Delia Pawelke on fighting financial crimes

I joined Stripe in April 2017 because I wanted to work with people and teams eager to tackle age-old problems — from a fresh perspective. I’m a member of Stripe’s Financial Crimes team and we’re tasked with a big mission: preventing and detecting illicit money flows through Stripe. Specifically, our team focuses on developing and implementing policies, procedures, and controls to combat money laundering, sanctions, bribery, and corruption.

Before joining Stripe I worked in NYC, at a large financial institution, and it was there that I was first exposed to the world of “financial crimes.” I learned about the massive threat that money laundering and sanctions violations pose to the integrity of our global financial system and national security. I also learned that the economics of money laundering are astounding — by some estimates, the amount of money laundered globally each year amounts to somewhere between 2% and 5% of the world’s GDP. There was so much more I wanted to learn, and I quickly realized that financial crimes compliance was a field that I wanted to further explore.

In 2015, my husband’s job led me to San Francisco and my own job search commenced. I knew that I wanted to keep working in the same discipline, but for a company where compliance was highly valued and not viewed solely as a “check the box” function. I was immediately drawn to Stripe for this reason. After connecting with Stripes during the interview process and understanding more about the Financial Crimes team, it became clear that there’s a strong “culture of compliance” at Stripe. Doing the right thing is a shared value, from leadership on down. This was important to me, as I wanted to work for a company that not only takes its compliance obligations seriously, but one that views itself as a steward of the larger financial system.

I’ve now been at Stripe for a year and a half, and I couldn’t be happier with the work that I’m doing. What I appreciate about Stripe is how reflexive, rigorous and curious everyone is about their work. We seek fresh perspectives, challenge industry convention and assumptions, and develop innovative and automated solutions to solve big problems. Every day, I work with my colleagues to challenge industry conventions of what financial crimes compliance should look like. Our team is empowered to develop and implement innovative tooling and automated solutions to address these big problems. We understand our products and services and how they can be exploited for financial crime and we build controls to mitigate such risks. And in doing so, we do our part to further Stripe’s mission: to increase the GDP of the internet.

Interested in learning more about opportunities at Stripe?

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