Head of EMEA Operations – Payments - PSD

Exciting career opportunity to join this payments leader.

This is a critical leadership role responsible for transforming and scaling theClient Success and Operations organisation across EMEA. The role sits at the intersection of operational execution, customer strategy and change leadership - owning how service gets delivered, how customers experience it, and how the workforce is structured to support it. The role requires someone who has genuinely built and run large-scale client operations before, managing sizeable teams across in-house, offshore and third-party models, with a track record of reshaping workforce design, driving down cost-to-serve, and pushing complex change through fast-growing, customer-facing businesses.

Role Summary:

1. Owns Client Success, Implementation Management and broader operational functions covering onboarding, servicing, retention and growth
2. Combines operational leadership, customer strategy and organisational transformation — accountable for service delivery, customer outcomes, workforce strategy and productivity
3. Core priority: shift the operating model from relationship-led servicing to a scalable, data-driven framework - strong governance, standardised processes, AI-enabled capability, continuous improvement
4. Year-one goals: set a clear workforce and operating model strategy; deliver measurable gains in customer experience, onboarding and efficiency; build a scalable foundation for future growth

What the role involves

1. Leads client operations across EMEA, owning end-to-end service delivery and SLA performance across all sub-regions
2. Owns global workforce strategy across onshore, offshore and outsourced teams — including performance management of outsource providers
3. Drives the shift from relationship-led to operations-focused delivery, embedding governance, productivity management and standardised process
4. Delivers efficiency and productivity targets through structured improvement programmes, using analytics and dashboards to guide decisions
5. Sponsors transformation activity to improve client experience, cost, efficiency and risk
6. Owns 24/7 incident management for client engagement and priority issues
7. Builds and scales Implementation Management and Client Success teams, shortening onboarding and improving time-to-revenue in partnership with commercial, product and engineering teams
8. Designs offshoring, nearshoring, automation and AI-enabled strategies to optimise cost-to-serve while protecting service and experience
9. Acts as the voice of the customer for EMEA, partnering closely with commercial teams
10. Brings strong financial and commercial acumen — budget ownership, stakeholder influence, translating strategy into executable delivery

What's needed

1. 10+ years leading multi-site operations in a regulated environment within payments
2. Direct experience leading major-enterprise client success/operations organisations at scale, including global workforce strategy across onshore, offshore and outsourced teams
3. Track record managing third-party outsource providers — governance, performance, accountability
4. Experience leading teams across countries and cultures, with a genuinely global operating perspective
5. Demonstrated transformation and continuous improvement delivery, with measurable results
6. Strong commercial/financial acumen, analytical capability, stakeholder management and coaching skills