Job Title:  T&T - Customer - CS&D - BA - Payments - PAN India - Associate Director

Role Overview:

The Associate Director will serve as a trusted advisor to banking, fintech, payment network, and merchant clients. This role combines deep industry expertise, large-scale transformation leadership, business development, and practice growth responsibility. The individual will shape payment strategies, lead multi-million-dollar programs, and drive growth of the Payments Consulting practice.

Experience Required:

• 15+ years of experience in payments, transaction banking, consulting, or financial services.
• 5+ years leading complex payment transformation programs.
• Experience managing CXO-level client relationships.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Advisory

• Advise clients on payment strategy, modernization, and innovation agendas.
• Develop enterprise payment transformation roadmaps.
• Lead market assessments and competitive benchmarking.
• Support clients in evaluating emerging payment trends including:
• Real-Time Payments
• Digital Assets and Tokenization
• Embedded Finance
• Open Banking
• Payment Orchestration
• Cross-Border Modernization

Program Leadership

• Provide executive oversight for large transformation programs.
• Lead multiple engagement teams across geographies.
• Establish governance, risk management, and value realization frameworks.
• Review solution architecture and operating model designs.

Business Development

• Own sales pursuits and strategic opportunities.
• Develop proposals and executive presentations.
• Drive revenue growth and account expansion.
• Build alliances with payment technology vendors and ecosystem partners.

Practice Leadership

• Define payments consulting strategy and offerings.
• Build and mentor high-performing payment consulting teams.
• Create market-facing thought leadership.
• Represent the organization at industry forums and client events.

Required Domain Expertise (exposed to most of the items from below list)

• Retail and Commercial Payments
• Payment Modernization
• Merchant Acquiring
• Card Issuing
• Corporate Payments
• Digital Payments
• RTP/Faster Payments
• Payment Hubs
• ISO 20022
• SWIFT
• Payment Risk & Compliance
• Payment Operations Transformation
• Payment Resilience

Leadership Competencies

• Executive stakeholder management
• Practice building
• Commercial acumen
• Strategic thinking
• Large program governance
• Negotiation and influencing skills
• Team leadership and talent development

Preferred Qualifications:

• MBA, CA, CFA, or relevant postgraduate qualification.
• PMP or equivalent certification.
• Demonstrated consulting leadership within Big 4, Tier-1 consulting firms, payment networks, global banks, or fintech organizations.