Senior Director, Risk and Underwriting (Payments/Fintech)

NMI is a payments platform that underwrites and bears risk across both card acceptance and account-to-account products, including ACH, RTP, and FedNow. We oversee risk on roughly $1B in annual card volume and an $80B+ A2A program, moving funds through wholesale ISO distribution, ISV partnerships, and direct merchant relationships, with third-party sender activity through ODFI and sponsor bank arrangements. We are hiring a Senior Director of Risk and Underwriting to own this function end to end.

This role combines strategic leadership with day-to-day operational accountability. The right person writes the risk frameworks and then runs them. They review the hard files personally, sit in the room for sponsor bank and network conversations, and stay close enough to the portfolio to catch problems before the bank does. This leader builds, decides, and executes every day.

The mandate is enabling aggressive growth safely. The company is scaling merchant onboarding velocity, expanding payout volume, and adding banking infrastructure. Every one of those moves runs through this role. We need someone who finds thoughtful ways to say yes, treats risk appetite as a daily decision rather than an annual document, and sees disciplined risk management as a competitive advantage that lets the business move faster than its peers.

Reports to:  Chief Operating Officer

Location:  Remote, US. Travel to financial institution partners and team sites as needed.

Direct reports:  Risk and underwriting leadership across card and A2A, including current interim leadership.

What You Will Own

Underwriting

Underwriting policy and execution across the combined portfolio: card merchants, A2A clients, ISO and ISV sub-merchant populations, and high-velocity onboarding programs. This includes the mass onboarding and underwriting models that must support a step change in boarding velocity over the next two quarters.

Portfolio Risk

Fraud monitoring, transaction monitoring alerts, ACH return-rate performance against NACHA thresholds, chargeback and dispute operations, and the KYC and KYB tooling stack, including vendor strategy across providers such as Verafin, Alloy, Middesk, and Socure alongside the card-side stack.

Reserves

• Reserve methodology and management, including reserve sizing, release decisions, and the financial exposure conversations that come with them.

Financial Institution Relationships

• You are the operating face of risk to our financial institution partners. That means principal-level credibility with sponsor banks and ODFIs, participation in new banking relationship buildouts, and exam and audit readiness across BSA and AML, OFAC, state money transmission licensing, and network compliance.

Partnership with Compliance

• You partner with the Compliance function, which sits within Legal, as a peer relationship. Risk executes, Compliance assures, and the two functions stay tightly aligned without reporting into each other.

Integration

• Your first year includes a defining integration project: reconciling two risk frameworks, two underwriting cultures, and two banking arrangements from a recent acquisition into one coherent program. This is a core function of the role and a key measure of success.

Who You Are

You have built or scaled a risk and underwriting function inside a regulated payments business: an acquirer, payfac, processor, or A2A platform. You are deep in either card or ACH risk and fluent in the other. You have owned a sponsor bank or ODFI relationship as the accountable party, not as a participant. You have managed reserves, navigated examinations, and made underwriting calls on businesses where the answer was not obvious. Eight or more years of relevant experience, or equivalent operational depth.

You lead small senior teams and multiply them. You communicate risk simply to people who do not live in it, including executives, bankers, and salespeople. You are accountable for both portfolio outcomes and business growth, approaching risk decisions with the mindset of finding a responsible path to approval whenever the facts support it.

What You Bring

• Direct ownership of merchant or A2A risk and underwriting in a payments or fintech environment.
• Hands-on sponsor bank and ODFI accountability, not committee participation.
• Fluency across fraud strategy, chargeback and reserve management, and AML, KYC, and KYB program governance.
• Comfort with AI and automation-driven underwriting, and a bias toward building scalable systems over adding headcount.
• Credibility with auditors, network partners, and executive leadership.

Do you feel like you have a slightly out of the ordinary career path or history? We are open to all walks of life and very willing to hear your story. Please don't feel like this should be a barrier to securing a great career at NMI! We appreciate success can come in all shapes and sizes. Fill in the 'Additional Info' box on our application to tell us more about your path.

As well as being a part of something exciting everyday, you will also receive the following benefits:

• A remote first culture!
• Competitive compensation and benefits
• Personal growth and advancement opportunities
• Flex PTO & dedicated sick time
• Health, Dental and Vision Insurance
• Life, ADD, Short-term and Long-term Disability insurance
• 401k matching up to 4% after two months of service
• Flexible Spending Account
• Paid Parental Leave
• Company volunteer days
• Employee referral program
• Bonusly colleague recognition

What we do!

NMI enables our partners with choice, and challenges the one-size-fits-all approach to payments. You've probably used NMI in the last 24 hours without even realizing it. We’re the platform that powers success for innovative tech created by SMBs, entrepreneurs and fintech startups. We’re creative problem solvers who help visionaries smash through boundaries and think beyond what’s possible so they can think about what’s next. But we’re not just built for the tech savvy. We democratize the latest payments technology so that everyone can realize the benefits of easy payments across the full spectrum of commerce. We’re all about enabling more payments in more ways and more places.

We believe that having a diverse group of employees strengthens both our work and our workplace. We’re focused on making NMI more diverse and welcoming with initiatives like having a dedicated Diversity, Equity & Inclusion action group, diversity goals for hiring, anonymized resume screening, affinity groups such as our Women's network and LGBTQ+ Network, open forums for discussions on diversity and social justice, and measuring inclusion and belonging as part of our regular employee engagement surveys.

Equal Opportunity

NMI is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all persons regardless of race, color, religion, sex, age, marital status, national origin, sexual orientation or sexual identity, genetic information, citizen status (except those that do not have the legal right to be employed in the United States), disability, military service, service member, veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

Please be aware that all offers of employment are made subject to receipt of satisfactory background and financial checks.

Attention job applicants: Please note that in compliance with the data protection regulations within your jurisdiction, any personal information submitted with your job application may be collected and used by NMI for the purpose of recruitment and employment-related activities. By submitting your application, you acknowledge and provide explicit consent to the processing of your personal information as described in our privacy policy found on our website. For more information on how we process your information, please read our privacy policy here: https://www.nmi.com/legal/privacy-policy/

This is a remote role with an annual US base salary range of $180,000 – $225,000 USD. This salary range will be narrowed during the interview process based on experience, qualification, and location.

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