Head of Strategic Risk Programs, New Markets

Responsibilities

People Leadership

• Recruit, train, and lead a global team of Program Managers.
• Inspire, motivate, and support individual development and career growth for direct reports.
• Develop the team’s long-term vision and strategy, and drive progress toward key metrics.
• Coach, mentor, and guide the team in program management and operational excellence.
• Build a strong team culture across a distributed, multi-time-zone environment.

New Markets Program Management

• Own end-to-end program management for a large and growing portfolio, focused on APAC.
• Drive operational readiness across workstreams by tracking milestones, surfacing risks, and unblocking dependencies.
• Operate effectively in high ambiguity and build approaches for 0-to-1 initiatives.
• Create repeatable frameworks, playbooks, and reporting standards for a growing, complex portfolio.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Serve as the senior Risk PMO voice in global forums and represent the team in senior-level conversations.
• Coordinate across Risk, Operations, Product, Engineering, Strategy, Legal, Finance, Treasury, Partnerships, and other teams.
• Build partnerships across the organization to shape solutions, navigate competing priorities, and establish clear ownership.
• Partner closely with executive sponsors and cross-functional leaders.

Operations

• Identify operational impacts, gaps, and other considerations for launching in new markets.
• Ensure operational readiness across a complex portfolio, including forecasting, monitoring, and last-mile execution.
• Maintain operational rigor and execution discipline across the team and function.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in program management, strategy and operations, business operations, or a related field.
• 3+ years of people management experience and a record of building and developing high-performing teams.
• Demonstrated ability to operate in ambiguity and build 0-to-1 programs where no playbook exists.
• Strong program management skills, including driving multi-workstream initiatives, surfacing risks early, and aligning stakeholders.
• Strong cross-functional leadership experience aligning Product, Engineering, go-to-market, and Operations teams.
• AI fluency, including active use of AI tools to accelerate work and the ability to explain their application.
• Experience working across global teams and time zones, with flexibility for calls outside standard business hours.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with international expansion, market entry, regulatory, or licensing programs.
• Experience at a technology company; fintech or payments experience is a plus.