Chief Revenue Officer – Payments & Fintech

Build and Lead the Next Phase of Revenue Growth

Our client is a well-established payments and financial technology organization entering its next phase of growth. With a strong foundation in merchant acquiring, an expanding technology platform, and multiple routes to market, the company is seeking an accomplished Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) to lead its enterprise-wide revenue strategy.

This executive will have responsibility for building a cohesive, scalable growth engine across three critical channels: ISO/agent partnerships, direct merchant acquisition, and ISV/SaaS integrated and embedded payments.

The CRO will bring together sales strategy, channel development, partnerships, revenue operations, and go-to-market execution under a unified vision. This is an opportunity for a proven payments executive to take an established business and accelerate organic growth while expanding the company's presence within the rapidly evolving integrated and embedded payments ecosystem.

The Opportunity

Reporting to the CEO and serving as a key member of the executive leadership team, the Chief Revenue Officer will own the strategy and execution required to drive sustainable revenue growth across the organization.

The CRO will evaluate the existing revenue organization, identify opportunities to improve performance and scalability, and establish the structure, talent, processes, incentives, and accountability necessary to consistently achieve ambitious growth objectives.

Success will require more than managing sales teams. The CRO must understand the economics and operating dynamics of the payments industry and know how to create differentiated growth strategies across multiple distribution models.

Key Responsibilities

Enterprise Revenue Leadership

• Own the company's overall revenue strategy, growth plan, sales execution, and revenue performance.
• Develop and execute a multi-year commercial strategy aligned with the company's financial and strategic objectives.
• Establish clear revenue targets, KPIs, forecasting disciplines, pipeline standards, and accountability across all sales channels.
• Create a unified commercial organization while recognizing the different economics, sales motions, and success factors of ISO, direct, and ISV distribution.
• Partner closely with the CEO, CFO, Product, Technology, Marketing, Operations, Risk, and Customer Experience leadership to align growth initiatives across the enterprise.
• Build a data-driven revenue culture focused on profitable merchant acquisition, processing volume, revenue growth, retention, and lifetime customer value.

ISO & Partner Channel

• Lead the strategy and growth of the company's ISO, agent, and independent sales partner ecosystem.
• Expand the partner network through the recruitment and development of productive ISOs, agents, referral partners, and strategic distribution relationships.
• Evaluate partner economics, compensation structures, residual models, pricing, portfolio performance, and channel profitability.
• Develop programs that increase activation, productivity, merchant acquisition, and processing volume across the existing partner base.
• Strengthen the company's value proposition to ISO partners through technology, merchant onboarding, reporting, product capabilities, service, and revenue opportunities.
• Identify opportunities to recruit established portfolios, high-performing sales organizations, and strategic channel partners.

Direct Sales Channel

• Own the strategy and performance of the company's direct merchant acquisition organization.
• Build a scalable direct-sales model capable of acquiring merchants efficiently across targeted industries and vertical markets.
• Optimize sales structure, territories, vertical specialization, compensation plans, lead generation, sales enablement, and performance management.
• Establish disciplined pipeline management and measurable productivity standards across the direct sales organization.
• Partner with Marketing to improve demand generation, inbound conversion, account-based strategies, digital acquisition, and vertical-market campaigns.
• Continuously improve customer acquisition cost, sales productivity, merchant quality, activation rates, processing volume, and revenue per merchant.

ISV, SaaS & Integrated Payments

• Accelerate the company's expansion within the ISV, SaaS, integrated payments, and embedded payments ecosystem.
• Develop and execute a strategy to identify, recruit, sign, integrate, launch, and grow high-value software partnerships.
• Build relationships with vertical SaaS platforms, software developers, technology companies, marketplaces, and other organizations looking to monetize payments within their platforms.
• Understand the commercial and technical requirements of integrated payments, including APIs, payment gateways, merchant onboarding, underwriting, tokenization, card-present/card-not-present environments, and embedded payment experiences.
• Create compelling commercial models including revenue share, referral, integrated processing, and embedded payment structures.
• Work closely with Product and Technology leadership to translate partner and market requirements into platform capabilities and roadmap priorities.
• Build a repeatable ISV partner lifecycle spanning prospecting, commercial negotiation, integration, launch, merchant adoption, portfolio growth, and ongoing partner management.
• Develop strategies that increase payment penetration within software partners' merchant/customer bases and maximize processing volume per integration.

