Head of Product - Payments

About Cleo

At Cleo, we’re not just building another fintech app. We’re embarking on a mission to fundamentally change humanity’s relationship with money. Imagine a world where everyone, regardless of background or income, has access to a hyper‑intelligent financial advisor in their pocket. That’s the future we’re creating. Cleo is a rare success story: a profitable, fast‑growing unicorn with over $300 million in ARR and growing over 2x year‑over‑year. This isn’t just a job; it’s a chance to join a team of brilliant, driven individuals who are passionate about making a real difference. We have an exceptionally high bar for talent, seeking individuals who are not only at the top of their field but also embody our culture of collaboration and positive impact. If you’re driven by complex challenges that push your expertise, the chance to shape something truly transformative, and the potential to share in Cleo’s success as we scale, while growing alongside a company that’s scaling fast, this might be your perfect fit.

About The Role

Cleo is building regulated financial products across multiple geographies — and payments is the infrastructure that makes it all possible. We’re looking for a Head of Product to lead the two squads that own this: Payments Infrastructure, which keeps money moving reliably across all our products today, and Payments Expansion, which launches payment capabilities in new markets and hands them over once they’re running as business‑as‑usual. This is a senior PM leadership role. You’ll set the direction for both squads, manage the PMs within them, and be the senior payments voice across product, engineering, risk, compliance, and operations.

What Success Looks Like

• Payments infrastructure is consistent, reliable, and observable across every product and market Cleo operates in.
• New regulated product launches have payments capabilities embedded by default — no bespoke work required.
• Cleo can enter a new geography with speed and confidence, following a standardised, provider‑agnostic playbook.
• Provider integrations are measurable, cost‑effective, and easy to iterate.
• Money movement is auditable and meets regulatory expectations everywhere Cleo operates.
• Consistent payments user experience across all products and geos.

What you'll own

• The roadmap for Cleo’s payments platform — rails, orchestration, provider integrations, event pipelines, and money movement flows across all products and markets.
• Payment provider implementations: routing, performance, reliability, fallback logic, and cost efficiency.
• Cleo’s expansion into new geographies and payment methods — provider selection, technical design, and a reusable integration playbook that doesn’t require re‑engineering for each new market.
• The handover process from Expansion to Fraud Infra, ensuring new launches are well‑documented, observable, and transition smoothly to BAU.
• System health: reliability, latency, monitoring, auditability, and operational tooling that reduces manual work.
• Cross‑functional alignment across Engineering, Risk, Compliance, Fraud, and Operations.

What we’re looking for

• Significant PM experience in payments, fintech, or regulated financial products — ideally with experience managing other PMs.
• Deep fluency in payment rails, orchestration systems, provider integrations, and event‑driven architecture.
• Strong product judgment in complex, multi‑stakeholder environments where reliability and growth are both non‑negotiable.
• A track record of building scalable platform infrastructure, not one‑off solutions.
• Experience with geographic expansion is a strong plus.
• The ability to translate compliance and regulatory requirements into clear engineering roadmaps.

Why this role matters?

As Cleo scales regulated products across more markets, payments infrastructure becomes the foundation everything else is built on. This role will make sure we can launch safely, move money reliably, and grow without creating fragmented systems or slowing teams down. You’ll be leading the people who make that happen.

What do you get for all your hard work?

A competitive compensation package (base + equity) with bi‑annual reviews, aligned to our quarterly OKR planning cycles. You can view our public progression framework and salary bandings here: https://cleo-ai.progressionapp.com/ Work at one of the fastest‑growing tech startups, backed by top VC firms, Balderton.