Head of Professional Services Excellence

Adyen•Chicago, IL

6d•$190,000 - $250,000•Onsite

About The Position

We are looking for an experienced leader to join us as Head of Professional Services Excellence, to lead a small, but transformative team. This newly formed team is responsible for driving continuous improvement across Professional Services, strengthening how we operate, how we scale, and how we serve our customers. The initial team will consist of 6 to 9 individual contributors. Professional Services (PS) plays a critical role in enabling Adyen’s growth, but as we’ve scaled, so have complexity, friction, and operational challenges. The PS Excellence team exists to address this head-on: raising the bar on operational excellence, improving merchant experience, reducing friction across workflows, and building the capabilities and systems that allow PS to operate at a high standard, consistently and at scale. This team will act as a force multiplier for the wider PS organisation: bringing structure, execution muscle, and operational rigor to our most important improvement areas while working closely with domain leaders, Product, and Operations. The Head of PS Excellence will play a key role in shaping how Professional Services evolves, matures, and delivers impact over the coming years. This position can be based in our Chicago office.

Requirements

You are a visible, senior leader who brings structure, calm, and direction in ambiguous, fast-changing environments.
You are comfortable operating as a peer to other senior leaders and influencing at all levels of the organization.
You have demonstrated experience developing a high performing geographically distributed team, demonstrating you can lead effectively in a remote setting
You lead by example with a hands-on approach. Rolling up your sleeves to design scalable initiatives and effectively implementing new or revised operational models
An excellent communicator who builds trust and alignment with peers, cross-functional partners, and senior stakeholders
You are a strong operator who cares about how the organisation actually runs and holds a high bar on quality, consistency, and scalability
You demonstrate long-term thinking and have the ability to connect tactical decisions to long-term strategy and think several moves ahead
Low-ego, pragmatic, and impact-driven, focused on making the organisation work better

Responsibilities

Set the vision, strategy, and priorities for the PS Excellence team, aligned with PS, OPS and company-level objectives
Operate as a peer to the PS leadership team, helping develop and operationalize the Professional Services strategy by translating high-level ambition into a clear roadmap of initiatives and capabilities
Act as a thought partner to the VP of PS and your peers on how PS should scale, mature, and operate
Own the portfolio of PS-wide initiatives that improve how we operate (processes, tooling, ways of working, service models)
Ensure initiatives are well-defined, well-prioritized, and actually delivered, partnering closely with domain leaders to embed changes into day-to-day operations
Drive a step-change in operational excellence across PS with a clear focus on improving the merchant experience, reducing friction across workflows, and increasing consistency in PS delivery
Own the structure, planning cycles, and operating rhythms for key PS-wide initiatives
Build and lead a high-performing team with clear ownership, strong collaboration, and high accountability
Operate as a senior leader in the PS and OPS ecosystem, partnering closely with domain leaders and other cross functional stakeholders
Create organizational structure, reduce complexity, and enable your team to navigate ambiguity in a fast-changing environment