Director, Payments & Risk Operations

Boulevard

14h•Remote

About The Position

Boulevard is redefining how salons and spas run their businesses, and payments are core to that mission. Our integrated payments platform processes billions of dollars annually, is scaling rapidly, and underpins the trust our customers place in us every day. Boulevard Payments is an industry-leading vertical payments platform. We are a registered payment facilitator processing billions annually and growing rapidly. This role owns the operating system behind that engine: merchant onboarding, underwriting, transaction monitoring, disputes, and payments operations. This is a senior, high-impact position responsible for operational payments performance and scalability. It sits in the center of operations, risk, and revenue growth. You will own the build-out of a truly AI-native payments operation — where automation is the default and human judgment is reserved for what machines can't handle — while driving ARR growth and margin.

Requirements

10+ years in operations, with 7+ years in payments, fintech, and/or risk; significant PayFac experience strongly preferred
Demonstrated success building AI-native decisioning systems — agent workflows, rules engines, ML-assisted approaches — that improved outcomes
Deep expertise in payments, acquiring, and/or risk underwriting, fraud, chargebacks, and transaction monitoring
Proven track record of owning portfolio-level performance with clear accountability for loss rates, approval rates, and operational efficiency
Proven ability to lead operational evolution — moving teams from manual workflows to system oversight
Senior-level experience engaging with external partners (acquirers, processors) and cross-functional partnerships across Product, Engineering, Legal, and Compliance

Responsibilities

Own the full lifecycle: onboarding, pricing, underwriting, monitoring, disputes, and support
Define and operate against core metrics: approval rates, loss rates, false positives, time-to-decision
Build a highly instrumented, scalable system with clear feedback loops — including monitoring for decision quality, and failure modes — and drive continuous improvement
Reimagine the payments operations stack as an AI-native system, where humans manage exceptions, not volume
Build and deploy agent-based workflows, LLM-assisted investigation tools, and real-time decisioning at scale
Continuously raise the bar for what AI-forward operations looks like in a PayFac context
Partner with Product and Engineering to ship internal AI tooling that compounds over time, as well as select external vendors
Own portfolio-level losses, balancing growth, protection, and customer experience
Thoughtfully evolve Boulevard's risk appetite and control frameworks in partnership with the GM Fintech
Design and refine underwriting and monitoring strategies; proactively identify and address emerging risks
Ensure adherence to applicable regulations, card network rules, and PayFac requirements
Partner with Legal and Compliance to maintain strong control frameworks, audits, and reporting
Manage relationships with acquirers, processors, and banking partners; represent Boulevard credibly in external risk discussions
Serve as the central accountability point for Payments Operations across Product, Engineering, CX, Sales, and Finance
Translate operational insights into product and policy improvements
Lead a high-performing team across underwriting, risk, and compliance ops — evolving from manual processing to system oversight and exception handling