Policy & Governance Program Manager

Lithic is the modern card issuing and processing platform empowering ambitious financial companies to build the future of payments.

Our infrastructure powers card programs for 100+ innovative clients, from fintechs reimagining credit and digital banking to platforms transforming disbursements and spend management. Companies like Mercury, Flex, and Novo rely on Lithic's developer-friendly APIs, direct network connections, and flawless reconciliation to launch and scale card programs in weeks, not years.

We're building a future where access to better financial products materially improves people's lives, free from the constraints of 30-year-old mainframes and legacy processors. We're proud to be backed by world-class investors who share that vision, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Stripes, and Mastercard, along with many others.

We're a team of 160+ across 26 states and 7 countries, headquartered in New York City. Our values (Customer Centricity, Deliver Excellence, Act Like an Owner, Iterate Iterate Iterate, Teach Others, and Be a Good Neighbor) shape how we work and grow as a team.

Lithic Risk & Compliance is seeking a Policy & Governance Program Manager to help us see around corners as we scale our risk and compliance operations across multiple sponsor bank partnerships and navigate an environment of heightened regulatory scrutiny.

This role is critical to establishing and maintaining policy infrastructure, coordinating audits across multiple bank partners, and building scalable governance processes. You will be the directly responsible individual (DRI) for audit coordination and policy lifecycle management, ensuring we have a single source of truth for compliance documentation and clear ownership across our growing organization.

Lithic Risk & Compliance strives to be a business-savvy, focused team of knowledge experts with a collaborative, low-ego culture. You must be a strategic thinker who can navigate a complex set of business conditions across a diverse organizational landscape. This role is highly collaborative and cross-functional, focusing on organization-wide areas of impact. You will work closely with Risk, Compliance, Legal, Product, Engineering, and our bank partners, with an emphasis on translating regulatory and bank requirements into actionable internal initiatives.

The ideal candidate is a player-coach who can roll up their sleeves to get into the weeds when needed while also building systems that will scale beyond today's needs.

What You'll Do

You will own audit coordination and policy infrastructure for Lithic's Risk & Compliance function. This means building the systems and processes that ensure we can scale our compliance operations across multiple sponsor bank partnerships while maintaining clear accountability and reducing last-minute fire drills.

Core responsibilities include:

• Serve as Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) for all regulatory audit coordination across sponsor banks, from planning and evidence gathering to findings remediation
• Create and maintain centralized tracking systems for audits, policies, and governance decisions
• Design and implement a scalable policy lifecycle management system that creates a single source of truth for all compliance documentation, including policies, SOPs, and procedures
• Establish and manage policy review and approval processes, including coordination with the Board of Directors for Risk policy governance
• Structure compliance documentation to be both human-readable and machine-actionable, enabling AI-assisted compliance monitoring, automated workflow execution, and intelligent policy retrieval
• Act as the primary point of contact for audit and policy coordination with sponsor banks
• Support the monthly Risk & Compliance governance meetings and maintain clear accountability frameworks
• Partner with Legal, Compliance, and Operations teams to translate regulatory requirements into actionable processes
• Identify opportunities to streamline workflows through automation and modern tooling
• Own Lithic's compliance training program, including annual and new-hire training, content updates, and audit-ready tracking

What You'll Need

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in compliance, risk management, audit coordination, or governance roles within financial services, fintech, or banking
• Direct experience managing or coordinating regulatory, operational, and information security audits with sponsor banks, regulators, or third-party auditors
• Proven ability to build policy management systems and governance frameworks from scratch
• Strong project management skills with experience juggling multiple partner banks, concurrent audits, and stakeholder groups
• Exceptional organizational skills and ability to create structure where none exists
• Excellent written communication skills; you'll be writing and reviewing policies, SOPs, and audit responses regularly
• Experience working cross-functionally with Legal, Compliance, Product, Engineering, and Operations teams
• Comfort with ambiguity and ability to establish processes in a fast-moving startup environment
• Self-starter who can work independently while knowing when to escalate and collaborate

Nice to Have

• Experience structuring documentation for programmatic access and AI systems - highly preferred
• Familiarity with emerging payment products including stablecoins, digital wallets, and crypto-related compliance requirements, and/or experience with high-risk verticals such as marijuana-related businesses (MRBs)
• Experience in card issuing, payments, or fintech with exposure to sponsor bank relationships and regulatory requirements
• Background coordinating BSA/AML, fraud, information security, and/or regulatory compliance audits
• Knowledge of audit standards (SOC 2, PCI DSS, ISO)
• Experience working with compliance tooling, GRC platforms, or building compliance automation

The annual US salary range for this role is $133,000 - $197,000 plus equity. This salary range may be inclusive of several career levels at Lithic and will be narrowed during the interview process based on the candidate’s experience and qualifications.

Benefits for Full-Time US Employees:

• Unlimited PTO
• 12-weeks fully paid parental leave
• 4-Week Fully Paid Sabbatical (earned at your 5-year anniversary)
• Work From Anywhere: work from anywhere in the world 4-weeks each year
• 3% cashback on card purchases with your complimentary Privacy.com employee account
• Health, vision, and dental insurance; HSA Contribution Match
• 401(k) match
• Voluntary Life Insurance and STD/LTD

NYC-based employees work from our SoHo office three days a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays are our core days, and you'll choose a third day that works for your schedule and team needs.

In-office employees receive: 

• Commuter benefit
• Catered lunch every Tuesday and Thursday