Director, Production Operations

About Project Keystone

Project Keystone is building a bank-governed network for digital money based on regulated commercial-bank deposits. Backed by FIS and participating financial institutions, Keystone combines an existing technology foundation with the opportunity to build a new financial infrastructure company and its operating capabilities.

About the Role

The Director, Network Operations and Settlement will build and lead the day-to-day clearing, netting, settlement, liquidity, capacity, payment-exception, and participant-support capabilities for Keystone. This leader will be accountable for the safe and timely completion of Netting Sessions and Fiat Settlement Periods, operational control of payment flows, implementation of approved Network Operator decisions, and coordinated resolution of issues affecting participating financial institutions. This is a hands-on leadership role requiring the ability to move between operating-model design and real-time execution. The Director will work closely with each participant bank’s liquidity and operations managers, as well as Keystone product, technology, risk, finance, compliance, legal, production operations, custodians, settlement banks, and other service providers. During launch and early scale, the leader will personally manage critical settlement events, investigate exceptions, write procedures, test controls, and establish the operational discipline expected of regulated financial infrastructure.

What You Will Be Doing

• Build and execute Keystone’s network operations and settlement strategy, target operating model, governance, staffing approach, operating calendar, coverage model, escalation paths, and service standards.
• Own the operational lifecycle of each Netting Session and Fiat Settlement Period, including cut-off control, calculation and validation of Pay-In Obligations and Pay-Out Amounts, participant notifications, transition into constrained or limited-session operation, confirmation of Pay-ins, authorization of Pay-outs, restoration of participant capacity, token close processing, and formal cycle closure.
• Lead intraday liquidity and capacity management by monitoring payment activity, participant positions, payment queues, prefunding, collateral availability, debit or exposure limits, settlement obligations, concentration, and emerging shortfalls.
• Administer approved operational processes for Liquidity Contributions, Guarantee Fund Contributions, Net Debit Limit activation and adjustment, Custodian-confirmed intraday funding, permitted withdrawals, valuation and haircut exceptions, top-up and replenishment notices, periodic recalibration, and post-event restoration of participant capacity.
• Partner directly with liquidity managers and operations contacts at each participant bank to coordinate funding, resolve shortfalls, manage cutoffs, communicate settlement status, and support continuous readiness across business days, weekends, and holidays.
• Establish controlled procedures for participant funding, settlement-file generation and release, maker-checker approvals, manual adjustments, emergency actions, account or standing-instruction changes, and end-of-cycle attestation.
• Maintain the authorized-instruction framework for Custodian and settlement-bank actions, including signer authority, instruction validation, transmission evidence, confirmation matching, exception escalation, and periodic review of standing instructions.
• Direct investigations involving rejected, failed, cancelled, expired, duplicate, missing, delayed, misdirected, or incorrectly valued instructions; manage authorized pre-COMMIT cancellation and adjustment processes; and ensure any post-COMMIT return of value is processed as a separately authorized and correlated payment rather than as an in-place reversal.
• Create a tiered reconciliation framework and enforce the authoritative-record hierarchy across the Ledger, network settlement records, participant positions, settlement instructions, Custodian records, bank-account activity, participant confirmations, and internal accounting records, including controlled disposition of breaks where sources do not agree.
• Maintain operational readiness for payment activity involving traditional rails and approved digital-money infrastructure, including funding and settlement dependencies, operating windows, transaction and capacity limits, message exceptions, and fallback arrangements.
• Lead operational response to failed, delayed, partial, or disputed settlement events; participant funding shortfalls; unavailable payment rails; Custodian or settlement-bank outages; connectivity failures; data issues; and other material operational incidents.
• Operationalize authorized Network Operator decisions to extend or defer a Fiat Settlement Period or Netting Session; restrict, suspend, throttle, queue, or delay network activity; and issue controlled operational notices to affected Participant Banks.
• Lead the controlled operational execution of delinquency and default procedures, including event determination support, notices, Custodian instructions, application of approved waterfall resources, participant restriction, recalculation of capacity and funding requirements, incident documentation, cure monitoring, and reinstatement.
• Establish key performance and risk indicators for settlement timeliness, liquidity utilization, funding exceptions, reconciliation breaks, manual interventions, payment aging, capacity, participant responsiveness, and operational incidents.
• Define capacity thresholds and forecasts across transaction volumes, values, participant growth, operating queues, staffing, settlement processing, and external-provider dependencies; initiate remediation before service or settlement risk emerges.
• Develop and maintain standard operating procedures, desk-level procedures, settlement checklists, control evidence, authorized-contact lists, participant communication templates, issue logs, and auditable records of approvals and actions.
