Principal, Payments Strategy & Operations

Fanatics • New York, NY

15h • $168,750 - $210,000

About The Position

We are seeking a Lead, Payments Strategy & Operations to own the commercial, operational, and strategic performance of payments across Fanatics Collect. This role sits at the intersection of product, finance, risk, legal, and engineering, and is critical to optimizing our payments ecosystem. You will drive performance across all payment methods, manage vendor relationships, and lead cross-functional initiatives to create a seamless and trusted payment experience for collectors around the world.

Requirements

• 6–10+ years of experience in payments, fintech, or e-commerce
• Proven ability to improve authorization rates, reduce payment costs, and balance fraud and risk controls with customer experience
• Strong cross-functional leadership and communication skills
• Comfort operating in ambiguity and navigating complex systems
• Expert-level Excel/Google Sheets skills for modeling and analysis
• Strong analytics background with experience in payment performance metrics
• Knowledge of payment processors, orchestration platforms, and fraud tools
• Familiarity with BI tools (e.g., Looker, Tableau, Mode); SQL is a plus
• Problem-solving mindset with ability to distill technical detail into business insight
• Fluency with modern AI tools to support analysis and accelerate decision-making

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end payments performance across cards, wallets, bank transfers, FanCash, Loyalty rewards and alternative payment methods
• Analyze customer payment behavior to reduce friction and improve conversion across checkout, deposits, and payouts
• Partner with Product and Growth to optimize payment flows by segment, geography, and use case
• Define and monitor key payments KPIs including acceptance, recovery, customer experience, and cost metrics
• Evaluate and manage relationships with payment processors, gateways, orchestration platforms, and fraud vendors
• Lead commercial negotiations and RFPs to ensure scalable and cost-efficient solutions
• Collaborate with Engineering and Product on routing logic, retries, and build vs. buy decisions
• Align priorities across Finance, Risk, Legal, and Compliance teams
• Balance risk controls and compliance with a high-trust, low-friction customer experience

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed