a portfolio of projects by focusing on high value opportunities. You ll lead presentations and proposals for complex projects or elements of highly complex projects and provide subject matter insight to bids and proposals. Drawing on your skills and experience, you ll create innovative commercial insights for clients, adapt methods and practices to fit operational team and cultural needs, and contribute to thought leadership.

Your key responsibilities

As an Assistant Manager in the Forensics team, you are required to provide strategic sourcing services related to regulatory compliance, financial crime compliance (FCC), corporate governance, enterprise risk management, internal controls to our clients. You are also required to assist organizations to maintain effective and efficient controls, to manage organizational and strategic risks.

As an Assistant Manager you are responsible for overseeing and conducting the sanctions screening processes across transaction screening, trade finance screening, and customer screening. The role involves managing daily screening investigations, ensuring compliance with global sanctions regimes (OFAC, UN, EU, UK HMT, and local regulations), providing guidance to analysts, and engaging with key stakeholders including Compliance, Sanctions Advisory, and senior management.

To qualify for the role, you must have

• 5-7 years of relevant Financial Crime Compliance (AML/ CFT, Sanctions, Anti-Bribery & Corruption) experience in banking, insurance, asset management, and/or in a big public accounting firm.
• Supervise and guide a team of sanctions screening analysts handling alerts across payment transactions, trade finance, and customer onboarding/periodic review.
• Ensure quality and timely resolution of alerts and escalations in line with regulatory requirements and internal SLAs.
• Perform second-level reviews for complex or high-risk cases, including trade documents (bills of lading, letters of credit, shipping data, and counterparty due diligence).
• Escalate confirmed sanctions matches and high-risk cases to relevant departments.
• Strong understanding of expectations of regulators and international organizations such as FATF
• Knowledge of the global risk and regulatory environment, especially developments in the FCC space.
• Graduate degree in law, finance or commerce preferred. Post-graduate qualifications in AML/ CFT, commerce.

ACAMS Sanctions Specialist (CSS), ICA Sanctions Compliance, or equivalent certification preferred.

Ideally, you ll also have

• Working experience in the MENA region.
• Post graduate qualifications in AML / CFT or professional / technical qualifications in risk management.
• In-depth knowledge of global sanctions regulations (OFAC, UN, EU, UK HMT, FATF) and local central bank requirements.
• Strong experience across all sanctions screening domains: transactions, trade finance, and customer screening.
• Hands-on exposure to industry-leading sanctions screening systems
• Strong analytical skills with ability to interpret complex sanctions risks in payments and trade flows.
• Arabic speaking, reading and writing capabilities