Chief Audit Officer

Arthur C. Clarke famously said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

At Mercury, we aim to deliver a magical experience to our customers who rely on us for their banking* and financial workflows. But behind the magic lies a lot of rigor—internal audit is a key part of keeping Mercury safe, resilient, and worthy of our customers’ trust.

As Mercury’s first Chief Audit Officer, you’ll lead the company’s independent assurance program that allows us to scale with confidence. You will serve as a strategic partner to the Board and Audit Committee, providing an objective, enterprise-wide view of our financial, operational, and technical resilience.

This role is about finding the right balance between high-velocity innovation and the rigorous expectations of our partner banks and regulators. By moving toward data-driven, continuous monitoring, you will ensure our growth is anchored in integrity. You’ll drive a culture of audit readiness where excellence is the baseline and regulatory exams result in no surprises.

Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.

Here are some of the things you will do:

• Own the Audit Vision — evolve the risk-based internal audit strategy and ensure alignment with the company’s growth, regulatory expectations, and emerging risks. 
• Provide Independent Assurance — deliver objective evaluations to the Board and Audit Committee(s) on the effectiveness of our risk management, internal controls, and governance.
• Ensure we Audit the Stack — own the audit universe; ensuring completeness of Audit coverage across Mercury. Oversee the audit program to ensure the plan includes the appropriate mix of technical and operational audits that dive deep into our business, automated movement of funds, and cloud infrastructure to ensure data integrity and security.
• Validate the "Magic" — ensure our audit program includes timely validation that new and existing product workflows and financial controls are operating exactly as intended, identifying potential friction before it impacts the customer.
• Bridge the Regulatory Gap — act as a key point of contact for our partner banks and regulators, providing them with the confidence that Mercury’s internal oversight is rigorous and proactive.
• Automate Oversight — design and implement continuous monitoring systems that replace manual checklists with real-time, data-driven audit insights.
• Champion SustainableRemediation — serve as the senior escalation point to partner with Engineering, Product, and Risk leads to ensure audit findings result in structural improvements, not just temporary fixes and that remediations are appropriately prioritized within the roadmaps, in line with risk. 

There are lots of paths that could lead you to be successful in a role like this; we think the strongest candidates will have some of these experiences or attributes:

• Bring proven leadership in audit — you’ve built or scaled internal audit functions within high-growth banking or financial services, ideally at the intersection of traditional finance and fintech innovation.
• Have technical fluency — you are comfortable in a cloud-native, remote-first environment. You can discuss API integrity and automated controls as easily as you can discuss balance sheets and reconciliations.
• Navigate the regulatory landscape with confidence — you know what regulators expect, you’re comfortable engaging directly with them, and you can help Mercury anticipate and adapt to a changing environment.
• Maintain strong and effective independence — you have the fortitude to deliver difficult news and the diplomacy to ensure those insights lead to positive change.
• Communicate clearly and simply — whether you’re talking…