Senior Manager: Payment Operations at Cellulant

Role Overview:

• The Senior Manager – Payment Operations plays a critical leadership role in the Service Delivery function at Cellulant, responsible for ensuring seamless and resilient financial operations across transaction reconciliation, dispute management, and float oversight. By embedding a customer-first mindset and leading with data, the Senior Manager will drive automation, regulatory compliance, and stakeholder trust while enhancing internal capability maturity and scalability across the payment lifecycle contributing to Cellulant's vision of balancing operational efficiency with exceptional service quality, while fostering continuous improvement and innovation in payment operations. The Senior Manager will work closely with cross-functional teams to ensure compliance, optimise payment flow efficiency, and proactively resolve issues, always focusing on Cellulant's core values of efficiency, agility, and excellence.

Key Responsibilities:

End-to-End Payment Operations Ownership:

• Lead accurate, timely reconciliation and settlement across platforms and payment method partners.
• Manage the full dispute lifecycle (chargebacks, reversals, refunds), ensuring rapid resolution and adherence to our SLAs and compliance requirements.
• Oversee real-time float monitoring and optimization, ensuring liquidity and minimizing operational risk.

Functional Specialisation & Operational Excellence:

• Build specialized sub-teams focused on reconciliation, disputes, and float management.
• Develop SOPs, internal controls, and automated workflows, aiming for audit readiness and global standards (e.g., PCI DSS).
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement through feedback loops, retrospectives, and innovation sprints.

Role Clarity, Accountability & Team Development

• Define clear team roles and escalation paths to enable faster decision-making and accountability.
• Serve as the senior escalation point for transaction reconciliation, dispute management and float management issues.
• Lead performance management, talent development, and documentation efforts to scale internal capability.

Sector & Regional Adaptation

• Adapt workflows within payment operations to merchant segments and regional regulatory contexts.
• Partner with compliance to pre-emptively address local risks and policy shifts delivering tailored solutions to exceed customer expectations

Customer-Centricity & Success Enablement:

• Ensure that payment operations are seamless and invisible to the customer, preventing payment disruptions, failed settlements, or refund delays, which supports Cellulant's goal of delivering excellence in every interaction.
• Work closely with Customer Success and Merchant Operations teams to proactively identify and resolve merchant pain points, thereby improving customer satisfaction and enhancing business success.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate with Finance, Tech, Product, Compliance, and Payment Method Partners to improve reliability, alignment, and readiness aligning with Cellulant's mission to leverage data and technology for continuous improvement.
• Represent Payment Operations in audits, regulatory reviews, strategic planning inititatives , and incident war rooms ensuring we remain compliance and efficient.

Data-Driven Monitoring & Continuous Improvement:

• Define and monitor key operational metrics (e.g., settlement TAT, dispute resolution time, float utilisation) to assess performance and identify improvement opportunities.
• Leverage analytics and reporting to drive continuous improvement, automation, and risk mitigation, contributing to a high-performance culture focused on operational excellence and innovation.
• Partner with the analytics team to build real-time dashboards and monthly reporting frameworks.
• Leverage insights to identify trends, pre-empt risks, and drive continuous optimization.

Skills & Qualifications:

• Experience: 7+ years in payment operations, financial services, fintech, or banking environments, with proven expertise in transaction lifecycle management, payment gateways, chargebacks, reconciliation tools, and digital float tracking.
• Regulatory Knowledge: Strong understanding of regulatory frameworks and best practices in financial operations, including compliance with standards such as PCI DSS and card network rules.
• Leadership: Proven track record of leading teams, scaling operations, and driving automation to achieve greater operational efficiency and service quality.
• Analytical Skills: Exceptional ability to analyse data and uncover root causes, utilising insights to optimise processes and mitigate risks.
• Communication: Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, particularly with banks, PSPs, and internal cross-functional teams.

Preferred Attributes:

• Familiarity with core banking systems, reconciliation platforms, and ledger technologies.
• Experience in high-volume transaction environments (e.g., e-commerce, B2B payments, or digital wallets).
• Exposure to card networks, UPI, RTGS/NEFT/IMPS, and cross-border remittance flows.
• Certifications in Lean, Six Sigma, or other operational efficiency frameworks are a plus.