Head of Growth, Scheme Compliance

We are looking for a senior, strategic, and product-minded leader to head the Global Growth pillar within Schemes Compliance. This role sits at the intersection of compliance, product, partnerships, and commercial strategy enabling business growth while ensuring scalable, well-controlled solutions.

You will lead a globally distributed team who unlock new products, markets, local payment methods, and partner models by designing compliant operating models, accelerating launches, and building scalable solutions in close collaboration with Product and Engineering. You will work closely with Commercial and Sales to identify merchant needs and revenue opportunities, ensuring merchant demand directly shapes our growth priorities and builds a roadmap. Many of our growth initiatives are driven by strategic merchants whose needs influence where we invest.

As Head of Growth for Scheme Compliance, you will act as a key bridge between compliance and product, translating regulatory, scheme, and partner requirements into systems, frameworks, and tooling that enable speed without compromising control, and help shape how Adyen approaches new and emerging payment models globally.

What you'll do

• Lead, develop, and scale a globally distributed team focused on enabling growth initiatives across products, geographies, and payment methods.
• Define the growth strategy for Scheme Compliance, working with cross-functional leaders to prioritize new product launches, market expansion, and onboarding of payment methods and financial partners.
• Partner with Commercial and Sales to identify high-value merchant needs and revenue opportunities, translating merchant demand into clear growth priorities, requirements, and build decisions for Product and Engineering.
• Partner closely with Product and Engineering to define payment flows, data models, and configuration standards that embed compliance requirements into systems rather than manual processes.
• Define and standardize operating models for new business lines, including clear control points, monitoring requirements, and defensible documentation for regulators and partners.
• Drive cross-functional programs across Commercial, Partnerships, Legal, Risk, and Product to accelerate time-to-market for strategic initiatives.
• Act as an escalation point for complex or ambiguous growth opportunities, balancing speed, risk, and commercial impact.
• Identify friction in existing payments compliance or partner requirements and proactively design solutions or influence changes to unlock growth.
• Establish clear frameworks for decision-making (e.g., what to launch, constrain, or decline), ensuring consistency across regions and teams.
• Build playbooks, tooling requirements, and training programs to increase organizational fluency in growth-related compliance topics.
• Design scalable solutions for merchants whose business models do not fit neatly within network mandates, creatively problem-solving to support merchants, challenge network interpretations where appropriate, and partner with Product to build repeatable operating models that unlock revenue opportunities for other merchants.

Who you are

• Strong product mindset, with experience translating regulatory and scheme requirements into system behavior, data structures, and configuration rules in partnership with Product and Engineering.
• Proven experience leading global, cross-functional initiatives that involve multiple stakeholders (e.g., Product, Legal, Commercial, Partnerships).
• Deep understanding of payments ecosystems, including card networks, alternative payment methods, and/or acquiring models.
• Demonstrated ability to design platform-level guardrails for new payment flows or business models and to decide when to launch, constrain, or decline based on risk/reward.
• Strong commercial judgment, with the ability to balance growth objectives against regulatory, partner, and operational risk.
• Experience evaluating new business models or payment flows and defining clear guardrails for launch.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence senior leaders and drive alignment across functions.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and making decisions in fast-moving, high-growth environments.
• Experience building and coaching high-performing teams, particularly in roles that require both strategic thinking and execution.
• Demonstrated ability to think creatively about merchant use cases that sit outside standard network constructs, and to turn those edge cases into scalable, product-enabled solutions.

Total rewards & compensation

The annual base salary range for this role in New York City and San Francisco is $195,000 - $263,000.

Compensation is based on factors including qualifications, experience, and location. Total compensation package includes equity (RSUs), 401(k), health, dental, vision, and more.

In-office expectations

This role is based in our San Francisco or New York City office. We're an office-first company and expect employees to work in-office at least 3 days a week on average. This approach helps strike a balance between bringing people together for in-person collaboration and learning from each other, while also supporting flexibility.

What's next?

Ensuring a smooth and enjoyable candidate experience is critical for us. We aim to get back to you regarding your application within 5 business days. Our interview process tends to take about 4 weeks to complete, but may fluctuate depending on the role. If you have specific time constraints, please communicate them with your recruiter, and we'll do our best to accommodate them where possible.