At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. As part of Team Amex, you'll experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career. 

Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express. 

General Counsel’s Organization – Director & Counsel, Global Decision Science

The General Counsel’s Organization (GCO) at American Express is seeking a Director & Counsel to provide dedicated legal support to the Global Decision Science (GDS) organization that sits within the Credit & Fraud Risk (CFR) business unit. This role will advise on matters related to AI/ML, model risk management, and risk decisioning activities across the full lending lifecycle, responsible innovation, and data governance.

GDS plays a mission-critical role at American Express by designing, governing, and continuously improving the credit and fraud risk models that sit at the core of the company’s decisioning ecosystem. These models directly enable American Express’s industry-leading write-off rates, fraud loss performance, approval rates, and customer experience by driving responsible underwriting, real-time fraud prevention, and sophisticated customer management strategies across the full lending lifecycle.

This position will serve on the GCO’s growing legal team that supports CFR and Global Credit & Fraud Operations. The successful candidate will work closely with senior engineers, data scientists, risk leaders, and AI researchers within a rapidly evolving and heavily regulated environment.

Role & Responsibilities:

Serve as legal counsel for model reviews, advising GDS modeling teams and key stakeholders on identifying, assessing, and mitigating regulatory, legal, and model risk across a wide spectrum of credit and fraud decisioning use cases. Provide legal support to the GDS AI Labs team, enabling researchers to responsibly push the frontiers of machine learning, advanced analytics, and risk modeling at American Express.Support Gen AI and Agentic enablement across CFR use cases, advising on novel and cutting-edge legal issues related to large language models, explainability, bias, data usage, and other legal considerations.Partner with Corporate Affairs & Communications and other stakeholder groups to review GDS-related content, ensuring compliance with company policies and providing strategic, risk-based legal guidance using sound judgment.Stay abreast of global regulatory and legal developments impacting GDS and other core stakeholders.Serve as the primary legal point of contact for CFR’s Business Unit Data Office, providing guidance on data governance matters, including data retention and deletion.Identify and lead process improvement initiatives that enhance agility, consistency, and effectiveness in advising our GDS partners.Collaborate with colleagues across the GCO and other business units, including by leading, and/or participating in strategic business and GCO projects.

 Minimum Qualifications:

J.D. with ability to practice law in New York.6+ years of relevant work experience in a law firm and/or in-house corporate legal department focused on technology, data science, or financial services.Proven experience serving as the lead attorney on large scale, complex technology-centric initiatives.Ability to build strong relationships and collaborate effectively with cross-functional stakeholders to drive results on complex, high-priority initiatives.Excellent judgment, analytical thinking, problem-solving, and project management skills.Clear communicator, both written and verbal with a demonstrated ability to translate and simplify data science speak, legalese, and business jargon into terms accessible to senior business leaders and other GCO partners.

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience advising on AI/ML, data science, and/or data strategy issues.Deep familiarity with U.S. financial regulatory frameworks, including OCC-SR 11-7, fair lending requirements, UDAAP, and/or emerging AI regulations and standards.Experience acting as a trusted advisor to senior business leaders and other stakeholders.Interest and ability to develop deep understanding of business objectives and integrate details of business operational processes and procedures in provision of legal advice.Strong drafting and negotiation skills.Strong interpersonal skills, executive presence and ability to effectively interact at all levels within the organization and with external counterparties.Capable of advising on emerging and evolving areas of law and prioritizing competing demands while maintaining high attention to detail and meeting deadlines.

Salary Range: $144,250.00 to $256,250.00 annually + bonus + equity (if applicable) + benefits

The above represents the expected salary range for this job requisition. Ultimately, in determining your pay, we’ll consider your location, experience, and other job-related factors.

We back you with benefits that support your holistic well-being so you can be and deliver your best. This means caring for you and your loved ones' physical, financial, and mental health, as well as providing the flexibility you need to thrive personally and professionally:

Competitive base salaries Bonus incentives 6% Company Match on retirement savings plan Free financial coaching and financial well-being support Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need 20+ weeks paid parental leave for all parents, regardless of gender, offered for pregnancy, adoption or surrogacy Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location) Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program Career development and training opportunities

For a full list of Team Amex benefits, visit our Colleague Benefits Site.

American Express is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status, age, or any other status protected by law. American Express will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest or conviction records, in accordance with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including, but not limited to, the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance. For positions covered by federal and/or state banking regulations, American Express will comply with such regulations as it relates to the consideration of applicants with criminal convictions.

We back our colleagues with the support they need to thrive, professionally and personally. That's why we have Amex Flex, our enterprise working model that provides greater flexibility to colleagues while ensuring we preserve the important aspects of our unique in-person culture. Depending on role and business needs, colleagues will either work onsite, in a hybrid model (combination of in-office and virtual days) or fully virtually.

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Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the United States is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.