Senior Manager Payment Strategy

Job Summary
     
The Senior Manager, Payment Strategy is a cross-functional leader responsible for developing, optimizing, and executing Papa John’s payment strategy. The Senior Manager is responsible to help shape the strategic direction of payments by designing and implementing the next generation of payment solutions for Papa John’s.  This includes design and implementation of foundational technologies like gateway and processor flows to include redundancy cost saving and flexibility while balancing ease of use for customers and store personnel with efficient, scalable, and compliant technology solutions. This position is responsible to maintain strong external relationships with key payment partners and stay current with market trends and technologies to translate global insights into innovative product roadmaps.      
     
Duties and Responsibilities (other duties as assigned)

• Partnering with internal teams on strategy around the POS modernization project to help develop a strategy for transition to the new platform.

• Develop and lead the multi-year payments roadmap aligned with enterprise goals, customer experience, and digital innovation.

• Continuously monitor market trends, emerging technologies (e.g., digital wallets, BNPL, tokenization), customer behavior, and partner insights to inform strategy.

• Partner with internal teams to deliver hardware roadmap/refresh of existing in restaurant platforms 

• Develop and execute cost-effective payment acceptance strategies, including interchange optimization, least-cost routing, and fraud mitigation.

• Identify and prioritize payment solutions based on customer and franchisee feedback, compliance, digital security, and operational value.

• Lead RFPs and product evaluations to modernize Papa John’s payment platforms.

• Manage a 2–3-year development roadmap with clear milestones that support both short- and long-term business goals.

• Establish and monitor KPIs such as conversion rates, dispute rates, and chargebacks to track product performance and inform roadmap decisions.

• Collaborate with international teams to identify cross-border growth opportunities and tailor localized payment strategies for global markets.

• Manage relationships with acquirers, processors, PSPs, card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover), fraud vendors, and fintech partners.

• Negotiate favorable commercial terms and SLAs with payment service providers that align with business and operational goals.

• Serve as the primary liaison for internal stakeholders—including audit, risk, legal, and compliance—on payment-related initiatives.

• Ensure PCI-DSS compliance and maintain strong governance around data security, fraud controls, and payment operations.

• Partner closely with Technology, Operations, Digital, Finance, InfoSec, and Customer Experience teams to deliver frictionless and secure payment solutions.

• Educate stakeholders on the strategic and financial impacts of payment changes, partner contracts, or platform decisions.

• Promote a customer-first mindset in payments innovation to enhance satisfaction, loyalty, and operational efficiency.