Director of KYC Strategy

About Payoneer Founded in 2005, Payoneer is the global financial platform that removes friction from doing business across borders, with a mission to connect the world’s underserved businesses to a rising global economy. We’re a community with over 2,500 colleagues all over the world, working to serve customers, and partners in over 190 countries and territories. By taking the complexity out of the financial workflows–including everything from global payments and compliance to multi-currency and workforce management, to providing working capital and business intelligence–we give businesses the tools they need to work efficiently worldwide and grow with confidence. Role Purpose In this role you will own the strategy, design, and transformation of KYC Operations across Payoneer's 190+ markets, with a specific mandate to leverage AI and automation to improve customer experience, quality, and efficiency. This role defines the future-state KYC service model including how AI augments reviewers, powers self-service onboarding, and enables faster, risk-based decisioning. It is a strategic partnership role that works with Compliance, Product, and regional Operations to deliver systemic improvements at scale. Location: Glilot, Israel Key Responsibilities KYC Operations Strategy & Roadmap: • Define and own the KYC operations strategy roadmap, aligning it with Payoneer's growth targets, global compliance obligations, and risk appetite. • Continuously improve end-to-end KYC workflows across customer onboarding and document review, and define segmented service models that tailor KYC treatment, review depth, and onboarding experience to customer type, risk tier, and market. Process Improvement & Automation: • Identify and drive automation and AI opportunities across the KYC lifecycle to reduce manual effort, improve accuracy, accelerate decision times, and improve customer experience. • Define and own KPIs for KYC operations, lead root-cause analysis on operational bottlenecks, and translate findings into structured improvement initiatives. Technology & Product Partnership: • Partner with Product to define requirements for KYC tooling, vendor integrations, and platform enhancements, and to build the AI-assisted review and self-service capabilities that reduce manual workload. Cross-Functional Alignment: • Serve as the operational voice in compliance policy discussions, ensuring new regulatory requirements are implemented through operationally viable, scalable processes. • Collaborate with regional operations leads to adapt global KYC frameworks to local market requirements. Governance & Quality: • Establish quality assurance frameworks and operational controls across the KYC review lifecycle, own operational readiness for regulatory audits and external examinations, and define escalation paths, exception-handling procedures, and SLA governance structures. Requirements • 8+ years in KYC, compliance, or financial crime operations, with at least 3 years in a strategy or senior leadership role at a global SaaS, fintech, or payments company. • Proven track record of delivering operational improvement and AI/automation transformation programs in a high-volume, global environment, from strategy through execution and change management. • Deep understanding of KYC/KYB frameworks, AML regulations, and risk-based approaches to customer due diligence. • Experience applying AI in KYC or compliance operations to improve throughput and decision quality including defining use cases and partnering with product to implement them responsibly within a regulated environment. • Strong analytical and structured problem-solving skills, with the ability to turn ambiguous data into clear priorities, plus solid business-process design experience (process mapping, workflow documentation, and change management). • Exceptional communication, influencing, and stakeholder-management skills — able to present complex operational and regulatory topics clearly to senior leadership and influence without authority across product, technology, compliance, and regional teams. • Operationally rigorous but commercially minded, comfortable navigating ambiguity, and collaborative by nature. • Curious about emerging AI capabilities, with the judgment to balance innovation against regulatory and ethical guardrails. • Nice to have: experience at a cross-border payments platform serving emerging markets. The Payoneer Ways of Working Act as our customer’s partner on the inside Learning what they need and creating what will help them go further. Do it. Own it. Being fearlessly accountable in everything we do. Continuously improve Always striving for a higher standard than our last. Build each other up Helping each other grow, as professionals and people. If this sounds like a business, a community, and a mission you want to be part of, apply today. We are committed to providing a diverse and inclusive workplace. Payoneer is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment no matter your race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. If you require reasonable accommodation at any stage of the hiring process, please speak to the recruiter managing the role for any adjustments. Decisions about requests for reasonable accommodation are made on a case-by-case basis.