Director, Platform Operations – Payments & Commerce

Core Responsibilities

• Own the operating model, governance framework, and organizational standards for the Commerce Platform organization, including operating mechanisms, decision-making processes, and governance reviews
• Lead portfolio governance across strategic initiatives, including portfolio reviews, program prioritization, and resource visibility across the Commerce Platform ecosystem
• Provide executive visibility into execution progress, risk, and organizational performance through KPI governance, executive reporting, and leadership updates
• Establish and run the organization's operating cadence, including leadership reviews, business reviews, governance forums, and organizational planning rhythms
• Maintain platform health monitoring and coverage in partnership with the NOC/monitoring team to ensure consistent visibility into system status
• Drive cross-functional accountability across Product, Engineering, Operations, Payments, and Financial Platform, resolving ownership gaps and adjudicating organizational prioritization conflicts
• Lead the TPM organization supporting Commerce Platform initiatives across Payments, Financial & Regulatory Compliance, Commerce Systems, and platform modernization programs
• Own incident management and operational readiness practices across the Commerce Platform, including incident governance, escalation management, postmortems, and root cause reviews
• Drive operational maturity and continuous improvement, including process standardization, governance optimization, and scalability planning
• Lead defect and backlog governance, including bug prioritization, aging management, and execution accountability across the platform
• Partner with Payments, Financial Platform, Revenue Operations, and Compliance stakeholders to ensure consistent execution, operational transparency, and platform resiliency
• Support launch readiness and peak-event readiness for commerce-critical systems and initiatives, coordinating go-live governance and operational readiness validation
• Mentor, guide, and manage the Commerce Platform Operations team as the organization scales

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in operations, technical program management, platform operations, or business operations, including 3+ years in a people leadership or organizational leadership role
• Holistic understanding of the payments ecosystem, including payment methods, processing/acquiring, settlement, payouts, billing/invoicing, chargebacks, fraud and risk operations, and regulatory/compliance considerations
• Proven track record building and running governance frameworks, operating cadences, and executive reporting mechanisms for a complex, multi-team technical organization
• Strong cross-functional leadership skills, with the ability to align Product, Engineering, Payments, Financial Platform, Revenue Operations, and Compliance stakeholders
• Demonstrated experience with incident and escalation governance, risk management, and operational resiliency practices
• General working knowledge of vendor management, fraud program operations, and payments analytics, with the ability to lead teams across these functions
• Excellent executive communication skills, including experience presenting operational strategy, risks, and performance insights to senior leadership
• Direct experience in payments operations, fintech operations, or financial platform operations such as payment gateways, processors, payouts platforms, or billing systems
• Experience operating within a streaming, media, ad-tech, or consumer platform environment
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• Experience standing up or scaling a centralized operations/governance function from the ground up is a plus
• Familiarity with launch readiness, peak-event readiness, and platform resiliency programs is a plus
• PMP, Six Sigma, or equivalent program/process management certification is a plus