Senior Specialist – Office of International Affairs

FINRA • Washington, DC

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Specialist in the Office of International Affairs (OIA) is responsible for facilitating engagement with foreign regulators to develop and promote cross-border collaboration, cooperation, and information sharing. The specialist also will monitor and analyze global regulatory developments to inform internal and external stakeholders and will prepare response letters and briefing memos. The specialist will serve as a trusted member of the OIA team and support key international engagements. The specialist will work under the general direction of the OIA leadership team.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree required; graduate degree (JD or Masters) preferred.
• Minimum 5 to 7 years in financial services regulation or the financial services industry or related experience.
• Strong knowledge of financial services and broker-dealer regulation.
• Strong knowledge of international business, international finance, international regulatory cooperation or foreign securities laws is preferred.
• Demonstrated organizational, external relations and analytical skills and experience.
• Advanced written skills, verbal communication, and presentation skills.
• Strong research skills.
• Intellectual flexibility to work on widely disparate topics concurrently.
• Ability to engage and work effectively with senior management, across departments, and with staff in multiple locations, including partnering and collaborating with various internal departments in order to effectively respond to internal and external requests for international assistance and for the identification of key issues and trends when collaborating on multilateral initiatives.
• Self-starter with ability to administer a wide variety of assignments concurrently, including unstructured assignments that require autonomy and independent judgment.
• Advanced interpersonal skills to interact effectively with foreign regulators and senior management, across departments, and with staff in multiple locations throughout FINRA, and at various levels.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Power Point and SharePoint.
• Experience utilizing generative AI platforms and prompt engineering best practices to support analytical tasks and enhance productivity.

Nice To Haves

• Strong knowledge of international business, international finance, international regulatory cooperation or foreign securities laws is preferred.
• graduate degree (JD or Masters) preferred.

Responsibilities

• Manage, develop, and facilitate bilateral relationships and engagement with foreign regulators.
• Analyze foreign regulatory requests, conduct research, and collaborate with internal departments in order to make recommendations and draft responses.
• Organize and lead engagement meetings with foreign regulators.
• Collaborate with FINRA departments to respond to internal requests for cross-border information or assistance.
• Analyze department requests, make recommendations, draft responsive information, and facilitate coordination with foreign regulators, including engagement meetings.
• Conduct research and analysis of international developments covering a wide range of financial regulatory topics and jurisdictions with minimal supervision in order to inform and advise FINRA departments and senior management.
• Draft and contribute to foreign regulator requests for assistance, senior management briefing memoranda, and other written product.
• Collaborate with senior management and internal departments to ensure appropriate representation across FINRA’s business units in FINRA’s international events and senior management engagement meetings with foreign regulators.
• Contribute to the strategic direction of these meetings and lead in the development of the meeting programs.
• Prepare agendas, related research, briefing memoranda, follow-up summaries, and other materials to execute these meetings and ensure they yield learnings that are valuable for internal participants that can be considered and applied in FINRA’s program development and decision making as well as to increase FINRA’s reputation globally.
• Interact and facilitate engagement with both FINRA and external stakeholders, including foreign regulators, multilateral organizations, the SEC, CFTC, State Department, international bodies and interest groups. This will include the strategy, analysis and organizational work involved in senior management bilateral meetings with foreign regulators.
• Deliver oral presentations to foreign regulators to build external relations and keep international stakeholders informed about FINRA and its regulatory programs, and to internal audiences to inform FINRA senior management and staff about international regulatory developments that may have implications for FINRA members or programs.
• Ensure that the transmission of confidential information follows procedures for information-sharing with foreign regulators including applicable Memoranda of Understanding and work to identify and resolve any questions that may arise.
• Lead and provide support for other special projects.

Benefits

• Employees may be eligible for a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay.
• Non-exempt employees are also eligible for overtime pay in accordance with federal, state, or local law.
• As part of its dedication to employee wellness, FINRA provides comprehensive health, dental and vision insurance.
• Additional insurance includes basic life, accidental death and dismemberment, supplemental life, spouse/domestic partner and dependent life, and spouse/domestic partner and dependent accidental death and dismemberment, short- and long-term disability, long-term care, business travel accident, disability and legal.
• FINRA offers immediate participation and vesting in a 401(k) plan with company match and eligibility for participation in an additional FINRA-funded retirement contribution, tuition reimbursement, commuter benefits, and other benefits that support employee wellness, such as adoption assistance, backup family care, surrogacy benefits, employee assistance, and wellness programs.
• Time Off and Paid Leave FINRA encourages its employees to focus on their health and wellness in many ways, including through a generous time-off program of 15 days of paid time off, 5 personal days and 9 sick days, unless otherwise required by law (all pro-rated in the first year).
• Additionally, we are proud to support our communities by providing two volunteer service days (based on full-time schedule).
• Other paid leave includes military leave, jury duty leave, bereavement leave, voting and election official leave for federal, state or local primary and general elections, care of a family member leave (available after 90 days of employment); and childbirth and parental leave (available after 90 days of employment).
• Full-time employees receive nine paid holidays.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level