• Lead participant operational onboarding and certification, including funding, settlement, reconciliation, exception, failure, contingency, contact, and weekend or holiday support scenarios before production activation.
• Translate operational requirements into product and technology priorities for operations consoles, settlement and liquidity dashboards, alerts, case management, reconciliation, participant reporting, and controlled automation.
• Partner with production operations during incidents and platform changes, providing the business and settlement decision-making required to protect payment completion, liquidity, participant positions, and network integrity.
• Support risk assessments, internal and external audits, control testing, participant reviews, business continuity exercises, and executive reporting on settlement performance, operational risk, incidents, and remediation priorities.
• Recruit, develop, and lead a high-performing operations team with a culture of ownership, precision, responsiveness, disciplined escalation, and continuous improvement.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Accounting, Business, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related discipline, or equivalent experience.
• 10 or more years of progressive experience in payment operations, clearing and settlement, treasury operations, liquidity management, securities or market infrastructure operations, or another time-critical financial operations environment.
• Five or more years leading operational teams or multidisciplinary functions with accountability for high-value financial activity, settlement deadlines, financial exposure, or service continuity.
• Demonstrated experience with daily net settlement, intraday liquidity, treasury funding, high-value payments, real-time payments, clearinghouse operations, collateral or margin operations, or digital-asset settlement.
• Strong working knowledge of settlement accounts, payment messages, prefunding, liquidity controls, debit or exposure limits, reconciliation, exception management, settlement finality, and operational cutoffs.
• Experience designing and operating controls, procedures, dual approvals, escalation paths, contingency arrangements, and evidence suitable for audit and regulatory review.
• Ability to personally investigate payment and settlement issues using transaction records, payment messages, ledger data, account activity, reconciliation outputs, dashboards, and system logs.
• Ability to communicate clearly and decisively with participant-bank treasury and operations teams, technologists, service providers, risk and control partners, auditors, regulators, and senior executives.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, highly regulated, and evolving environment, including coverage aligned to funding deadlines, settlement windows, production incidents, and selected weekends or holidays.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building a new network operations, treasury operations, clearing, or settlement function or leading a significant operational transformation.
• Experience with Fedwire, RTP, FedNow, ISO 20022 messages, settlement-bank or custodian operating models, and participant funding processes.
• Experience with tokenized deposits, regulated stablecoins, blockchain transaction monitoring, qualified custodians, wallet operations, or reconciliation between on-chain and traditional records.
• Familiarity with operational resilience, business continuity, financial-market infrastructure controls, SOC or regulatory reviews, and incident command practices.
• Experience defining dashboards, alerts, case-management workflows, reconciliation capabilities, and automation for payment or settlement operations.
• Treasury, payments, risk, project-management, or related professional certification.

Leadership Capabilities

• Settlement and liquidity leadership
• Operational risk and control discipline
• Incident and exception management
• Participant-bank collaboration
• Executive communication
• Data-driven capacity management
• Cross-functional decision-making
• Talent development and operational excellence

The Opportunity

This role offers broad ownership in building the operational foundation for a new bank-governed payment network. Success will require a leader who can combine bank-grade settlement discipline with practical, hands-on execution; create trusted operating relationships with participant banks; and scale reliable clearing, liquidity, exception, and settlement capabilities as Keystone grows. FIS is committed to providing its employees with an exciting career opportunity and competitive compensation.

Pay

The pay range for this full-time position is $161,050.00 - $273,790.00 and reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for this position based on the posted role, level, and location. Within the range, actual individual starting pay is determined by additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Any changes in work location will also impact actual individual starting pay.

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EEOC Statement

FIS is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, genetic information, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other protected characteristics.

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ADA Disclaimer

ADA Disclaimer: In developing this job description care was taken to include all competencies needed to successfully perform in this position. However, for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) purposes, the essential functions of the job may or may not have been described for purposes of ADA reasonable accommodation. All reasonable accommodation requests will be reviewed and evaluated on a case-by-case basis.