VP - Risk & Banking Operations

Salary: Not Specified Location Type: Not Specified Employment Type: Not Specified

Position Overview

Arthur C. Clarke famously developed the maxim that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” At Mercury, we aim to deliver a magical experience to our customers who rely on us for their banking* and financial workflows. Behind this magic lies an incredible amount of hard work, dedication, training, and expertise. Our dedicated risk and banking operations teams are integral to delivering this magical experience; they are the wizards behind the curtain. We believe in getting risk and compliance right, considering them holistically by building a strong understanding of what every customer is doing and thinking through the end-to-end customer experience.

As the VP - Risk & Banking Operations, you will bring strategic and cohesive leadership across Mercury’s Risk & Banking Operations teams, including: Onboarding, KYC/KYB, EDD/ODD, Fraud & Disputes, Treasury Operations, Payments Operations, and Lifecycle Operations. You will lead a growing organization of 120+ people and a direct team of experienced leaders across these functions. You will partner with peer executives across the company to build a resilient and scalable operational function and help navigate risk with precision and care.

*Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC.

Responsibilities

• Build and manage a Risk & Banking Operations organization known for setting standards within the banking and fintech industries, strong enough to differentiate Mercury in the long term.
• Hire, develop, lead, and create structure for talented operations teams, building a culture of collaboration and strong risk thinking across the company.
• Enable new customers, markets, or product features by balancing short- and long-term company goals, prioritizing the most important risks, and staying ahead of industry trends and emerging risk areas.
• Work closely with Legal and Compliance teams to uphold Mercury’s risk and compliance standards and proactively build operational systems to scale its impact.
• Partner across Product, Engineering, Design, and Data teams to amplify user experience through thoughtful, transparent product thinking and enabling scalable operational automation.
• Drive sound, strategic decision-making with data and metrics, working closely with the Finance team on organizational growth, headcount & capacity planning, and costs.
• Take ownership of how Mercury thinks through, minimizes, and responds to fraud and financial loss.
• Help expand Mercury’s BPO efforts, including partnering with internal teams to manage current partners and developing the strategy to identify, onboard, train, and provide ongoing oversight of new partners.
• Build systems for efficient operations across a variety of risk-related product features (e.g., Onboarding, Disputes, Treasury, and Payments).
• Identify and work with the strongest tooling and partners to enable a great Risk & Banking operations organization, forming strong relationships with partner financial institutions and their executive counterparts.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in operational risk and/or banking management, ideally in a financial technology company, large banking institution, or the payments industry.
• 15+ years of overall professional experience.
• 7+ years of people leadership experience.