Head of Risk & Fraud

Role overview

This is a senior leadership opportunity for a Head of Risk & Fraud in Saudi Arabia, supporting a high-volume digital marketplace with millions of active users. The role is focused on protecting trust while enabling growth, with full ownership of fraud and risk outcomes across the business.

You will shape and run the overall fraud and risk strategy, ensuring the business is protected from financial and behavioral abuse without slowing down product and marketplace expansion. The position sits at the crossroads of data, product, operations, and compliance, so it calls for confident judgment and hands-on accountability.

You will also lead a specialist team handling both real-time fraud defense and long-term risk planning, including model development and management of external partners. Your work will have a direct effect on key measures such as chargeback rates, approval rates, and overall fraud losses.

Close collaboration with senior leaders in Product, Engineering, Finance, and Legal will be essential to make sure risk considerations are built into major initiatives from the start. This is a high-impact role for a strategic operator who performs well in fast-moving, data-led environments.

Key accountabilities

• Take full ownership of the fraud and risk business metrics, including chargeback performance, payout rates, approval rates, and false-positive levels.
• Set and deliver the global fraud and risk direction so it supports growth, product expansion, and marketplace trust.
• Lead, coach, and grow the Risk & Fraud team, creating strong second-line leadership and a culture centered on performance and data.
• Build and maintain the fraud prevention roadmap, including decisions on buy-versus-build, platform enhancements, and detection model upgrades.
• Manage key relationships with external fraud prevention vendors, covering service levels, vendor selection processes, testing plans, and commercial negotiations.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Finance, and Legal to ensure risk controls are integrated into new products and initiatives from the beginning.
• Oversee compliance and regulatory responsibilities tied to KYC, PSP requirements, and law enforcement requests across multiple markets.
• Act as the final decision-maker for complex fraud and risk cases and represent the function in executive and leadership settings.

Candidate profile

The ideal candidate brings deep experience in fraud, risk management, financial crime, or a closely related discipline within high-growth digital businesses. You should have led teams with end-to-end responsibility for risk outcomes and have a proven track record of lowering fraud, chargebacks, or losses through structured, data-backed action.

Strong commercial judgment is important, especially in vendor management, SLA negotiation, and external partnership ownership. A highly analytical approach is needed, with the ability to read dashboards, identify root causes, and make decisions independently; familiarity with SQL or Databricks is an advantage.

Experience in marketplaces, fintech, payments, e-commerce, or gaming environments with heavy transaction volumes and meaningful fraud exposure is preferred. You should understand common fraud patterns such as account takeover, promo abuse, and reseller fraud, alongside compliance frameworks covering KYC, PSP rules, and risk governance.

Excellent English communication skills are required, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders and lead cross-functional conversations. A strong leadership style focused on coaching, team growth, and scalable organizational design is also essential.

Benefits and rewards

• Employee stock option plan
• Performance-linked bonuses and referral incentives
• Extra paid leave options
• Budget for personal learning and development
• Paid volunteer opportunities
• Flexible working setup with remote, office, or hybrid options, plus travel opportunities
• Strong career growth in a fast-scaling global marketplace environment
• Structured feedback and promotion processes that support rapid professional development

Application and data processing

This opportunity is shared on behalf of a partner company, which handles all applications and the next stages of the hiring process. Applications are reviewed through an AI-supported matching approach designed to assess fit quickly, consistently, and fairly against the role’s core requirements before a shortlist is passed to the hiring company.

By applying, candidates acknowledge that their personal data may be processed to evaluate candidacy and share relevant information with the employer, based on legitimate interest and pre-contractual measures under applicable data protection laws, including GDPR. Applicants may request access, correction, deletion, or objection to processing at any time.

AI tools may also assist with parts of the recruitment workflow, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or checking responses for inconsistencies or verification signals. These tools support the recruitment team but do not replace human judgment, and final hiring decisions remain with people.