Head of User Risk Strategy

Stripe

About The Position

Stripe is seeking a seasoned leader to own and evolve the User Risk Strategy (URS) / Supportability function as a Manager of Managers (M2). This role is crucial for defining who Stripe can do business with, on what terms, and how those standards are maintained and enforced at scale. The URS function is part of Stripe's Risk organization and is the authoritative owner of Stripe's supportability framework. The successful candidate will lead a team of risk strategists and analysts across various sub-teams, including Ecosystem Strategy, New Product Enablement, User Insights & Enablement, Platform Risk Strategy, and Enforcement & Monitoring Strategy (EMS). This senior leadership position will shape the direction of Stripe's supportability ecosystem and drive cross-functional decisions to ensure Stripe's safe growth. The role reports into the Head of Risk Strategy and involves close collaboration with Product, Engineering, Legal, Financial Crimes, Financial Partnerships, Operations, and Go-to-Market (GTM) leadership.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in risk strategy, policy, compliance, or a related field, with deep experience in user/merchant risk, supportability, or financial services regulation.
4+ years of people management experience, including managing managers; demonstrated ability to lead through multiple layers of an organization.
Proven track record of owning and evolving complex policy or standards frameworks at scale, ideally within a payments, fintech, or marketplace context.
Demonstrated ability to deliver at scale — you have built systems, frameworks, and teams that operate well beyond individual effort, and you instinctively design for leverage and repeatability across large, complex organizations.
Champion for AI and automation — you actively seek opportunities to apply AI-powered tooling and automation to accelerate risk strategy work, reduce manual toil, and improve the quality and consistency of decisions at scale; you set the example for your team in adopting and driving these capabilities.
Exceptional cross-functional collaborator — you know how to build trust with Legal, Engineering, Product, Sales, and Operations, and can reconcile competing stakeholder views to drive results.
Analytical rigor — you are comfortable with data and can structure risk/reward trade-offs clearly and compellingly for senior audiences.
Executive presence and clear written and verbal communication — you can distill complex risk topics into actionable narratives for leadership.

Nice To Haves

Experience working with card network rules (Visa, Mastercard), financial partner compliance requirements, or regulatory frameworks relevant to payments (e.g., BIN sponsorship, direct acquiring).
Familiarity with supportability or trust & safety systems, detection and enforcement tooling, or risk policy automation.
Experience in a high-growth technology company managing risk at scale.

Responsibilities

Own the long-term vision and strategy for Stripe's User Risk / Supportability function, ensuring legitimate users can use Stripe while protecting Stripe's financial platform, brand, and regulatory standing.
Translate Stripe's business objectives and risk appetite into a cohesive, multi-year supportability strategy that balances risk exposure with user experience.
Define the risk/reward framework for new industry enablement and new product enablement — setting the standard for how Stripe evaluates and expands access responsibly.
Develop and execute a clear roadmap across the URS organization that is aligned to Stripe's OKRs and articulated to senior leadership.
Own Stripe's global Terms of Service standards — the Supportability Handling Guide — including restricted and prohibited business categories.
Set the strategic direction for how Stripe's supportability ecosystem evolves as Stripe's product footprint and geographic reach expand.
Be the final decision-maker on policy changes that carry meaningful risk exposure or require cross-functional alignment, and represent Risk's position with Legal, FinCRO, card networks, and external partners.
Integrate financial partner Restricted/Prohibited Business Lists (RBL/PBL) into Stripe's policy framework.
Lead the strategy and approval process for new product enablement — developing the appropriate RBL/PBL strategy for new products and incorporating new bank partner requirements.
Ensure that risk standards are embedded early in the product development lifecycle, partnering with Product and Engineering to shape how supportability is implemented in new Stripe products.
Work with Legal and Financial Partnerships to assess and integrate compliance obligations introduced by new products and banking relationships.
Lead the strategy for new industry enablement — evaluating emerging and underserved industries for supportability, and developing the frameworks that allow Stripe to access these markets responsibly.
Own the Large User Advisory function, providing structured, high-quality guidance on complex user-specific supportability questions — enabling GTM and Partnerships to unlock revenue while managing risk appropriately.
Develop scalable frameworks for advisory decisions so the function can handle growing volume without compromising quality.
Lead Platform Risk Strategy, which covers large user requests, health monitoring, and education for Stripe's largest and most complex users.
Develop scalable approaches to managing the supportability risk profile of Stripe's largest platforms and complex use cases, providing clear guidance and risk frameworks to internal stakeholders.
Drive education and self-service capabilities so that internal teams and users can navigate Stripe's supportability standards more independently.
Provide strategic direction to the EMS team, which is responsible for integrating Stripe's supportability standards into detection and enforcement systems.
Ensure that URS standards are operable, enforceable, and continuously tuned based on performance data and insights.
Partner with Engineering, Product, and Data Science to develop data-driven detection strategies, improve enforcement precision, and reduce false positives that create unnecessary user friction.
Maintain global EMS coverage, including regional strategy across North America and EMEA/APAC.
Lead and develop a team across five sub-teams, including multiple team-level managers (M0/M1) and senior individual contributors.
Set a high bar for talent and actively recruit, develop, and retain excellent risk strategists.
Build a team culture grounded in Stripe's Operating Principles — one that is analytically rigorous, user-centric, and collaborative.
Coach and develop your direct reports to grow in both their functional craft and their leadership capabilities.
Build succession depth and develop a clear talent strategy for the function.
Act as the senior Risk Strategy voice in cross-functional risk forums, product reviews, and partner negotiations relevant to supportability.
Partner with Product and Engineering on the Supportability platform, influencing the roadmap to ensure our systems accurately reflect policy intent and scale effectively.
Work with GTM and Partnerships to develop scalable access to supportability information, reducing friction in the sales cycle while maintaining risk discipline.
Engage with Legal and Financial Partnerships on policy positions, regulatory changes, and external partner requirements.
Represent URS at senior Risk leadership reviews and provide clear, data-backed narrative on the state of the supportability ecosystem.
Drive cross-functional programs with impacts across Risk and the broader organization — including Third Party Agent (TPA) programs, Actor-Level Enforcement, and strategic GTM/URS collaboration initiatives — ensuring clear goals, DRIs, and measurable outcomes.