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.

About Network & Acquiring Solutions

As part of the Global Merchant & Network Services group (GMNS), the Network & Acquirer Solutions (NAS) team is at the core of American Express, uniquely positioned to support every business unit and customer across the Enterprise. The American Express Network enables over $1.6 trillion in annual spend, serving our Issuers and Acquirers in more than 170 markets worldwide. We are driving a strategic, multi-year Enterprise Payments program to bring all payments together into a center of excellence to drive operational excellence for payment execution, enable innovative payment products, services, and capabilities to be built effectively and efficiently, support our BU strategies more closely, and deliver on our customers’ evolving payment needs.

How you will make an impact in this role?

This newly created role of Director, Enterprise Payments Network Management is an exciting opportunity to establish and lead the strategic management and optimization of our treasury banking relationships and non-bank payments partners. The incumbent will be an integral leader within a large scale, enterprise-wide program established to redesign our payment execution operating model, optimise and de-risk payment partner relationships, offer best in class payments processing, and create safe and compliant enterprise payments services.

The Director, Enterprise Payments Network Management will oversee the strategy, performance, and compliance of our global bank and non-bank partners within the payments network to ensure efficient, seamless, and optimized money movement for payment use cases across the enterprise. The successful candidate will establish a network partner management framework to deepen bank and non-bank relationships, drive governance and operational excellence, minimize third party risk, and optimize the commercial terms with partners to drive flawless payments processing globally for American Express. This is a unique opportunity to shape the foundation of a critical function and drive the strategic development of an enterprise payment service.

Key Responsibilities

• Establishment of the new function: Develop the strategy and vision for the Enterprise Payments Network Management function including defining roles and responsibilities across the engagement lifecycle, creating the governance frameworks, establishing processes and best practices for managing payment partner relationships, and defining key success metrics and KPIs.

• Network management strategy: Create comprehensive inventory of existing payment partner relationships globally across the enterprise assessing their roles, performance, and alignment with strategic objectives. Develop and implement rationalization strategy to optimize the bank partner portfolio and establish clear rules and criteria for engaging new banking partners.  

• Strategic relationship management: Negotiate contracts, fee schedules, and service level agreements with new and existing partners with an enterprise perspective to ensure competitive terms and service levels. Develop a scalable partnership management model to drive strategic and proactive management of third-party payment partners.

• Payments network design and oversight: Evaluate existing third-party relationships against business needs to design appropriate payments network along with the strategies for a resilient, efficient, and secure payments network.

• Operational performance and optimization: Assess operational and performance metrics to monitor, benchmark, and optimize the performance of the partners. Identify opportunities to improve operational efficiency.

• Risk management and compliance: Ensure the participants in the payments network operate in compliance with all applicable regulations, e.g., AML, OFAC, PCI, etc. Work with the third-party partners to prioritize work and lead operational readiness and change management program in response to regulatory mandates.

• Industry engagement and expertise: Develop strategy for engagement and participation in industry forums and governing bodies. Stay abreast of new payment regulations and payment networks rule changes and determine impact to the payments processing, partner integration, and payment network management.
   

Minimum qualifications

• Relevant experience: Minimum of 10 years’ experience in global bank payments (ACH, wire, RTP) on the consumer and/or wholesale side.

• Network management experience, including building partner management framework, assessment and optimization of third-party partners, third-party risk management, SLA management, and fees optimization.

• Leadership: Experience leading a team of direct reports day to day operations, coaching, and overseeing performance indications for continuous improvement.

• Regulatory expertise: Strong understanding of the regulatory landscape affecting payment systems, including AML, KYC, OFAC, PSD2.

• Payment scheme expertise: Proven experience with payment schemes and their compliance requirements, including experience with The Clearing House, The Federal Reserve, Nacha, SEPA, Faster Payments Scheme, etc.

• Enterprise Program management: Demonstrated ability to lead and manage comprehensive programs in partnership with key stakeholders at an Enterprise level.

• Passion for results: Passion to drive execution and deliver results in a fast-moving and innovative environment.

• Analytical mindset: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a proactive approach to resolving issues and implementing process improvements.

• Highly collaborative: Ability to collaborate with and build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders to deliver value beyond traditional means.

• Executive communication: Ability to effectively communicate and inspire decision making comfortably with C-suite stakeholders.

• Effective negotiator and influencer: Ability to influence key partners and executive stakeholders. Excellent communication skills, proficient in developing excellent quality presentations and deliverables for an executive audience.

Non-considerations for sponsorship:  

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

Considerations for sponsorship:  

Depending on factors such as business unit requirements, the nature of the position, cost and applicable laws, American Express may provide visa sponsorship for certain positions. 

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 
• Support for financial-well-being and retirement 
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits (depending on location) 
• Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need 
• Generous paid parental leave policies (depending on your location) 
• 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

Offer of employment with American Express is conditioned upon the successful completion of a background verification check, subject to applicable laws and regulations.