Payments · Risk · Product · 25+ years
Senior payments leadership, on demand.
I take the payments, risk, operations or product seat at acquirers, gateways, PSPs and high volume operators and merchants, as a fractional or interim executive, board advisor or non-executive director. Twenty-five years of running these functions at group level for listed and private businesses, now available by the day, the month or the mandate.
The seats I fill
Hire the experience without the headcount.
Every role below is one I have held in a permanent capacity, then delivered again as an interim, fractional or crisis engagement. You get someone who has already made the mistakes, not someone learning on your budget.
VP / Director / Head of Payments
Own acceptance, cost, routing, supplier mix, the operation and the team. Typical outcome: 10 to 15% lower processing cost within the first month.
What this looks like →Head of Risk & Fraud
Chargebacks under scheme thresholds, fraud within appetite, payouts fast, controls that survive an audit.
What this looks like →Head of Payment Product / CPO
Roadmap, platform ownership, integrations and migrations, Agile delivery, data and reporting.
What this looks like →Head of Compliance / CCO
Multi-licence payments, AML and PCI DSS compliance owned end to end, and reported to the board in plain language.
What this looks like →Development Centre Manager
Build or rescue a nearshore or offshore payments engineering team. I have run a 50-strong centre for a listed group.
What this looks like →COO
Payments operations, risk operations, KYC, settlement, suppliers and people, run as one system. I have run 160 agents across nine countries.
What this looks like →NED / Board Advisor
Independent challenge on payment economics, supplier exposure and control design. NED at an EU-licensed crypto exchange, 2019 to 2025.
What this looks like →Crisis Manager / Turnaround Executive
A scheme notice, a regulator's findings, a bank off-boarding, a failing migration. Short, intense, finished when the threat is gone.
What this looks like →Project & strategy mandates
A payments strategy, an RFP, a migration, a due diligence. Scoped, owned and finished.
What this looks like →Who calls me
Three kinds of business, one set of problems.
Acquirers and gateways
You need merchant risk, scheme compliance and portfolio economics owned by someone who has sat on the merchant side of your contracts and knows exactly where the margin and the exposure sit.
PSPs and payment platforms
You are adding acquirers, markets or methods faster than your product, risk and compliance functions can absorb. You need a leader who can run all three while you hire.
High volume operators and merchants
Gaming operators, trading platforms, travel, subscriptions, marketplaces and crypto on-ramps. Thousands of transactions an hour, multiple acquirers, several licences, and acceptance rate as the headline number.
Situations that start the conversation
If one of these sounds familiar, we should talk.
Most engagements begin with one of these sentences from a CEO, CFO or board member.
- Our acceptance rate has drifted and nobody can say why.
- Processing cost grew faster than volume.
- We have been warned by a scheme or an acquirer about chargebacks or fraud.
- Our Head of Payments has left and the hire will take six months.
- We are entering new markets and need acquiring, methods and licences lined up.
- A regulator, auditor or sponsor bank has asked questions we cannot yet answer.
- We are acquiring, or being acquired, and need payments and risk due diligence.
- Our payments data is everywhere and our reporting is in spreadsheets.
- Our offshore development team is not delivering.
- Our payments and risk operations have grown across countries without common process or KPIs.
- The board wants an independent voice on payments and risk.
Results
Numbers from the seats I have held.
+€8m a year
Incremental revenue from an acceptance-rate programme across 20+ brands and every market, with no added cost. Listed gaming group.
−€4m+ a year
Processing cost removed by renegotiating every acquirer and PSP agreement pricing with multi-acquirer redundancy.
−60% overhead
Brand-specific stacks consolidated into one group payments-as-a-service platform. Three acquired brands migrated in nine months.
<0.5% chargebacks
Held below half a percent across the group while payout processing time fell by 80%, with payments and risk operations of up to 160 agents in nine countries and a 50-strong offshore team delivering the tooling.
AI in the payments operation
Every transaction watched. Every anomaly explained. In real time.
I build AI-assisted monitoring and reporting on top of my clients' own data: real-time monitors on acceptance, cost and failure reasons by acquirer, issuer, method and market; alerts the moment a corridor degrades; daily reports that leadership reads rather than files. The tooling stays with you when I leave.
What a client typically gets in the first month
- A live view of acceptance rate and cost per transaction, segmented the way your acquirers bill you.
- Alerts on issuer declines, 3DS failures, soft declines and processor outages, within minutes.
- Chargeback and fraud ratios tracked against the scheme thresholds that actually apply to you.
- Payments, risk and compliance invoice checks that find the fees you are paying but should not be.
How we work together
Three steps. Stop after any of them.
A 30-minute call
Free
You describe the situation. I tell you what I would look at first and whether I am the right person. No deck, no pitch.
A payments and risk review
Fixed fee · 2 to 4 weeks
I work on your data and your contracts. You get a written assessment, quantified gaps, and a sequenced plan your team can execute with or without me.
The seat, or a retainer
Fractional · Interim · Board
I take the role for an agreed number of days a month, or join the board. Clear objectives, clear exit, and your team stronger when I leave.
Tell me what is breaking, or what is coming.
Thirty minutes. You leave with one concrete thing to look at first, whether or not we work together.