Strategic Payments Partnerships Director

What you’ll be doing:

• Develop and execute strategies that increase Lightspeed’s ability to win new merchants and convert existing merchants into Lightspeed Payments and Capital users.

• Own the relationships with major card brands and key financial services providers globally, building joint business plans with clear priorities and accountability.

• Collaborate with Strategy, Product, Legal, Compliance, Finance, Marketing, and Sales to translate company objectives into actionable partnership initiatives.

• Set priorities with partners and push for innovation, product development, geographic expansion, co-marketing opportunities, and incremental revenue streams.

• Identify and execute opportunities to improve payments economics, including margin expansion, approval performance, partner efficiencies, and commercial terms.

• Lead complex negotiations and commercial structuring with card brands, acquirers, and strategic payment partners, balancing growth, economics, risk, and execution feasibility.

• Serve as Lightspeed’s subject-matter expert on the payments ecosystem by monitoring scheme rules, regulatory developments, and market trends.

• Represent Lightspeed externally and cultivate new strategic partner relationships.

How you’ll know you’re thriving in this role:

• Financial services partners are aligned to Lightspeed’s business goals, motivated to support our priorities, and operating within clear and measurable success metrics.

• Financial services margin, approval performance, and revenue continue to improve across existing and newly launched products.

• Partner roadmaps, launches, and cross-functional initiatives are executed on time and deliver measurable business impact.

• Merchant satisfaction and retention increase across Lightspeed’s financial services products.

• Partner relationships generate tangible strategic value through improved economics, new capabilities, expanded market access, co-marketing, and new growth opportunities.

What you need to bring:

We're looking for candidates who have experience with the following:

• Managing major payments providers (5+ years ): Building and deepening relationships with payments providers such as Fiserv, Stripe, Adyen, PayPal, and Worldpay .

• Managing card-brand relationships (3+ years ): Owning or co-developing growth strategies with card brands such as Visa, Mastercard, and American Express .

• Financial services strategy (5+ years ): Shaping strategy in a financial services, fintech, card-network, acquiring, or payments context.

• Product launches and market expansion (3+ years ): Supporting the launch of new financial services products, capabilities, or geographies.

• Payments economics and ecosystem knowledge (5+ years ): Applied understanding of card network dynamics, acquiring models, economics, and the broader payments value chain.

• Fluency in engaging at an executive level, with strong written and verbal communication skills across both internal cross-functional stakeholders and external partners.

• Ability to work independently with a high degree of accountability while collaborating effectively across a matrixed organization.

• Strong commercial instincts paired with analytical rigor, sound judgment, and close attention to execution detail.

• Confidence to bring forward ideas, share clear recommendations, and influence decisions in a constructive and credible way.

• Determination, flexibility, and a proactive, action-oriented mindset with a strong desire to see opportunities through to outcomes.

We are hiring for this role remotely across the U.S., with a preference for candidates in the EST or MST time zones.