Director, Payments Consulting (Payment Product Partnerships)

At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. From delivering differentiated products to providing world-class customer service, we operate with a strong risk mindset, ensuring we continue to uphold our brand promise of trust, security, and service.

As part of Team Amex, you'll experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career. Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.

The Payments Consulting team delivers go-to-market strategies, deploys new and emerging payment solutions, and ensures a seamless transaction processing experience across more than 20 global markets. The team serves as a trusted advisor to internal and external partners, bringing deep technical payments expertise and insights from the acceptance channel to inform internal strategies and support merchants, processors, and partners in implementing solutions that meet their evolving needs.

Within Payments Consulting Americas, the Payment Product Partnerships team defines and executes the strategy to enable American Express products and processing capabilities with third parties in the acceptance channel to power transactions and promote a seamless checkout experience for Cardmembers.  This includes proactively identifying and engaging new entrants and innovators, growing existing third-party relationships, managing the related relationship governance and oversight, and deepening partner relationships with American Express.

The Director, Payment Product Partnerships leads this team and reports to the Vice President, Payments Consulting Americas.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership

• Develop multi-year strategies to advance regional adoption of AXP processing and product capabilities through Payment Product Partnerships.
• Oversee development of strong and strategically aligned regional partner pipeline to deliver on business goals
• Actively manage business and operational risk, including oversight of operations, processes, and third-party relationships.

Team Development

• Lead, manage, and develop a team of a high-performing colleagues, individually and collectively, to deliver on business goals.
• Foster a culture of excellence, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Proactively lead through highly ambiguous situations, manage escalations and related communication.
• Develop team to proficiently consult with external partners on the range of Amex products and capabilities, and to implement solutions to meet partner needs.

Third-Party Relationship Management

• Grow performance across regional payment product partnerships, including driving partner due diligence, negotiations, ongoing management, and compliance.
• Design and enforce regional third-party governance frameworks, including controls, documentation standards, and automation, in alignment with enterprise guidance; actively manage execution across team and drive continuous improvements.

Industry Engagement

• Drive strategies to promote partner engagement with American Express, including sponsoring Amex Exchange, and engaging in industry forums
• Proactively grow deep and current knowledge of the payments industry and its players, including market norms, emerging trends, innovations, technologies, regulations, and competitive dynamics.

Stakeholder Management & Collaboration

• Build and leverage positive relationships with key collaborators within AXP, including Global Merchant Services (client management), network, policy, product, legal, control management and enablement teams, and with Payments Consulting teams across regions.
• Act as the primary liaison for senior-level partner technical relationships, understanding their business objectives, unique considerations and needs.

• Actively contribute to cross-functional initiatives, sharing industry insights and the voice of the partners to advance product, policy, and specification development, and enterprise strategies.  Anticipate and communicate trends to support strategic decision-making.

Minimum Qualifications

• 8 years experience managing and growing external partner relationships in payments or related fields.
• Strong people leader and manager with proven ability to develop and inspire diverse teams to reach their personal potential and consistently deliver on business goals
• Demonstrated ability to build, maintain, and leverage strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including industry partners.
• Excellent strategic thought leadership and complex problem-solving skills
• Proficient in leading others through change, and leading through ambiguity to define the path to progress and create reliable processes to advance business goals and measure outcomes
• Excellent oral and written communication and presentation skills, including the ability to articulate complex issues in a simple, non-technical manner, to fluently bridge business and technical discussions, and to tailor communication to various audiences
• Deep knowledge of the payments ecosystem, players and processing.
• Highly experienced in managing third-party relationships, including negotiating contracts, and actively managing risk, governance, and compliance oversight. 
• Experience in business development or representing an organization at industry events with ability to translate industry intelligence into AXP opportunities.
• Willingness to travel to industry events. (10% travel estimate).

Salary Range: $123,000.00 to $215,250.00 annually + bonus + equity (if applicable) + benefits

The above represents the expected salary range for this job requisition. Ultimately, in determining your pay, we’ll consider your location, experience, and other job-related factors.

We back you with benefits that support your holistic well-being so you can be and deliver your best. This means caring for you and your loved ones' physical, financial, and mental health, as well as providing the flexibility you need to thrive personally and professionally:

• Competitive base salaries 
• Bonus incentives 
• 6% Company Match on retirement savings plan 
• Free financial coaching and financial well-being support 
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits 
• Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need 
• 20+ weeks paid parental leave for all parents, regardless of gender, offered for pregnancy, adoption or surrogacy 
• Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location) 
• Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program 
• Career development and training opportunities

For a full list of Team Amex benefits, visit our Colleague Benefits Site.

American Express is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status, age, or any other status protected by law. American Express will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest or conviction records, in accordance with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including, but not limited to, the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance. For positions covered by federal and/or state banking regulations, American Express will comply with such regulations as it relates to the consideration of applicants with criminal convictions.

We back our colleagues with the support they need to thrive, professionally and personally. That's why we have Amex Flex, our enterprise working model that provides greater flexibility to colleagues while ensuring we preserve the important aspects of our unique in-person culture. Depending on role and business needs, colleagues will either work onsite, in a hybrid model (combination of in-office and virtual days) or fully virtually.

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Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the United States is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.