Product Delivery Director - Payments Rails Testing Center of Excellence

Shape the future of product delivery while crafting solutions that enhance and optimize customer experiences. Lead end-to-end processes, manage dependencies, and liaise with stakeholders as part of a team at the forefront of innovation. Step into a role where you shape how one of the world's largest banks assures the integrity of every payment it moves, pioneering an AI-augmented operating model that transforms how validation is performed. You will influence product, technology, operations, and risk teams across four regions while modernizing platforms and unlocking new business capabilities. As a Product Delivery Director in Payment Rails Testing Centre of Excellence, you foster enhancements and optimize the way products are delivered to customers. As a leader on the team, you leverage your skillset to transform product delivery and create new ways for teams to continuously deliver value to their customers. You head the function that assures end-to-end integrity of the bank's payment flows across local, foreign exchange, international and multi-currency wires, ACH, real-time payments, push-to-card, push-to-wallet, QR and other payment types across approximately 40 markets and 50 or more clearing systems. You will be equally credible discussing payments behavior with product managers and agentic automation architecture with engineering leads, operating at the intersection of deep payments domain knowledge, clearing schemes, ISO 20022 message lifecycles, and modern engineering practices.
Job responsibilities
- Directs principal activities across the end-to-end product delivery journey including intake, dependency management, release management, product operationalization, delivery feasibility decision-making, and product performance reporting, while highlighting opportunities to improve efficiencies and functional coordination
- Owns the change management framework across functional partners and ensures adherence to the firm’s risk, controls, compliance, and regulatory requirements
- Maintains a high level of visibility over product timelines and dependencies while monitoring blockers, ensuring adequate resourcing, and liaising with stakeholders and functional partners
- Coaches and mentors the product delivery team on best practices through collaborative discussions on resource management, dependency management, and deployment techniques to improve efficiencies
- Owns end-to-end validation strategy and delivery for all payment rails projects across regular product upgrades, platform modernization, SWIFT releases/clearing upgrades and client experience features
- Leads and develops 150+ professionals through four regional leads; evolves the talent mix from domain expertise toward AI-augmented domain engineering while protecting institutional payments knowledge
- Drives the AI transformation roadmap — agentic execution, AI scenario generation from domain knowledge bases, impact and blast-radius analysis, and the cross-domain test management platform — leveraging engineering and data/AI skills
- Executes the two-sided quality strategy: partners with rail engineering teams to strengthen shift-left coverage while refocusing the Centre of Excellence on what only end-to-end domain validation can reach, including cross-system integration, correspondent chains, regulatory scenarios, multi-platform orchestration, and production-like behavior
- Assures readiness for scheme and regulator-driven change across approximately 40 markets, including ISO 20022/CBPR+ migration phases, instant-payment scheme evolution, and country-specific mandates; represents testing in regulatory and audit engagements
- Owns the function's budget, funding, and value narrative, operating leverage and capacity unlocked, with metrics that make proactive risk engineering visible to leadership
- Invests in organizational health actions, employee engagement, and regular feedback to ensure actions match employee needs; fosters a culture of continuous improvement and innovation within the teams
Required qualifications, capabilities, and skills
- 8+ years of experience or equivalent expertise delivering products, projects, or technology applications
- Extensive experience leading operational management and change readiness
- Experience in enterprise-wide release and deployment processes and strategies
- Advanced knowledge of the product development life cycle, technical design, and data analytics
- 12+ years in payments or adjacent financial market infrastructure, with practitioner-level knowledge of at least several of: high-value clearing (RTGS/CHIPS-class), instant payment schemes, ACH, SWIFT/CBPR+ and ISO 20022 message lifecycles, correspondent banking and nostro settlements
- Proven leadership of large, globally distributed teams (100+), including leading through regional leadership layers and driving workforce transformation
- Track record delivering large-scale change in complex estates — platform migrations, multi-market rollouts, or regulatory programmes — where testing/validation was a critical path
- Demonstrated adoption of AI or advanced automation in a delivery or quality context, with concrete outcomes rather than intent
- Fluency with modern engineering practices (CI/CD, contract testing, environment and test-data management) sufficient to hold strategy-level dialogue with engineering leadership
- Experience defending and growing a function's value narrative with senior stakeholders in a cost-scrutinised environment
- High emotional intelligence, stable and mature leadership style, and proven ability to promote a positive team culture focussed on continuous learning and innovation with a growth mindset
Preferred qualifications, capabilities, and skills
- Recognized thought leader within a related field
- Exposure to multiple regions and schemes
- Hands-on familiarity with large language model/agentic tooling applied to testing, requirements, or knowledge management
- Product management or product delivery background alongside quality leadership — the function partners most effectively when its leader thinks in product outcomes
- Leadership in transforming organizations