Director, Partner Ops and Strategy

at  Paypal

At PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL), we believe that every person has the right to participate fully in the global economy. Our mission is to democratize financial services to ensure that everyone, regardless of background or economic standing, has access to affordable, convenient, and secure products and services to take control of their financial lives.
Job Description Summary: The Payments Markets and Partnerships (“PMP”) organization (led by Chris Sweetland) is responsible for leading partnerships strategy, commercial strategy, and relationships with PayPal’s payments partners (e.g., banks, processors, fintechs, networks) across all products, verticals and regions. Our partners are an important enabler of our ability to provide seamless money-movement capabilities to our customers at scale, with the highest level of performance and reliability. The team works closely with PayPal Product, Marketing as well as other key stakeholders such as Legal, Finance, Compliance, Communications, and Risk, to execute partnership agreements and deliverables that are typically strategic, and cross-functional in nature. We are a team of payment experts, strategists, and relationship builders, reporting to PayPal’s EVP of Strategy, M&A/Ventures, and Partnerships (Kausik Rajgopal). The Partner Operations and Strategy team (led by Ashwin Alexander, reporting to Chris Sweetland) manages our relationships across payment processing (card and A2A), issuing (3rd party card issuers and partners for PayPal-branded cards), and credit. The team is also responsible for driving strategic partner initiatives, PMP budgeting and planning, and PMP-wide commercial initiatives.
Job Description:

THE ROLE:

We are seeking a high-energy and innovative professional with a passion for improving how people manage and move money. This role is responsible for defining and executing on a comprehensive and proactive partnership strategy aligned to PayPal’s overall strategy, focusing on initiatives that impact the broader PMP team, such as: annual planning and budgeting, process re-design, and rolling out successful strategies to new regions.
You are an experienced professional who can manage multiple workstreams at once - complex and highly visible strategic initiatives, commercial negotiations, and operational improvements. You are able to communicate effectively to an executive audience, influence peers and senior executives, and interface with partners to drive commercial and operational efforts. You have a high degree of knowledge and expertise in the field, are comfortable breaking down and tackling ambiguous problems, and are proficient in navigating complex stakeholder networks.
Finally, you should be team-oriented, with the knowledge that your success will be based on how you help others succeed. The position will involve frequent interaction with leaders at PayPal and external partners. Travel may be occasionally required for critical partner and executive meetings (~25%). The role will be based in the US.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Design and execute strategic partnership initiatives in support of PayPal overall and business unit strategies, in partnership with product, finance, legal, compliance leadership and with specific global partners
• Support ongoing management of 2-3 key partners, including prioritization of key focus areas, structuring / negotiation of new commercial initiatives, re-designing partner-facing processes, and aspects of ongoing partner management
• Support team strategic planning processes, by collecting ideas for potential opportunities and working with the team to size and prioritize potential initiatives; manage annual and quarterly budgeting processes with PMP leadership, finance, and accounting
• Lead Quarterly Business Reviews with top executives internally and externally, and regular reporting, analysis, and relationship updates to executives at PayPal and partner organizations.
• Provide your expertise and engage with external experts to discuss global payment trends, rules and regulations with internal stakeholders
• Ensure compliance with PayPal’s regulatory and compliance requirements, and ensure core partner operations responsibilities are being fulfilled
• Keep a pulse on the competitive payments landscape; continually seek opportunities for PayPal to optimize our operations and deploy new products/services in a timely and efficient manner