Director, Payments & Risk Operations

Come do the best work of your life at Boulevard.

Boulevard is redefining how salons and spas run their businesses, and payments are core to that mission. Our integrated payments platform processes billions of dollars annually, is scaling rapidly, and underpins the trust our customers place in us every day.

Boulevard Payments is an industry-leading vertical payments platform. We are a registered payment facilitator processing billions annually and growing rapidly. This role owns the operating system behind that engine: merchant onboarding, underwriting, transaction monitoring, disputes, and payments operations.

This is a senior, high-impact position responsible for operational payments performance and scalability. It sits in the center of operations, risk, and revenue growth. You will own the build-out of a truly AI-native payments operation — where automation is the default and human judgment is reserved for what machines can't handle — while driving ARR growth and margin.

What you'll do here:

Payments Operations System

• Own the full lifecycle: onboarding, pricing, underwriting, monitoring, disputes, and support
• Define and operate against core metrics: approval rates, loss rates, false positives, time-to-decision
• Build a highly instrumented, scalable system with clear feedback loops — including monitoring for decision quality, and failure modes — and drive continuous improvement

AI, Automation & Decisioning

• Reimagine the payments operations stack as an AI-native system, where humans manage exceptions, not volume
• Build and deploy agent-based workflows, LLM-assisted investigation tools, and real-time decisioning at scale
• Continuously raise the bar for what AI-forward operations looks like in a PayFac context
• Partner with Product and Engineering to ship internal AI tooling that compounds over time, as well as select external vendors

Portfolio Performance

• Own portfolio-level losses, balancing growth, protection, and customer experience
• Thoughtfully evolve Boulevard's risk appetite and control frameworks in partnership with the GM Fintech
• Design and refine underwriting and monitoring strategies; proactively identify and address emerging risks

Partner Management (Internal & External)

• Ensure adherence to applicable regulations, card network rules, and PayFac requirements
• Partner with Legal and Compliance to maintain strong control frameworks, audits, and reporting
• Manage relationships with acquirers, processors, and banking partners; represent Boulevard credibly in external risk discussions

Cross-Functional & Team Leadership

• Serve as the central accountability point for Payments Operations across Product, Engineering, CX, Sales, and Finance
• Translate operational insights into product and policy improvements
• Lead a high-performing team across underwriting, risk, and compliance ops — evolving from manual processing to system oversight and exception handling

What you'll need to thrive:

• 10+ years in operations, with 7+ years in payments, fintech, and/or risk; significant PayFac experience strongly preferred
• Demonstrated success building AI-native decisioning systems — agent workflows, rules engines, ML-assisted approaches — that improved outcomes
• Experience deploying AI or ML tools in an operational context(fraud detection, investigation workflows, decisioning automation)
• Has built or managed LLM-assisted workflows, agent-based tools, or automated investigation pipelines
• Comfortable operating as a builder, not just a buyer — identifies where AI can replace manual steps and executes on it
• Deep expertise in payments, acquiring, and/or risk underwriting, fraud, chargebacks, and transaction monitoring
• Proven track record of owning portfolio-level performance with clear accountability for loss rates, approval rates, and operational efficiency
• Proven ability to lead operational evolution — moving teams from manual workflows to system oversight 
• Senior-level experience engaging with external partners (acquirers, processors) and cross-functional partnerships across Product, Engineering, Legal, and Compliance

At Boulevard, we work hard to structure compensation in a way that balances internal equity with local market competitiveness, and we’re happy to share a good-faith estimate of the base salary range for this role. For U.S. based candidates, the anticipated base salary range is $180,000 - $200,000 per year. In addition to this base compensation, this role may be eligible to participate in a variable compensation program. Final compensation will vary based on a variety of factors, which include but are not limited to applicable experience, location, and final leveling.