We are looking for a Head of Compliance to lead Pearler’s compliance function, work hand in hand with our growth and creative teams, and get us ready to hold our own Australian financial services licence.
Head of Compliance
Location: Sydney, in our Darlinghurst office (mainly office based)
Hours: Part time, 3 to 4 days a week
Reports to: Commercial Director
Wider team: Commercial and Operations, working day to day with growth and creative. Our Operations Manager, hired alongside this role, assists you.
The brand: offering young Aussies a way out
Pearler is the Australian finance app for the next generation. We’ve built an obsessed community of 100k+ active users by offering a trusted, education-focused alternative to the old school, traditional incumbent financial services.
We’ve done all this on the strength of our product, and honesty in our approach. It’s helped us form partnerships with some of Australia’s best financial creator talent, who use and love Pearler, and build two of Australia’s top finance podcasts, the Get Rich Slow Club and Aussie FIRE.
We have just taken the leap from start-up to scale-up. Our next phase is simple: make Pearler a household name by going big, taking risks and having even more fun.
The opportunity
Pearler has closed its Series A and plans to apply for its own Australian financial services licence (AFSL) in the next six to twelve months. Today we operate as a corporate authorised representative of Sanlam Private Wealth, and we are putting the systems and processes in place to hold a licence ourselves. You will lead the compliance function, and be the point person inside Pearler and with Sanlam, our partners and the regulators.
A consultant is running the AFSL application. You work alongside them to get us licence ready, and keep compliance running while we get there. You will also be the compliance partner our growth team works with every day, reviewing work as it is made rather than at the end. There are no direct reports today; the role may build a team once we hold the licence.
The mission
Make compliance part of how Pearler ships. In three months, marketing and growth come to you rather than the founders, reviews turn around in days, and the compliance calendar and obligations register are in place. In six, campaign and product reviews are routine, the consultant has everything they need, and the Compliance Committee runs to a set agenda. In twelve, growth ships faster with fewer compliance surprises, the application is submitted with nothing waiting on us, and reporting goes out on time without chasing.
What you will build and lead
- Partner with growth and creative: Be the day to day compliance contact for marketing and growth. Sit with them on content, campaigns and launches, and review the work as it is made rather than at the end. Today the CEO reviews creative himself and referees between compliance and the creative team. Take both off him.
- Give the fix, not the finding: Turn reviews around in days, not weeks. Where something can’t run as drafted, give a fix that sounds like Pearler rather than a disclaimer. Get Sanlam’s written approval on marketing and disclosure material while the CAR deed requires it; once we hold our own licence, that approval sits with you.
- Keep product and web compliant: Review the website against our licensing obligations and keep it compliant as it changes. Review new products and features before launch, including target market determinations and design and distribution obligations. Turn changes in legislation and guidance into plain guidance for product and marketing.
- Get us licence ready: Be the AFSL consultant’s point of contact, and make sure the policies, systems, controls and evidence a licensee needs exist and work. We are ISO 27001 certified, so much of it exists; extend it and keep it current after the consultant has gone. Plan the move from corporate authorised representative to licensee.
- Lead policies and controls: Lead our KYC, AML and client monies handling policies to a market leading standard, make sure the controls behind them work in practice, and keep the records required. Run a risk based monitoring programme: file reviews, Sanlam’s attestations, and findings escalated and closed out. You work within Sanlam’s programmes while we are a corporate authorised representative. Once we hold the licence, they are yours.
- Set the standard on certification and training: ISO 27001 sits with operations day to day; you set the compliance standard and make the judgement calls. Run the quarterly ISMS management review, coordinate independent compliance reviews, and make sure the team completes the competency, CPD and compliance training Sanlam requires.
- Run the Sanlam relationship: Lead it day to day: regular meetings, reporting on staffing, resources, systems and compliance, and support for their monitoring and audits. Meet our compliance reporting obligations to external partners, most of which run quarterly. The Representative Relationship Manager title stays where it is under our deed. The work is yours.
- Handle breaches, complaints and regulators: Assess incidents and potential breaches, investigate, judge whether they are reportable and report to Sanlam promptly. Maintain the breach, complaints, incident and conflicts of interest registers. Lead internal dispute resolution, AFCA matters and remediation, and respond to ASIC, other regulators and partner audits. Once we hold our own licence, reportable situation notifications to ASIC sit with you.
- Run governance: Prepare and lead the Compliance Committee, report to the board on risks, incidents, complaints, monitoring and remediation, and keep the compliance calendar, obligations register and risk register current.
Who you are
- An experienced compliance lead: Five to seven years in compliance at a business that holds an AFSL, as a manager or as the compliance lead. You’re comfortable being the only compliance person, hands on, with no team behind you.
- Great with creative teams: Finding a way to be compliant in Pearler’s voice, rather than flattening the work into legal copy, is the core of this job. You push back, reach a compromise and keep it moving without it being escalated.
- Across the rules: Working knowledge of the Corporations Act, the ASIC regulatory guides that apply to a retail investment platform, design and distribution obligations, complaints handling, anti money laundering and the supervision of authorised representatives.
- Fluent in stockbroking operations: You know how trade execution, clearing and settlement, and client account administration work, and the controls around them.
- Fast and direct: You move at the pace of a growth team. Marketing works in days and so do your reviews. Where the answer is no, you say so early and explain why.
- A plain explainer: You explain compliance simply to people who do not work in it.
- Accountable for what AI produces: We use AI heavily and expect this role to do the same. It can draft, summarise and check. What goes out is yours, and you can show your reasoning.
Bonus points
- You’ve taken an AFSL application or variation through ASIC, or built the systems and evidence one needs.
- You’ve acted as a Responsible Manager, ideally for general advice.
- You’ve led ISO 27001 audits.
- You’ve dealt with ASIC and AFCA directly.
- You use AI day to day and can show where it’s saved you time.
- You’ve worked at a startup or scale up, in brokerage, managed funds or investment platforms.
- You invest in shares or ETFs yourself.
Why join Pearler now?
- Impact: We are cashflow positive in FY2026 with a clear path to growth.
- Equity: All permanent employees who pass probation are offered equity.
- Purpose: We are solving the wealth gap for our generation, plus helping people buy their first homes faster (HomeSoon) and invest for their kids (Headstart).
- Autonomy: You lead the compliance function and set the standard Pearler takes into its own licence.
- Flexibility: Part time, 3 to 4 days a week, with room to go up as the work grows. Days can flex week to week, with an agreed pattern that keeps you reachable for anything urgent.
- Package: $170,000 to $190,000 a year full time equivalent, plus super, pro rata for the days you work, and 10 days of bonus leave a year once you’ve used your annual leave for the FY.
Interested? Email your CV and a short covering note to jobs@pearler.com. In the note, tell us about a time you found a compliant way to do something the business wanted, rather than blocking it.
