Senior Manager - Operations Risk

About the Role:

We are looking for a Senior Manager, Risk Operations (Merchant Onboarding) to own regulatory, statutory, concurrent, internal, and external audits for merchant onboarding, while also governing onboarding SOPs, process adherence, and AML/EDD execution.

The role is primarily accountable for audit closure, root cause analysis, and CAPA — partnering with Operations, Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, and Legal, ownership of SOP upkeep, process-adherence reporting, and AML/EDD oversight to keep onboarding audit-ready year-round. We're looking for someone from a fintech, payments, or bank onboarding/compliance background who is comfortable using AI and modern tech tools to solve problems, not just manage them manually.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Audit Observation Management & Timely Response

• Act as the single point of contact for all onboarding-related regulatory, statutory, concurrent, internal, and external audits.
• Conduct detailed research across internal systems, policies, operational records, and documentation to prepare accurate, timely, and evidence-backed responses to audit observations.
• Ensure every audit observation is responded to and closed within agreed regulatory and internal timelines.
• Maintain complete audit documentation, evidence repositories, and audit trails.

2. Root Cause Analysis, CAPA & Advisory

• Perform root cause analysis for every audit observation to identify underlying process, product, or system control gaps.
• Develop structured corrective and preventive action (CAPA) plans to eliminate recurrence of observations.
• Provide advisory to Operations, Product, and Technology teams on control gaps identified through audits, and partner with them to design sustainable, ideally automated, fixes.
• Use AI and automation tools to speed up evidence-gathering, observation analysis, and CAPA tracking wherever possible.

3. Compliance Coordination & Action Item Tracking

• Serve as the primary coordination point for all internal compliance items relating to onboarding, liaising with Compliance, Legal, Risk, and Operations.
• Own end-to-end governance of audit and compliance action items across multiple teams, all year round — tracking progress, resolving blockers, and driving accountability.
• Establish governance mechanisms — reviews, dashboards, escalation frameworks — and present progress, risks, and mitigation plans to senior leadership.

4. SOP, Process Adherence & AML/EDD Oversight

• Own onboarding SOPs and process documentation, keeping them current with every product, regulatory, or process change.
• Build and maintain reporting/dashboards to track process adherence and flag exceptions or control deviations.
• Maintain oversight of AML and EDD (Enhanced Due Diligence) execution quality for onboarding, coordinating with the teams running day-to-day AML/KYC checks.
• Recommend automation and AI-enabled opportunities to reduce manual effort across SOP tracking, reporting, and control monitoring.

Required Qualifications:

• 7-10 years of experience in Onboarding Operations, Audit Handling, or Risk Operations within Payments, Fintech, or Banking.
• Hands-on comfort with AI and modern tech tools (e.g., LLM-based assistants, automation platforms, SQL/BI tools) to solve operational and compliance problems, not just track them.

Preferred Experience:

The ideal candidate should possess a strong understanding of:

• Merchant/customer onboarding and lifecycle management in a bank, fintech, PA/PG, or acquiring context.
• AML, KYC, and enhanced due diligence (EDD) processes.
• RBI regulations applicable to Payment Aggregators and Payment Gateways, and/or banking compliance norms.
• Card scheme and network compliance requirements (Visa, Mastercard, RuPay, American Express, etc.).
• Using AI/automation tools to build reporting, streamline audit evidence collection, or flag exceptions at scale.

Skills & Competencies:

• Strong program management skills with the ability to drive complex cross-functional audit and compliance initiatives.
• Excellent stakeholder management across Operations, Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, and Legal.
• Exceptional written communication and documentation skills for audit responses and SOPs.
• Strong analytical and root cause analysis capabilities.
• Genuine curiosity and fluency with AI tools and automation — able to identify where they can replace manual audit/compliance work and implement them practically.
• High attention to detail with a structured, process-oriented mindset, and comfort managing multiple audits against regulatory timelines.

Success Metrics:

• Timely closure of audit observations within agreed timelines, and reduction in repeat findings.
• Timely completion of CAPA plans, validated for effectiveness.
• Quality and completeness of audit documentation and evidence trails.
• Adherence to SOPs across onboarding, and currency of SOP documentation.
• Quality of AML/EDD execution
• Demonstrated use of AI/automation to improve audit and compliance turnaround.