Head of Payments Operations

Phorest; Ireland; Hybrid; EUR 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading software provider for salons located in Ireland is seeking a Head of Payments Operations. This senior leadership role involves defining the global payments and risk operations strategy, enhancing operational excellence, and leading a team of payments specialists. The ideal candidate brings over 10 years of relevant experience, strong stakeholder management skills, and a data-driven approach to decision-making. A commitment to customer experience and team culture is essential. Flexi-time and remote work options are available.

Benefits

Private healthcare

Wellness Days

Employee assistance program

Competitive Compensation

Employee Share Purchase Scheme

Pension

Life Assurance

Income Protection

Bike to work scheme

Enhanced Maternity and Paternity Benefits

3 moving days

Qualifications

• Proven experience in senior leadership roles in payments or fintech.
• Deep understanding of compliance and fraud chargebacks.
• Strong ability to design and implement global operating models.

Responsibilities

• Define the global operational strategy for payments.
• Lead a team focused on payments operations.
• Increase operational metrics such as reliability and customer experience.

Skills

Payments processing

Fraud management

Data-driven decision making

Stakeholder management

Team leadership

Education

10+ years in payments, fintech, or risk

Job description

About Phorest

Phorest powers 11,000 hair and beauty salons using our software across the globe. Our aim is to capture 25% of the market globally – that’s one million salons and a billion-dollar company.

We are growing and would like to add a new member to our team. You will join a group of highly motivated individuals, to help us grow Phorest faster.

The Opportunity

PhorestPay is one of the fastest-growing and most strategically important parts of our business. As Head of Payments Operations, you will own the global operating strategy that powers payments for thousands of salons worldwide. You will ensure PhorestPay delivers a world-class, reliable, compliant, and scalable payments experience -today and into the future.

This is a high-impact, senior leadership role where you will define the global operating model for payments and risk, shape long-term strategy, and lead cross‑functional and cross‑regional alignment. You will elevate operational excellence, strengthen resilience, and embed payments into every stage of the customer journey.

What You’ll Lead

• Set the global payments & risk operations strategy, ensuring reliability, compliance, and best‑in‑class customer experience across all regions.
• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of payments operations specialists, fostering a high‑trust, high‑performance culture.
• Influence and uplift regional teams through strong cross‑functional relationships, coaching, and clear operating expectations.
• Collaborate deeply with Product, R&D, and Customer Operations to embed payments and risk into the full customer journey.
• Build a data‑driven operational framework that improves resilience, efficiency, and regional capability.
• Own and manage strategic relationships with key payments partners (e.g., Stripe), managing contracts, performance, and governance.

What You’ll Own

You will be accountable for global operational performance across key metrics such as:

• Merchant onboarding (e.g., Time to First Transaction, adoption/attach rate)
• Fraud & risk outcomes (fraud rate, chargebacks, revenue protection)
• Payment reliability & efficiency (success rates, automation adoption, incident reduction)
• Customer experience indicators (payments‑related VoC themes and issue resolution)

You will also lead:

• Global incident management and operational governance
• Continuous improvement, automation, and workflow optimisation
• Accuracy, accessibility, and analytical use of payments data
• Strategic initiatives that keep PhorestPay ahead of industry and regulatory trends

What You’llBring

• 10+ years in payments, fintech, or risk, including senior leadership experience.
• Deep expertise in payments processing, merchant acquiring, fraud/chargebacks, and compliance across multiple regions.
• Proven ability to design and scale global operating models in fast‑growing environments.
• Highly data‑driven with strong KPI design and analytical decision‑making.
• Strong stakeholder leader and excellent collaborator with the ability to influence without authority and inspire cross‑functional alignment.
• A people‑first values‑led leader who develops talent, builds future leaders, and nurtures a collaborative, high‑trust team culture.
• Strategic Leadership and strong executive presence, balancing customer experience, aligning risk and commercial outcomes.

How YouWork

At Phorest, we:

• Move decisively in ambiguous environments and remove blockers quickly.
• Coach, empower, and grow our own timber, developing people through feedback, clarity, and trust.
• Collaborate openly, building strong relationships across teams and regions.
• Lead with empathy, bringing people with us through change.
• Obsess over customer experience, ensuring our salons and their clients always have a reliable, seamless payments journey.

If these ways of working resonate with you, you’ll thrive here.

Benefits

🧘Your wellbeing is important to us - we provide private healthcare, 2 Wellness Days, an employee assistance program and a free online GP service.

💰As part of our Financial Wellbeing, we provide competitive Compensation, an Employee Share Purchase Scheme, Pension, Life Assurance, and Income Protection.

🚵🏿 We help you travel by providing a bike to work scheme as well as tax saver transport tickets.

🦸♀️We supportthe women who work in Phorest by offering 2 weeks leave for Fertility Treatment, Pregnancy Loss and Menopause.

🍼We care for your family and provide Enhanced Maternity and Paternity Benefits.

🌳We grow our own timber! We provide a great learning environment and extensive development opportunities. We run development programsand provide access tomany online resources including LinkedIn learning.

🏠Moving house? Phorest employees get 3 moving days.

Phorest is an equal opportunity employer.For this position, flexi‑time and working from home is possible. We are also open to remote work. Get in touch to ask for more information or to chat about your future with Phorest!

Research shows that while men apply to jobs when they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, women and other marginalised folks tend to only apply when they check every box. So if you think you have what it takes, but don't necessarily meet every single point on the job description, please still get in touch. We'd love to have a chat and see if you could be a great fit.