Legal & Compliance Program Manager at NinjaHoldings

NinjaHoldings was founded in 2017 by a team seeking to revolutionize the way everyday Americans interact with financial services. Through our CreditNinja and NinjaCard brands, we empower people overlooked by traditional financial institutions to take control of their finances via a full suite of digital banking and lending products, providing incentives and rewards along the way as we guide them on a path to financial improvement. Through our EDGE brand, we help companies better understand their customers by offering a package of bespoke underwriting, fraud detection, and analytics services. With offices in Chicago, Miami, and around the world through the power of remote work, we are a lean and innovative team always seeking like-minded talent to join us in our fight to disrupt consumer finance.

Job Summary

We are hiring a Compliance & Legal Program Manager to own and drive the execution of initiatives originating from two separate departments, Compliance and Legal. This role is designed for candidates with strong product or management backgrounds who are comfortable decomposing complex requirements, coordinating cross-functional work, and driving delivery in regulated environments.

The role will focus on program management and execution, not regulatory interpretation or legal decision-making. The goal is to ensure compliance and legal-driven work moves forward in a structured, visible way without placing execution burden on department leadership.

Location and Work Model

Compliance leadership is based in Sarasota. Legal leadership is based in Chicago. This role will report through Compliance, with a strong partnership to Legal regardless of the candidate's primary location. Preference for candidates based in Chicago, IL or Sarasota, FL.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own and manage the Compliance Program Build Jira space, which serves as the central PM and coordination space for compliance and legal initiatives, ensuring work is routed to the correct Jira space and tracked appropriately
• Intake and prioritize initiatives originating from Compliance and Legal
• Own cross-functional Epics and drive them from definition through completion
• Translate compliance and legal requirements into clear execution plans
• Coordinate execution across Compliance, Legal, Product, Engineering, Operations, and external partners
• Drive project planning, scheduling, and monitoring to ensure initiatives are delivered on time and with high quality
• Ensure required legal and bank reviews and approvals are obtained, documented, and tracked
• Identify risks, dependencies, and blockers early, recommend mitigation strategies, and escalate when needed
• Provide clear status updates and delivery visibility to Compliance and Legal leadership and ensure initiatives close with proper validation, approvals, and evidence retained
• Analyze complex business challenges and translate them into actionable solutions, utilizing advanced analytical tools and methodologies
• Champion process improvements, organizational alignment, and strategic decision-making

Ideal Candidate Will Have:

• 5+ years of experience as a Program Manager, Product Manager, Project Manager, or similar role
• Demonstrated experience delivering complex, cross-team initiatives
• Experience working in regulated industries strongly preferred
• Comfort working closely with Engineering, Product, Compliance, and Legal teams
• Strong experience using Jira to manage cross-functional work, including Epics, stories and linked workflows across multiple projects
• Demonstrated ability to manage a program build or initiative board that coordinates work executed by other teams
• Familiarity with software development lifecycles, releases processes, and change management protocols
• Experience operating in controlled or regulated change environments
• Strong organizational and prioritization skills

Additional Pluses:

• Experience supporting Compliance, Legal, Audit, or Risk teams
• Fintech, banking, payments, or consumer finance experience
• Familiarity with data validation or reporting workflows, including the ability to interpret reports or query outputs
• Experience coordinating work involving external partners or regulators

Benefits:

• Competitive salary and benefits package
• Flexible, remote work
• Fun, fast-paced work environment
• Dynamic start-up culture
• Ability to make an immediate impact in a growth stage company
• Convenient downtown Chicago office located in the heart of the city
• Equal opportunity employer

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Please carefully review communications to ensure that they are from the official Breezy applicant tracking platform (@breezy-mail.com) or an official NinjaHoldings brand email: @ninjaholdings.com, @creditninja.com, @ninjacard.com, or @edgescore.com. If you have been contacted regarding a job opening at NinjaHoldings from any other email address, including similar email variations, this is NOT a trusted source. We recommend that you refrain from responding to suspicious emails and file a complaint with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at https://www.ic3.gov. For questions or to confirm the authenticity of a communication, please email hr @ninjaholdings.com.