Head of Payments Operations

About Fresha

Fresha is an AI-driven operating system built for the beauty, wellness, and self-care sector. It supports businesses ranging from salons and barbers to spas, medspas, fitness studios, and health practices.

The platform is relied on by millions of consumers and businesses around the world. It serves more than 140,000 businesses and 450,000 stylists and professionals globally, and has processed over 1 billion appointments so far.

Headquartered in London, United Kingdom, the company also operates 15 offices across North America, EMEA, and APAC.

Through Fresha’s marketplace, consumers can find, book, and pay for services at local beauty and wellness businesses. At the same time, business users get an all-in-one platform to run their operations with software and financial technology tools.

The ecosystem helps merchants streamline bookings, point-of-sale, customer records, marketing automation, loyalty, product inventory, and team management. Its consumer marketplace also helps partner businesses generate more revenue through online bookings and automated marketing, supported by mobile apps and integrations with major technology platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Google.

The Role

Reporting to the Chief Payments Officer, the Head of Payments Operations will be responsible for turning Fresha’s global payments strategy into strong day-to-day execution.

This position sits across Payments, Commercial, Product, Finance, and Operations, and serves as the operational backbone of the payments team. The focus is on converting strategic priorities into scalable delivery and tangible business results.

The role will oversee major initiatives spanning payment acceptance, terminals, pricing, optimisation, and merchant adoption. It requires someone who can bring order to ambiguity and keep multiple workstreams moving at the same time.

This is a highly strategic, hands-on position for someone who excels in fast-paced, high-growth settings and has substantial experience in payments, fintech, acquiring, or POS environments. It begins as an autonomous individual contributor role, but it also carries major cross-functional leadership responsibility and is expected to expand as the payments team grows.

Core Responsibilities & Outcomes

• Convert payments strategy into actionable priorities, delivery plans, and measurable results.
• Own execution across key programmes such as payment acceptance, terminals, pricing, optimisation, and merchant adoption.
• Design scalable processes, governance structures, and operating rhythms for the payments organisation.
• Build visibility through reporting on all live payments initiatives, operational performance, and strategic focus areas.
• Lead hardware and terminal programmes, including rollouts, upgrade planning, replacements, and optimisation efforts.
• Serve as the operational link between Payments, Commercial, Product, Finance, and Operations to keep teams aligned and accountable.
• Set clear ownership, timelines, KPIs, and delivery frameworks for complex cross-functional initiatives.
• Spot blockers, risks, and dependencies early and drive them to resolution so momentum is maintained.
• Improve payment adoption, wallet share, operational efficiency, and overall execution quality through measurable outcomes.
• Strengthen collaboration, predictability of delivery, and operational scalability within the payments function.
• Provide regular updates and practical insights to the Chief Payments Officer and wider leadership group.
• Act as a trusted operational partner to leadership as Fresha continues to scale its global payments organisation.

What We’re Looking For

Essential experience and capabilities:

• Extensive background in payments, fintech, acquiring, merchant services, or POS/terminal settings.
• A proven record of leading complex, cross-functional programmes in high-growth businesses.
• Strong operational leadership with the ability to manage several priorities at once.
• Deep knowledge of payment acceptance, acquiring, payment optimisation, merchant operations, or terminal ecosystems.
• Experience partnering with commercial and go-to-market teams to improve adoption, revenue growth, wallet share, or pricing outcomes.
• Ability to create structure in ambiguous situations and drive execution with minimal guidance.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills across Product, Commercial, Operations, and executive teams.
• Commercial awareness combined with strong analytical thinking and problem-solving ability.
• A highly execution-focused mindset with strong ownership, urgency, and accountability.
• Comfort operating independently in dynamic, fast-changing environments.

Nice-to-have experience:

• Background in global or multi-market payments organisations.
• Exposure to payment hardware, terminal estate management, or face-to-face commerce.
• Experience in a scaling fintech or marketplace company.
• Familiarity with acquiring, PSPs, payment optimisation, or merchant growth approaches.

Inclusive Workforce

Fresha aims to build a workplace where people from all backgrounds feel respected, included, and able to contribute fully.

Every applicant is considered fairly for employment. The company does not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, gender identity, national origin, disability, or any other legally protected status relevant to the location of application.

If you need any accessibility support during the interview process or after joining, you are encouraged to let the team know so suitable adjustments can be made.

Hiring Process Note

Artificial intelligence tools may be used to support parts of recruitment, including application review, resume analysis, response assessment, and flagging possible inconsistencies or verification signals using available information. These tools assist the recruitment team but do not replace human judgment, and final hiring decisions are made by people. If you want details on how your data is handled, you can contact the company directly.