Director, Payments Operations

Position Summary

The Director of Payments Operations leads the end-to-end Payments function, with direct oversight of the Payments Managers and the Manager of Payments Compliance. This role is accountable for ensuring shareholder and closing-day payments are executed accurately, on time, and in accordance with deal requirements, internal controls, bank cutoffs, and regulatory/compliance standards. The Director partners closely with Reconciliation, Client Service, Relationship Management, Business Analysts, Product Managers and bank partners to drive operational excellence, reduce payment exceptions and failures, and continuously improve scalability and customer experience.

The successful candidate demonstrates a hands-on, self-motivated approach to leadership, brings strong operational judgment, and communicates effectively across internal and external stakeholders. They are highly organized in a fast-paced environment, able to manage competing priorities, and experienced in building and developing high-performing teams through hiring, coaching, and performance management. A Series 99 FINRA license is required for this position.

Location:

This role follows a 1-2 days per week in the office hybrid schedule based in Denver, Colorado

Compensation:
The salary range for this position is between $125k and $135k, depending on experience level.

Primary Responsibilities

* Owns daily execution and oversight of shareholder and closing-day payment operations, including payment file release governance, bank cutoffs, and Service Level Agreement (SLA) adherence.

* Leads and develops the Payments leadership team (Payments Managers and Manager of Payments Compliance), providing coaching, setting goals, and ensuring appropriate staffing, training, and coverage.

* Establishes, implements, and monitors operational controls for record review, payment instruction validation, customer validation, fraud prevention, and physical/electronic documentation retention.

* Oversees exception management for returned, delayed, or failed payments; ensures research cases are tracked through completion and escalations are executed with bank partners as needed.

* Ensures payment files contain required data elements and quality checks to reduce transaction failures and requests for additional information.

* Provides support for Foreign Exchange (FX) execution and operational readiness, including accurate instruction of FX trades and validation of system configuration for multi-currency payment batches.

* Owns reconciliation governance: reviews trends in breaks, ensures timely resolution, and ensures appropriate storage and auditability of supporting evidence.

* Partners cross-functionally (Reconciliation, Payments, Client Services Team, Relationship team leadership, Business Analysts, Product Managers and bank partners) to drive continuous improvement and deliver technology-enabled solutions.

* Maintains and enforces standard operating procedures, training materials, and a knowledge repository to ensure consistent execution and rapid onboarding.

* Produces and delivers regular statistical reporting to senior leadership on payment timeliness, exception volumes, reconciliation status, and root-cause trends; recommends actions to improve outcomes.

* Ensures team performance management processes are executed effectively, including hiring, performance reviews, recognition, corrective action, and terminations when necessary.

* Other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications & Skills

* Bachelor's degree in finance, accounting, economics, or operations (or commensurate work experience) required.

* FINRA-licensed Series 99 Operations Professional

* 5+ years of banking, financial services, payments, escrow, or transaction operations experience (or equivalent).

* 3+ years of people management experience, (preferably this experience includes managing managers), and leading multi-workstream teams.

* Demonstrated expertise in payment operations, reconciliations, exception management (returns/delays), and operational controls.

* Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills, including the ability to interpret complex payment instructions and drive…