Senior Manager - Risk Management (Merchant Operations)

You Lead the Way. We’ve Got Your Back.

At American Express, our culture is built on a long history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviours, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. We operate with a strong risk mindset while continuously improving how we serve merchants and manage critical business processes.

Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together we help define the future of American Express.

How Will You Make Impact in this Role.

Merchant Account Operations & Resilience supports critical merchant-data, operational-risk, remediation, and transformation activities. Accurate merchant data and effective operational processes are essential to pricing, servicing, risk management, reporting, and decision-making.

The Senior Manager, Risk Management will lead a team focused on Merchant Hierarchy process transformation, enterprise remediation, and strategic program delivery.

The role will identify opportunities to simplify and uplift hierarchy review processes using AI, automation, analytics, workflow solutions, and operating-model improvements. It will also lead or support complex remediation and cross-functional programs by bringing strong governance, execution discipline, change management, and leadership visibility.

The successful candidate will combine operational experience, program leadership, analytical fluency, transformation thinking, stakeholder management and people leadership. The role will partner closely with teams responsible for ongoing Merchant Hierarchy governance and day-to-day hierarchy reviews.

Key Responsibilities

Drive Merchant Hierarchy process transformation
• Develop and execute a prioritized roadmap to simplify, standardize, automate, and modernize Merchant Hierarchy review processes in partnership with the teams responsible for governance and operational delivery.
• Translate operational pain points into structured improvement opportunities that reduce manual effort, improve turnaround times and data quality, strengthen controls, and create scalable capabilities.
• Coordinate cross-functional partners, dependencies, decisions, operating-model changes, and adoption activities required to deliver sustainable enterprise-wide process uplift.

Advance AI, automation, and analytics
• Identify and prioritize opportunities to use AI, automation, analytics, workflow tools, external data, and emerging technologies to improve operational processes and outcomes.
• Partner with Product, Technology, Analytics, and Operations teams to evaluate solutions and progress them from problem definition through implementation, adoption, and benefits measurement.
• Ensure new capabilities address clear business needs and are supported by appropriate data, controls, ownership, governance, and performance monitoring.

Lead remediation and strategic program execution
• Lead or provide PMO support for complex remediation, operational-risk, control-enhancement, and strategic-change initiatives across functions and markets.
• Establish effective program governance, including clear scope, milestones, ownership, decision rights, dependencies, risks, escalation paths, and success measures.
• Drive change management, operational readiness, and executive reporting while maintaining accountability through implementation, stabilization, and benefits realization.

Strengthen stakeholder partnerships and team effectiveness
• Serve as a trusted stakeholder anchor across business, Operations, Servicing, Pricing, Client Management, Product, Technology, Analytics, Risk, Compliance, Policy, and Control Management.
• Demonstrate executive presence and influence senior leaders and cross-functional partners without direct authority through structured thinking, sound judgement, constructive challenge, and clear communication.
• Lead and develop a high-performing team with strong capabilities across program governance, remediation, operational transformation, analytics, automation, and stakeholder management.

Minimum Qualifications:
• Experience leading complex, cross-functional programs in a global or highly matrixed organization.
• Strong program-governance capability across planning, ownership, dependencies, risk management, escalation, and outcome measurement.
• Experience within operations, servicing, risk, controls, remediation, transformation, or another operationally intensive environment.
• Demonstrated ability to identify and shape process improvements involving AI, automation, analytics, workflow redesign, simplification, or operational efficiencies.
• Strong analytical fluency and the ability to translate complex or ambiguous challenges into structured recommendations and executable plans.
• Strong executive presence, credibility, communication, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate and influence senior partners without direct authority.
• Proven people-leadership experience, including setting direction, coaching talent, and building team capability.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred Qualifications:
• Experience within merchant operations, onboarding, account maintenance, servicing, pricing, payments, or a related function.
• Knowledge of merchant account structures, hierarchy processes, data enrichment, or Know Your Customer processes.
• Experience delivering operational transformation, AI, automation, workflow, analytics, or technology-enabled process improvements.
• Experience supporting operational-risk events, corrective-action plans, remediation, or control-enhancement programs.
• Familiarity with analytical and visualization tools such as SQL, Python, Tableau, Power BI, or comparable platforms.
• Experience working across multiple markets or global teams.

Critical Factors to Success:
• Apply strong program governance and execution discipline across transformation and remediation initiatives.
• Convert AI, automation, analytics, and process-improvement opportunities into scalable and sustainable operational capabilities.
• Deliver measurable improvements in efficiency, data quality, controls, and operational outcomes.
• Bring structure, transparency, and accountability to complex cross-functional programs.
• Build trusted partnerships and influence decisions without direct authority.

Leadership Behaviors:

The successful candidate should consistently demonstrate the American Express Leadership Behaviours by:
• Defining What Winning Looks Like: Establishing clear priorities, outcomes, delivery plans, and success measures.
• Putting Enterprise Thinking First: Balancing business value, merchant and customer outcomes, colleague impact, operational feasibility, and the control environment.
• Making Collaboration Essential: Building trusted partnerships while maintaining clarity on ownership, accountability, and decision rights.
• Seeking and Providing Coaching and Feedback: Strengthening team capability through regular, candid, and actionable development conversations.
• Communicating Frequently, Candidly, and Clearly: Providing transparent information on progress, risks, issues, dependencies, benefits, and required actions.
• Making Decisions Quickly and Effectively: Evaluating alternatives and balancing speed, business value, data, implementation effort, risk, and sustainable outcomes.
• Demonstrating Courageous and Authentic Leadership: Raising concerns proactively, challenging assumptions, and creating an environment where colleagues can speak up.
• Leading with a Digital and Improvement Mindset: Challenging how work is performed and identifying scalable opportunities to simplify, automate, and improve operational outcomes.