Olivia L. Young

Operations, payments, technology and risk leadership

Olivia L. Young

I build the work, protect the people doing it, and leave the function stronger than I found it.

My career has taken me from payments operations and implementation to AML investigations, compliance technology and second-line risk. I bring people into the problem, turn what we learn into a workable plan, and stay involved to see whether it works.

Explore my experience Explore my writing
Olivia L. Young
Based in
Tampa, Florida
Leading since
Banking and payments leadership since May 1996
Most recently
SVP, Risk Management (Second Line of Defense), Citibank N.A. Chief Risk Officer organization, April 2022 to May 2026

Experience and contribution

Four periods, one way of working.

Payments operations and implementation, then AML investigations, compliance technology delivery and second-line risk management. In each one I brought people into the problem and stayed involved until the plan held.

  1. Period 1: Payments operations and implementation

    May 1996 to September 2011
    Equifax Payment Services, Certegy, FIS

    Customer service, process improvement, project management and implementation, growing into direction of the North American implementation organization at FIS.

  2. Period 2: AML monitoring and investigations

    June 2012 to June 2017
    Citi

    Led investigative teams responsible for transaction monitoring, investigations, escalations and suspicious activity report drafting.

  3. Period 3: Compliance technology delivery

    June 2017 to April 2022
    Citi

    Led global compliance technology delivery for anti-money-laundering, including the rationalization of legacy case-management platforms.

  4. Period 4: Second-line risk management

    April 2022 to May 2026
    Citibank N.A., Chief Risk Officer organization

    Second-line challenge across operational, compliance, information, third-party and model risk for the CBNA risk segment.

Explore the full experience

How I approach the work

Executed is not effective.

Completing an action is not the same as achieving what the action was for. A control can run every day and still miss the one thing it was built to catch. An approval can be on file while the authority behind it has lapsed. A log can show what happened without showing that it should have.

So I test the work against one sequence, from the decision to its consequence. It is how I write about authority and evidence, and it is how I check whether a plan actually helped.

The sequence

  1. 1IntentWhat was decided, by whom, for what purpose
  2. 2TranslationHow the decision became rules, limits and ownership
  3. 3ExecutionWhat was actually done, by a person or a system
  4. 4EvidenceWhat reliable records show, including what remains unverified
  5. 5ResponseWho decides what happens next, and how it is followed through

Featured writing · Paper 1

Who Authorized the Agent?

Evidence of authority when an AI agent acts

Five links between a business decision and a single action, a one-page map of where the evidence lives, and five questions to take to your team this week.

Forthcoming

See the writing
  • Next in the seriesWho Owns the Outcome? In progress.

A little more about me

How I learned to lead

My highest completed formal qualification is a high school diploma. I learned through the work: understanding the principles, applying them, and taking responsibility for what happened next. Over time, that became part of how I led other people.

Read my story

Creative work

Forms of Joy

I'm also the creator of Forms of Joy, where I develop creative tools and thoughtful messages for reflection, connection and everyday joy. Products are in development.

Follow the work on Instagram, @formsofjoystudio

If something here is useful to you, write to me.

A leadership role, a delivery problem worth talking through, or a paper you think is wrong. Tell me what it is and I will reply personally.

olivia@olivialyoung.net

Or find me on LinkedIn.