Senior Director, Payments

The Senior Director, Payments will lead Caesars Digital’s end-to-end payments business, owning the strategy, performance, economics, operations, and customer experience across deposits, withdrawals, reversals, refunds, and reconciliation. This leader will drive improvements in conversion, authorization rates, withdrawal speed, cost efficiency, reliability, vendor performance, and platform scalability across a complex, high-volume payments ecosystem.

This role requires a commercially minded, data-driven operator who can balance customer experience, payment economics, risk, fraud, AML, and regulatory requirements while partnering closely with Product, Engineering, Finance, Treasury, Risk, Operations, Support, and VIP teams. The ideal candidate will bring executive presence, strong vendor management discipline, and the ability to build a high-performing team that delivers measurable improvements in payment performance and customer outcomes within the first 12 months.

Responsibilities

End-to-End Payments Ownership

• Own the full payments lifecycle: deposits, withdrawals, reversals, refunds, and reconciliation
• Act as the business owner for payments performance and customer experience, partnering closely with Product, Engineering, Risk, Finance, and Operations to drive outcomes
• Drive a customer-first payments journey, ensuring speed, reliability, and ease of use across all touchpoints

Vendor & Partner Management

• Own the strategic management of PSPs, processors, gateways, banks, and payment partners across the payment's ecosystem
• Serve as the primary business owner for vendor performance, relationship governance, contract value, and partner accountability
• Hold partners accountable to performance SLAs, uptime, authorization rates, speed, reliability, and issue resolution
• Identify, evaluate, negotiate with, and onboard new providers to expand capabilities, improve economics, and increase resiliency

Payment Operations Excellence

• Lead Payment Operations, identifying and resolving friction points across the end-to-end user journey
• Ensure fast, reliable deposits and withdrawals, minimizing failures, delays, and customer friction
• Drive operational improvements in exceptions, retries, reversals, and escalations

Cost Optimization & Economics

• Optimize payment transaction costs across all methods (cards, ACH, wallets, APMs)
• Lead routing and processor strategies to balance cost, conversion, and reliability
• Own vendor pricing negotiations and economic modeling to drive margin improvement

Performance & KPI Ownership

• Own and report on all core payment KPIs, including: 
  • Authorization / approval rates
  • Deposit conversion and success rates
  • Withdrawal speed and completion rates
  • Cost per transaction
  • Chargebacks and return rates
• Establish a data-driven operating cadence to monitor and continuously improve performance

Risk, Compliance & AML

• Own alignment with payments compliance, AML, and regulatory requirements for digital customers
• Partner closely with Risk & Fraud to optimize approval rates vs. loss prevention
• Ensure adherence to card network rules, NACHA, and jurisdictional regulations

Platform, Product & Technology Partnership

• Partner with: 
  • Payment Product Team to shape the roadmap, prioritization, and feature delivery
  • Architecture & Engineering to build and scale the payments platform (orchestration, routing, resiliency)
• Collaborate with development of capabilities such as smart routing, tokenization, and next-gen payment rails

Cross-Functional Leadership

Collaborate closely with:

• Risk & Fraud – loss mitigation and approval optimization
• Player Account / KYC – onboarding and first-time depositor success
• Treasury & Finance – settlements, cash flow, and reconciliation
• Customer Support & VIP – escalation handling and experience improvement
• Analytics – KPI tracking, insights, and performance optimization

Team Leadership

• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing payments organization
• Foster a culture of accountability, urgency, and continuous improvement
• Drive strong cross-functional collaboration and alignment

Success Metrics (First 12 Months)

• Improve deposit approval rates and conversion
• Reduce payment processing costs (bps improvement)
• Enhance withdrawal speed and reliability
• Strengthen vendor performance and renegotiate key contracts
• Deliver measurable improvements in end-to-end customer payment experience

Qualifications

• 10–15+ years in payments, fintech, or financial services
• 2+ years in mobile Sports & iCasino payments a plus but not necessary 
• Proven ownership of large-scale payment ecosystems (cards, ACH, wallets, APMs)
• Deep expertise in processors, PSPs, gateways, and transaction flows
• Strong track record optimizing cost, conversion, and fraud trade-offs
• Experience leading vendor negotiations and partner management
• Strong understanding of fraud, chargebacks, AML, and payment compliance
• Experience building or scaling payment platforms / orchestration layers
• Highly data-driven, with strong ownership of KPIs and financial performance
• Proven leader with executive presence, able to drive cross-functional execution and influence senior stakeholders

Additional Qualifications

• Operates with a high sense of urgency and ownership mentality
• Deeply data-driven, with strong analytical and decision-making rigor
• Customer experience obsessed, especially across the payments journey
• Proven leader who can motivate, develop, and scale teams
• Proactive problem solver with a bias toward action
• Excellent communication and executive presentation skills

The salary range for this position is $200,000.00 - $235,000.00 USD, which is dependent on a several factors including relevant experience, geography, business needs and market demand. This role may offer the following benefits: medical, vision, and dental insurance; life insurance; disability insurance; a 401(k)-matching program; among other employee benefits. This role may also be eligible for short-term or long-term incentive compensation, including, but not limited to, cash bonuses. This role includes paid Flexible Time Off and paid company holidays.