Revenue Operations & Performance

• Establish an integrated revenue operating model across ISO, direct, and ISV channels.
• Implement rigorous forecasting, pipeline management, CRM utilization, performance dashboards, and executive-level revenue reporting.
• Develop channel-specific metrics while maintaining consolidated visibility into overall company growth.
• Evaluate pricing, residuals, revenue sharing, sales compensation, merchant economics, and acquisition costs to maximize profitable growth.
• Build predictable models for forecasting merchant additions, payment volume, gross revenue, net revenue, and channel contribution.
• Identify underperforming segments and rapidly implement corrective strategies.
• Ensure revenue growth is balanced with merchant quality, retention, risk management, and long-term profitability.

Build a High-Performance Revenue Organization

• Assess the existing sales and partnership organization and determine the structure required to support the company's next stage of growth.
• Recruit, develop, and retain exceptional sales and business development leadership.
• Establish clear roles, goals, compensation plans, career paths, and performance expectations.
• Create a culture combining entrepreneurial urgency with disciplined execution and accountability.
• Develop the next generation of commercial leaders capable of scaling each revenue channel.
• Personally engage in strategic opportunities and major partner negotiations where executive involvement can accelerate growth.

What We're Looking For

The successful candidate will be a proven payments industry revenue executive who understands how to build and scale multiple distribution channels rather than relying on a single sales motion.

Ideal experience includes:

• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience within payments, merchant acquiring, fintech, or payment technology.
• Significant executive leadership experience with responsibility for substantial revenue, processing volume, or P&L performance.
• Demonstrated success scaling revenue organizations and delivering measurable organic growth.
• Deep understanding of the ISO/agent distribution model, including partner recruitment, residual economics, merchant portfolios, pricing, and channel management.
• Proven experience building or leading a direct merchant sales organization.
• Strong experience with ISV, SaaS, integrated payments, embedded payments, or technology partnership channels.
• Understanding of merchant acquiring economics, interchange, processing platforms, gateways, underwriting, risk, chargebacks, pricing, and portfolio profitability.
• Experience structuring and negotiating complex strategic partnerships and commercial agreements.
• Strong command of revenue forecasting, sales operations, CRM discipline, compensation design, and performance analytics.
• Track record of recruiting, developing, and leading high-performing sales and partnership teams.
• Ability to operate effectively in an entrepreneurial, high-growth environment while introducing the processes and discipline required to scale.

The Ideal Leadership Profile

We are looking for a builder, operator, and growth leader.

This executive should be equally comfortable developing strategy with the CEO and Board, reviewing channel economics with Finance, working through an ISV opportunity with Product and Technology, negotiating with a major ISO partner, and holding the revenue organization accountable for quarterly performance.

The ideal candidate understands that ISO, direct, and integrated payments are fundamentally different sales motions — and knows how to optimize each while bringing them together under one coordinated revenue strategy.

Most importantly, this leader will have a demonstrated ability to turn payments industry relationships, technology, distribution, and disciplined execution into predictable, profitable revenue growth.

Key Measures of Success

Success in the role will ultimately be measured by:

• Total net revenue and processing volume growth
• New merchant acquisition and activation
• ISO/agent recruitment, productivity, and portfolio growth
• Direct sales productivity and customer acquisition economics
• New ISV/SaaS partnerships signed and successfully launched
• Merchant penetration and payment volume generated through ISV integrations
• Revenue and processing volume per partner
• Merchant and partner retention
• Pipeline coverage and forecast accuracy
• Expansion of recurring and embedded payments revenue
• Overall channel profitability and contribution margin