CHAITRA RAO

Strategic Leader with 22 years of experience in Program & Product Management, including 14 years in Financial Crime Compliance & expertise in AML Sanctions Screening, Anti-Bribery Corruption and Gifts & Entertainment. Skilled in strategizing execution and building product roadmaps. Critical thinking, stakeholder management, decision making and ability to influence & collaborate are key strengths.

External Member of the Department Curriculum Committee (B.E. FinTech), Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal.

Key Accomplishments

• Established and directed a successful program for standard Global Sanctions Screening solution for transactions & customer screening for > 100 APAC, EMEA countries covering Retail, Payments & Receivables, Markets, Trade, Securities with an annual budget > $12MM.
• Successfully closed the AML Consent Order concerning automated disposition and data retention of sanctions alerts for customer & transaction screening with a multi-year regulatory AML Sanctions Screening program.
• Enabled the firm to stay competitive with expedited implementation of screening solution for market driven Instant Payments across regions; implemented Agile methodologies to streamline project delivery, resulting in a 15% improvement in project completion times and enhanced cross-functional team collaboration.
• Successfully met the regulatory requirement to host data in-country with Localization programs for India, Switzerland, and China.
• Simplified AML integration for global KYC platform for customer on-boarding eliminating duplicate and false positives.
• Spearheaded the delivery of AML solutions for ISO 20022 transformation for SWIFT messages meeting SWIFT mandates for standardization of outgoing payments.
• Eliminated manual approval processes with a global automated solution for Anti-Bribery Corruption portfolio.
• Transformed project management practices using automation of dashboards and reports with JIRA and Confluence, increasing productivity of Project Managers by 30%.
• Spearheaded organizational restructuring initiatives, streamlining vendor strategy; reduced costs by 20%.
• Built high-performance teams through effective recruitment practices focused on competency coupled with ongoing performance management & training.
• Strategized product roadmap and execution for Anti-Bribery & Corruption global pre-approval products.