Program Manager, Partner Banking

Valley Bank•Morristown, NJ

About The Position

The Program Manager, Partner Banking leads assigned partner programs from commercial handoff through due diligence, contracting, implementation, launch readiness, and ongoing oversight. The role serves as the primary day-to-day relationship manager for partners, establishing governance routines and coordinating communications while ensuring clear ownership of issues, decisions, and open items. The position coordinates due diligence across applicable control functions and maintains integrated onboarding and program plans covering milestones, dependencies, risks, decisions, and escalation paths. It partners with Product and cross-functional stakeholders to translate approved requirements into implementation plans, support testing and launch readiness, and confirm operational processes, controls, agreements, reporting, and support models are ready before launch. After launch, the Program Manager oversees partner relationships and program performance through business reviews, monitoring, issue management, change requests, and escalation of material risks or service concerns. The role maintains program documentation and identifies improvements to onboarding, operations, controls, partner experience, and scalability.

Requirements

Strong understanding of partner banking, embedded finance, payments, deposit products, and fintech operating models.
Demonstrated program or relationship management skills, including planning, issue resolution, escalation, and executive-level status reporting.
Ability to coordinate due diligence and ongoing oversight across risk, compliance, legal, operations, technology, finance, and third-party risk functions in a regulated environment.
Working knowledge of payment and banking operations, including account onboarding, ACH, wires, fraud controls, AML/BSA requirements, reconciliation, and operational support models.
Excellent partner and stakeholder management skills, with judgment to balance partner experience, delivery objectives, operational feasibility, and the Bank's risk appetite.
Clear and persuasive written and verbal communication skills, strong organization and attention to detail, and ability to manage multiple programs and priorities.
Bachelor's degree in business, finance, technology, operations, or a related field.
Minimum of 5 years of experience in program management, partner or client management, implementations, operations, product delivery, or risk management within banking, fintech, payments, or financial services.

Nice To Haves

Direct experience with partner banking, Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), embedded finance, payment sponsorship, or technology-enabled deposit programs.
Experience leading complex, cross-functional onboarding or implementation efforts within a regulated financial institution.
Familiarity with partner due diligence, third-party risk management, operational controls, APIs or banking technology integrations, and ongoing program governance.

Responsibilities

Lead assigned partner programs from commercial handoff through due diligence, contracting, implementation, launch readiness, and ongoing oversight.
Serve as the primary day-to-day relationship manager for assigned partners; establish governance routines, coordinate communications, and maintain clear ownership of issues, decisions, and open items.
Coordinate partner due diligence across Financial Crimes Compliance, Regulatory Compliance, Privacy, Information Security, Financial/Credit, Third-Party Risk Management, and other applicable control functions; track requests, questions, findings, approvals, and remediation through completion.
Develop and maintain integrated onboarding and program plans covering milestones, dependencies, risks, decisions, and escalation paths, while coordinating implementation activities that may run alongside due diligence and contracting.
Partner with Product to translate approved program requirements into implementation plans and support testing, user acceptance testing, initial production validation, and go-live readiness.
Coordinate with Operations, Risk, Compliance, Legal, Finance, Treasury, Technology, and other stakeholders to confirm operational processes, controls, agreements, reporting, and support models are ready before launch.
Lead ongoing relationship oversight, including recurring business reviews, performance monitoring, issue management, change requests, and escalation of material risks or service concerns.
Monitor program performance and partner obligations using applicable agreed metrics, including account and transaction activity, deposits, fee revenue, service levels, exceptions, incidents, complaints, and required reporting.
Maintain complete and current program documentation, including governance materials, approvals, implementation records, risk decisions, issue logs, and partner communications.
Identify opportunities to improve onboarding, operating processes, controls, partner experience, and scalability; contribute lessons learned and reusable standards as the portfolio grows.