VP, Strategic Payments

Fanatics Betting & Gaming•New York, NY

7d•$250,000 - $300,000

About The Position

Fanatics Betting & Gaming is seeking a VP, Strategic Payments to define and lead the payments strategy across our growing sports betting and gaming business. Payments are a critical part of the customer experience and our ability to efficiently scale the business, and this leader will be responsible for ensuring our payments ecosystem delivers a seamless experience for customers while supporting our growth, economics, and expansion into new markets. This role will own the strategic and commercial side of payments, including relationships with payment providers, banks, processors, and other key partners. You will develop and execute a comprehensive payments strategy focused on improving deposit and withdrawal experiences, increasing payment success and reliability, optimizing costs, strengthening vendor performance, and enabling launches in new markets. The ideal candidate brings deep payments industry expertise, strong relationships across the payments ecosystem, and experience taking payment capabilities to market. You should be equally comfortable negotiating with a major payment provider, evaluating payment economics, navigating banking and merchant requirements, and working with Product and Engineering teams to solve complex customer and business problems.

Requirements

Experience launching payment capabilities or supporting payment go-to-market strategies in new markets or jurisdictions.
Demonstrated ability to manage and negotiate strategic relationships with major payment vendors and financial partners.
Significant experience in payments strategy, payment partnerships, fintech, banking, payment processing, acquiring, or a related field, ideally within a complex consumer-facing digital business.
Demonstrated experience developing and implementing a payments strategy at scale.
Deep understanding of the payments ecosystem, including payment processors, digital wallets, acquiring banks, merchant relationships, payment rails, merchant IDs (MIDs), authorization flows, deposits, withdrawals, and payment economics.
Strong payments industry knowledge and established relationships across payment
Strong commercial and analytical mindset with experience evaluating payment costs, vendor economics, acceptance rates, customer conversion, and overall payment performance.
Proven ability to work effectively with Product and Engineering organizations and translate business problems into clear, actionable requirements.
Ability to communicate complex payment concepts in a simple and compelling way to technical and non-technical audiences.
Strong executive presence with the ability to influence senior leaders, external partners, and cross-functional stakeholders.
Comfortable operating in a fast-paced environment where priorities evolve quickly and teams are expected to move from strategy to execution.
Experience in sports betting, gaming, fintech, marketplaces, e-commerce, or another high-volume digital payments environment is preferred.

Nice To Haves

Experience in sports betting, gaming, fintech, marketplaces, e-commerce, or another high-volume digital payments environment is preferred.

Responsibilities

Define and execute the long-term payments strategy for Fanatics Betting & Gaming, aligning payment capabilities with customer experience, growth, market expansion, and financial objectives.
Identify opportunities to improve the customer deposit and withdrawal experience, including payment acceptance, speed, reliability, and availability of payment methods.
Develop a clear roadmap for how our payments ecosystem should evolve as the business scales and customer needs change.
Evaluate emerging payment methods, technologies, and industry trends and determine where Fanatics should invest, partner, or build.
Establish clear success metrics and use data to continuously evaluate payment performance and identify opportunities for improvement.
Develop strategies to improve payment authorization and deposit success rates while maintaining a frictionless customer experience.
Own the strategic evaluation of payment costs across providers, methods, and transaction types, identifying opportunities to improve overall unit economics.
Partner with Finance, Product, Engineering, Risk, Fraud, and other teams to understand the drivers behind payment performance and develop solutions.
Analyze payment flows and performance to identify friction points, operational challenges, and opportunities to improve customer conversion and retention.
Balance customer experience, payment acceptance, cost, risk, and operational complexity when making strategic decisions.
Lead the payments strategy and go-to-market planning for expansion into new jurisdictions, determining the partners, banking infrastructure, and capabilities required to launch and operate including state-by-state regulatory, KYC/AML, and responsible gaming requirements.
Own and strengthen strategic relationships with payment providers, processors, financial institutions, and other partners across the payments ecosystem, including partners such as PayPal and other major payment platforms.
Serve as a senior point of contact for key partners, ensuring Fanatics receives strong commercial terms, service levels, product support, and strategic partnership.
Lead commercial negotiations and vendor performance discussions in partnership with Business Development, Legal, Finance, Procurement, and other stakeholders.
Develop a strong understanding of partner capabilities and use industry relationships to identify opportunities, resolve issues, and accelerate delivery.
Understand the banking and merchant infrastructure supporting payment flows, including merchant IDs (MIDs), acquiring relationships, processing models, and how funds move into and out of the Fanatics ecosystem.
Lead the payments strategy and go-to-market planning required to support Fanatics Betting & Gaming's expansion into new markets.
Determine payment requirements, partners, banking infrastructure, and capabilities needed to successfully launch and operate in new jurisdictions.
Work cross-functionally to ensure payment capabilities are ready ahead of market launches and identify dependencies or risks that could impact go-live.
Leverage payments industry expertise and external relationships to navigate complex partner, banking, and market requirements.
Serve as the strategic payments leader connecting commercial priorities with our Product and Engineering organizations.
Translate complex payment and business challenges into clear problem statements, business requirements, and priorities that Product and Engineering teams can act on.
Clearly articulate the customer and financial impact of payment issues and build compelling business cases for investment and prioritization.
Partner closely with Payments Engineering and Product Management to develop solutions that balance customer experience, technical feasibility, commercial value, and speed to market.
Build strong relationships across Business Development, Finance, Operations, Risk, Fraud, Compliance, Legal, Product, and Engineering to drive alignment and execution.
Influence across teams without relying on direct authority, creating clarity around priorities and driving initiatives through completion.