Director of Payment Operations and Financial Services

Why Vagaro? At Vagaro, we believe in fostering a collaborative and inclusive work environment where every team member can thrive. Our culture is built on innovation, continuous learning, and a passion for making a positive impact. We support our employees' growth and vision for themselves, offering opportunities for professional development and career advancement. Join us and be part of a team that values creativity, teamwork, and a commitment to excellence.

Plus, we know how to have fun while getting the job done!

What you'll Be Doing:
The Director of Payment Operations & Financial Services owns the day-to-day execution and performance of Vagaro's payments and embedded finance ecosystem. This is a hands-on operator role responsible for improving payment revenue and margin, optimizing transaction performance, strengthening risk outcomes, and ensuring operational readiness and compliance across card-present, card-not-present, ACH, and wallet-based payment solutions.

This role also owns payments economics: forecasting, financial modeling, opportunity sizing, and executive-ready materials that drive decision-making. You will work closely with FP&A and Data teams, but you are expected to personally build and maintain key models, dashboards, and weekly leadership updates.

You will partner tightly with a Payments Analyst who owns ongoing monitoring and reporting. Together, you will ensure Vagaro detects issues early, acts quickly, and continuously improves profitability and merchant experience.

* This role is based onsite in Pleasanton, CA Monday through Friday
* Compensation

* Base Annual Salary: $170,000 to $240,000

* Annual Bonus:
Up to 10%

Your Impact:

What you'll own (Core Responsibilities)

1) Payments Execution & Performance Management

* Execute Vagaro's payments roadmap with clear milestones, owners, and measurable outcomes.

* Actively manage payments performance across POS, card-present, card-not-present, ACH, and digital wallet solutions.

* Own the core metrics that define success, including authorization rate, net yield, cost of processing, interchange impact, refund/void trends, dispute/chargeback rates, fraud loss, and funding performance.

* Identify revenue expansion, cost optimization, and margin improvement opportunities using rigorous analysis and clear prioritization.

* Build scenario models for pricing changes, partner economics, and new product launches; quantify ROI, margin impact, and operational requirements.

* Drive merchant adoption of Vagaro payment solutions through improved onboarding, performance, and support readiness.

* Accountable for achieving payments revenue, margin, and performance goals.

2) Operational Excellence & Reliability

* Improve operational scalability through documented processes, controls, and monitoring routines.

* Establish a consistent operating cadence (daily health checks, weekly KPI review, monthly close/performance review).

* Partner with Data/Engineering to improve reporting accuracy, data availability, and metric definitions ("single source of truth").

* Ensure dashboards and alerts exist for key performance and risk indicators, with clear thresholds and escalation paths.

* Identify process gaps, define fixes, and drive implementation through cross-functional execution (Support, Risk, Product, Engineering, Finance).

* Own operational readiness for launches and changes (runbooks, training, support workflows, issue triage, post-launch reviews).

3) Financial Products & Embedded Finance

* Execute and scale embedded finance solutions such as instant payouts, lending/capital, BNPL, and other financial tools aligned to Vagaro customers.

* Evaluate product viability, risk exposure, and revenue contribution; track portfolio performance and provide recurring reporting.

* Manage relationships with banks, card brands, financial institutions, and fintech partners.

* Support commercial negotiations with processors and financial partners by preparing economic analysis and contract scenario evaluation.

* Identify new revenue opportunities and translate them into clear business cases with resourcing and timeline requirements.

4) Leadership, Cross-Functional Execution & Communication

* Lead and develop the Payments function with a strong bias toward ownership, accountability, and execution.

* Manage the Payments Analyst and ensure reporting, monitoring, and insights operate on schedule with high accuracy.

* Partner with Product/Engineering to improve the merchant payment experience and accelerate delivery of high-impact initiatives.

* Partner with Marketing/Sales to support payments adoption strategies and improve funnel performance.

* Partner with Risk & Compliance to ensure products meet regulatory, security, and brand standards.

* Prepare and present executive-ready KPI decks, business cases, and performance updates for senior leadership.

* Support enterprise and franchise payment programs to align location-level performance with platform economics.

Operating Cadence (Expected Deliverables)

* Daily:
Review…