Senior Specialist, Financial Partnerships

About Checkout.com

Checkout.com is a leading global payments platform powering over 10 billion transactions annually for over one billion shoppers worldwide. Trusted by major companies like eBay, Spotify, Klarna, Uber, and Sony, we enable seamless digital payments for a variety of services including travel bookings, food delivery, subscription renewals, and online shopping. Our mission is to help ambitious businesses deliver exceptional digital payment experiences at scale.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Senior Financial Partnerships Specialist to join our team in Riyadh, supporting our expansion efforts in Saudi Arabia. Reporting to the Head of Financial Partnerships - MENA, you will be responsible for managing and enhancing partnerships with acquiring banks, alternative payment methods (APMs), and card networks such as Visa, Mastercard, and MADA. This position requires autonomous management of multiple projects and partnerships, strong payments expertise, and a proactive approach in a fast-growing fintech environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain commercial relationships with acquiring banks, APMs, and key card networks to develop market-leading payment solutions for merchants.
• Lead expansion initiatives across different regions and payment methods in collaboration with regional teams.
• Negotiate favorable operational and commercial agreements while balancing the interests of internal and external stakeholders.
• Ensure compliance with established processes and delivery commitments; design and implement new scalable processes to improve partnership efficiency and performance.
• Collaborate closely with partner organizations including relationship management, business development, risk, compliance, product, and operations teams.
• Develop and implement a top-tier partnership management framework, serving as the primary liaison for assigned partnerships.
• Leverage payments industry knowledge to formulate strategies supporting growth through new products, services, and market segments.
• Create and execute mutually beneficial commercial agreements and go-to-market plans with payment partners.
• Provide subject matter expertise on payment industry trends and partner capabilities to internal teams.

Essential Qualifications

• Minimum of three years' experience in the payments sector.
• Hands-on experience in payment processing, acquiring, or managing payment partnerships.
• Solid understanding of payment operations with the ability to identify and communicate payment flow issues effectively.
• Experience working with card networks or payment service providers (PSPs) for acquiring payment transactions is highly advantageous.
• Strong combination of operational, project management, and relationship management skills.
• Proven ownership mentality focused on delivering impactful business outcomes and managing partner relationships.
• Fluency in Arabic is mandatory due to engagement with local partners.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills with the ability to influence internal and external stakeholders.
• Data-driven, analytical thinker skilled in strategic problem-solving to identify growth and efficiency opportunities.
• Comfortable working across various time zones and cultures within a global team.

Additional Information

Checkout.com fosters a culture of ownership and high performance, where employees are empowered to make a meaningful impact from day one. We offer a hybrid working environment, requiring three days per week in the office to promote teamwork and connection. Diversity and inclusion are core values, and accommodations are available to support applicants’ needs during the recruitment process.