Payments Partnerships & Strategy Lead (Contract)

We're supporting a leading international organisation seeking a commercially minded Senior Payments Strategy Consultant to join a high-profile team focused on payments innovation, commercial partnerships and strategic growth initiatives.

This will be 12-month contract initially, and it's anticipated that you would spend 2 days a week in the London offices.

This role sits at the intersection of payments strategy, partner economics, pricing, commercial performance and product adoption. You'll work on business-critical initiatives, helping senior stakeholders make informed decisions through data-driven analysis, structured problem-solving and commercial insight.

This is an excellent opportunity for someone who enjoys tackling complex business challenges, building compelling recommendations and influencing strategic outcomes within a fast-moving payments environment.

The Role

As a Senior Payments Strategy Consultant, you will support a range of commercially significant initiatives across the payments ecosystem, helping to evaluate opportunities, assess performance, optimise economics and improve decision-making.

You'll work closely with commercial, strategy, product and partnership teams to analyse data, build business cases and provide recommendations that have direct impact on growth, profitability and commercial performance.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and support strategic and analytical workstreams across payments, pricing, commercial performance and partner economics.
• Analyse complex data sets and identify trends, opportunities and commercial implications.
• Develop financial models, business cases and commercial assessments to support strategic decision-making.
• Evaluate payment flows, product adoption, pricing structures and commercial performance drivers.
• Structure ambiguous business problems and translate analysis into practical recommendations.
• Create executive-level presentations, briefing packs and decision-support materials.
• Support senior stakeholders with insight-driven recommendations that influence business outcomes.
• Contribute to cross-functional initiatives requiring commercial judgement, strategic thinking and payments expertise.
• Drive progress across multiple workstreams and help improve execution of commercially relevant initiatives.

What We're Looking For

We are interested in candidates with experience in some combination of:

• Payments, FinTech, digital commerce or financial services.
• Payments strategy, management consulting or commercial consulting.
• Partner economics, pricing strategy or commercial analysis.
• Payment flows, merchant acquiring, card payments or payment ecosystems.
• Financial modelling and business case development.
• Commercial performance management and growth strategy.
• Data analysis and translating insights into actionable recommendations.
• Developing executive-level presentations and stakeholder materials.

The successful candidate will demonstrate

• Strong analytical and problem-solving capability.
• Ability to break down complex and ambiguous business challenges.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Strong commercial judgement and an understanding of business drivers and P&L impact.
• Experience building clear, concise and compelling PowerPoint presentations.
• Ability to communicate recommendations confidently to senior audiences.
• A proactive approach with the ability to lead workstreams and drive initiatives forward.
• Strong attention to detail combined with a pragmatic, delivery-focused mindset.
• Experience within payments consulting or payments strategy functions.
• Exposure to FinTech partnerships and commercial growth initiatives.
• Knowledge of partner economics and pricing models.
• Experience in pay-outs or related payments products.
• Experience producing recommendations that influence senior business decisions.

Additional Requirements

Whilst payments experience is important, soft skills and consulting capability are also required to be successful in this position. Particular emphasis will be placed on candidates who can demonstrate:

• A proactive approach and the ability to lead and drive projects forward.
• Strong presentation and communication skills.
• Excellent analytical capability.
• Strong slide-building and executive storytelling skills.
• Confidence working with senior stakeholders.
• The ability to bring structure and clarity to complex problems.

Why Apply?

• Work on high-impact payments and commercial strategy initiatives.
• Exposure to senior decision-makers and complex commercial challenges.
• Opportunity to influence business outcomes through insight, analysis and structured thinking.
• Blend of strategy, consulting, analytics and payments expertise.
• Collaborative, fast-paced and intellectually stimulating environment.

If you're a commercially minded payments professional who enjoys turning complex business questions into actionable recommendations, we'd love to hear from you.

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