Manager - Operational Resilience, Transaction Processing | London, UK

You Lead the Way. We’ve Got Your Back. With the right backing, people and businesses have the power to progress in incredible ways. When you join Team Amex, you become part of a global and diverse community of colleagues with an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities and each other. Here, you’ll learn and grow as we help you create a career journey that’s unique and meaningful to you with benefits, programs, and flexibility that support you personally and professionally.

At American Express, you’ll be recognized for your contributions, leadership, and impact—every colleague has the opportunity to share in the company’s success. Together, we’ll win as a team, striving to uphold our company values and powerful backing promise to provide the world’s best customer experience every day. And we’ll do it with the utmost integrity, and in an environment where everyone is seen, heard and feels like they belong. Join Team Amex and let’s lead the way together.

How will you make an impact in this role? The Acquiring Transactional Process team within Network and Acquirer Solutions (AS) is dedicated to delivering an easy, frictionless, value-added experience that enables merchants and partners to meet their goals and serve their customers. The key strategic priorities for this team are to:

• Own the 'Ability to Accept a Transaction' Important Business Service (IBS) in the UK as per the Operational Resilience Framework.
• Design, implement and improve processes to make it easy, fast, safe and reliable for all merchants to do business with us.
• Enable new business solutions, capabilities and products to enhance resilience and/or experience for Merchants and Partners.

In this newly created role reporting to the Director, Operational Resilience, Transaction Processing, you will be:

• Accountable for holistic management of 'Ability to Accept a Transaction' IBS, identifying and addressing vulnerabilities as well as opportunities to strengthen the service to ensure ongoing compliance with regulatory standards and customer expectations.
• Expected to continuously set and deliver the highest standard of process excellence, governance and risk management, challenging and mitigating areas of control weakness and ensuring robust and current documentation.
• Responsible for establishing and managing service oversight inclusive of hosting and or participating in relevant forums to scope and influence upcoming service-related changes, creating MI to inform and service health and leading IBS response during service disruptions.
• Partnering with UK Business Enablement and Issuing Operational Resilience teams on programme governance, service testing and regulatory interactions.

Specific responsibilities will include:

• Implementation and continual management of a comprehensive internal service catalogue, including detailed process mapping, scenario mapping and communication templates and incident management playbook.
• Helping ensure all Operational Risk Management documentation is current and compliant with prevailing standards.
• Responsible for hosting IBS working group to gain understanding of changes that will impact the IBS through management of a 'shadow roadmap'.
• Developing a grading framework to assess the impact of upcoming change and monitoring post-implementation success, identifying mitigating actions as necessary.
• Leading the implementation of best-in-class MI associated with the service that will transition away from reactive identification of an issue with the service to proactive.
• Partnering with Business Enablement team to track the remediation plans of open vulnerabilities associated with the IBS, ensuring they stay on track for delivery.
• Ensuring any new vulnerabilities are detected in a timely manner including by analysing past Operational Risk Events/Operational Risk Issues (OREs/ORIs).
• Responsible for ensuring prioritisation of releases that can enhance resilience or close vulnerabilities associated with the IBS, this includes developing business cases, presenting at intake forums and involvement in investment planning processes.
• Leading the IBS response during a disruption, including assisting in the development of communication templates and translating technical language into easily digestible and actionable next steps.
• Staying up to date with industry developments and best practices in operational resilience to continuously improve the organization’s processes and procedures.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Strong knowledge of the payment acceptance ecosystem, related operational processes, and supporting technology infrastructure.
• Strong risk and control mindset.
• Advanced analytical skills with an ability to introduce structure into ambiguity.
• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional, large scale projects involving tech development.
• Creative thinker willing to question traditional ways of doing things and functions effectively under pressure.
• Passionate focus on the customer with a demonstrated desire to understand and solve for customer needs and pain points.
• Must be able to drive results through influence management and collaboration across multiple stakeholders.
• Strong communication and presentation skills, both written and oral.
• This individual must be able to communicate effectively at all levels of the organization.
• Experience in benchmarking and understanding industry trends would be a considerable advantage.

We back our colleagues and their loved ones with benefits and programs that support their holistic well-being. That means we prioritize their physical, financial, and mental health through each stage of life. Benefits include:

• Competitive base salaries.
• Bonus incentives.
• Support for financial-well-being and retirement.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits (depending on location).
• Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need.
• Generous paid parental leave policies (depending on your location).
• Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location).
• Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program.
• Career development and training opportunities.

Offer of employment with American Express is conditioned upon the successful completion of a background verification check, subject to applicable laws and regulations.