VP of Payment Operations Hire for a Global Marketplace Platform

As the business continued to scale in both user volume and geographic reach, leadership identified the need for a VP of Payment Operations to drive optimisation, strengthen payments capability and shape the long term payments strategy.

The hire would become one of the most influential operational leaders in the organisation.

1. A rare blend of global payments and operational leadership

The role demanded experience in:

• Large scale global e commerce payments
• Payment processor management across multiple markets
• Optimising authorisation rates and reducing churn
• Subscription, one time and marketplace payment flows
• Card networks, acquirers and alternative payments

Candidates with this end to end global payments expertise are niche in the UK and EU markets.

2. Operating at the intersection of payments, product, data and compliance

The VP needed to:

• Embed themselves across finance, product, engineering and compliance
• Interpret large volumes of data to drive decision making
• Work directly with senior leadership on monetisation strategy
• Keep the company ahead of regulatory and security changes globally

This required a hybrid operator and strategist who could both lead and execute.

3. High volume, multi country complexity

The platform processes transactions at a scale few businesses ever reach.

The new VP had to be able to:

• Manage payments in 100+ countries
• Navigate processor performance issues market by market
• Stay ahead of global regulatory considerations
• Build strong internal and external partnerships to drive optimisation

This level of complexity significantly narrowed the available talent pool.

Deep discovery work

We partnered closely with the CFO and Head of Talent to understand:

• Current payment architecture
• Pain points with processors, auth rates and involuntary churn
• Strategic challenges related to geographic expansion
• Internal stakeholder dynamics across finance, legal, product and risk
• The personality traits needed for success such as being proactive, data led, decisive and collaborative

This allowed us to refine an accurate and highly targeted search strategy.

Global market mapping

Given the scarcity of talent, we mapped senior payments leaders across:

• Large scale e commerce merchants
• Marketplaces
• PSPs, acquirers and global processors
• Subscription first platforms
• High growth fintechs with international payments exposure

Our long list identified specialists with:

• 8–15+ years in global payments
• Strong commercial and technical understanding of card networks, acquiring and alternative payments
• Experience optimising payments at scale
• Proven ability to drive cross functional outcomes

Rigorous shortlisting process

We designed our assessment around the client’s needs:

• Payments optimisation knowledge
• International processor management
• Data led decision making
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders
• Operational excellence in high volume environments

A refined shortlist of 10 candidates was delivered within four weeks.

Relevant background

• Extensive experience managing global payments for a multinational e commerce company
• Deep technical understanding of card networks, processors, acquiring and alternative payments
• Proven success improving authorisation rates and reducing involuntary churn
• Hands on leadership style with the ability to partner with product, finance, compliance and engineering teams

Immediate impact

Within their first months, the hire:

• Introduced new frameworks for global payments optimisation
• Improved visibility into processor performance across key markets
• Launched initiatives to reduce payment failures and churn
• Strengthened relationships with key payment partners and internal leadership
• Began designing a longer term payments strategy aligned to the company’s global growth roadmap

Our client credited the hire with bringing clarity, structure and forward looking strategy to one of their most mission critical functions.

• Deep expertise in fintech, payments operations and marketplace specific talent
• Access to senior global payments leaders across the UK, EU and US
• Ability to assess both technical depth and operational leadership
• Precision in search execution for highly niche roles

This project reinforced our position as a leading specialist recruiter for compliance, payments and operations leadership roles within high growth digital platforms.