Director of Customer Experience

Capital One; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 187,000 - 214,000; Full time

Job summary

Capital One in Chicago, IL seeks a Director of Customer Experience who will architect and scale the end-to-end acceptance journey across the Discover Network, uniting merchants, issuers and cardholders. You will drive a data-driven, human-centered approach to reduce friction and enable growth across onboarding, integration, and acceptance.

As a senior leader, you will manage a global team, leverage advanced analytics and design thinking to deliver measurable improvements, and report progress to

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or military experience
• 8+ years in CX, process transformation or customer operations
• 4+ years leading global or multi-regional teams
• 5+ years influencing and managing cross-functional stakeholders
• 5+ years in financial services, fintech, merchant acquiring or payment network operations
• Hands-on experience with enterprise CX, VoC, and CRM platforms (Salesforce, RMS, Qualtrics, Medallia)
• 6+ years leading enterprise process optimization using Lean, Six Sigma, Agile, or Design Thinking methodologies

Responsibilities

• Strategic CX leadership: develop and execute a multi-year CX strategy that aligns with global expansion goals.
• Journey mapping and optimization across B2B, B2B2C, and B2C journeys to resolve merchant acceptance pain points.
• Voice of the Customer: build feedback loops and translate insights for executives and sales teams.
• Cross-functional collaboration with Analytics, Sales, and Compliance to roll out user-friendly platforms.
• Global team management: lead and mentor a multi-timezone CX group.
• Performance metrics and ROI: define KPIs and tie CX improvements to business outcomes.

Skills

Customer experience

Process transformation

Customer operations

People management

Stakeholder management

Cross-functional partnerships

Salesforce

RMS

Qualtrics

Medallia

Education

Bachelor’s degree or military experience

Tools

Salesforce

RMS

Qualtrics

Medallia

Job description

Director of Customer Experience

As the Director of Customer Experience, you will occupy a critical leadership position tasked with architecting, executing, and scaling the holistic customer acceptance journey across the Discover Network. Within the multifaceted global payments ecosystem, our clientele encompasses issuing institutions, merchant acquirers, enterprise partners, and cardholders. Serving as the principal advocate for the Voice of the Customer (VoC), you will synthesize advanced data analytics with human-centered design principles to pinpoint and eliminate friction across every stage of the payment lifecycle, including onboarding, technical integration, and acceptance. In addition, you will leverage automation and process management to eliminate bottlenecks and manual efforts across teams, manage the intake of cardholder-submitted merchant acceptance and technical referrals, oversee the research, deployment, and remediation of identified issues, and provide executive reporting to leadership and Issuers.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic CX Leadership: Develop and execute a comprehensive, multi-year Customer Experience (CX) strategy that aligns with our global expansion goals and roadmaps.
• Journey Mapping and Optimization: Map complex Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B2B2C), and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) journeys across the payment lifecycle. Identify pain points in merchant acceptance and lead cross-functional initiatives to resolve them.
• Voice of the Customer (VoC): Build robust feedback loops. Aggregate quantitative data and qualitative insights to create actionable intelligence for the executive and sales teams.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner tightly with Analytics, Sales, and Compliance teams. Ensure that new platforms—including Relationship Management Systems (RMS) and Salesforce—feature rollouts, security protocols, and platform updates designed with the end-user experience in mind.
• Global Team Management: Lead, mentor, and scale a global team of Customer Experience associates, journey process managers, and customer advocacy specialists across multiple time zones.
• Performance Metrics and ROI: Establish clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the Customer Experience organization. Tie Customer Experience improvements directly to business outcomes such as reduced issuer support call volume, increased merchant acceptance, and technical remediation.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or military experience
• At least 8 years of Customer Experience, Process Transformation or Customer Operations experience
• At least 4 years of people management experience leading and developing global or multi-regional teams
• At least 5 years of experience managing, partnering with, and influencing internal and external stakeholders and managing cross-functional partnerships

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in financial services, fintech, merchant acquiring or payment network operations
• Hands‑on experience with enterprise Customer Experience (CX), Voice of the Customer (VoC), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms (Salesforce, Relationship Management Systems (RMS), Qualtrics, and Medallia)
• 6+ years leading enterprise process optimization using Lean, Six Sigma, Agile, or Design Thinking methodologies

At this time, Capital One will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position.

The minimum and maximum full-time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Please note that this salary information is solely for candidates hired to perform work within one of these locations, and refers to the amount Capital One is willing to pay at the time of this posting.

Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated based upon the agreed upon number of hours to be regularly worked.

Salary (Full Time)

• McLean, VA: $206,000 - $235,100 for Director, Project Management
• Richmond, VA: $187,300 - $213,700 for Director, Project Management
• Chicago, IL: $187,300 - $213,700 for Director, Project Management
• Riverwoods, IL: $187,300 - $213,700 for Director, Project Management

This role is also eligible to earn performance based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long term incentives (LTI). Incentives could be discretionary or non discretionary depending on the plan.

Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well‑being.

Learn more at the Capital One Careers website.

Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level.

Capital One is an equal opportunity employer (EOE, including disability/vet) committed to non‑discrimination in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Capital One promotes a drug‑free workplace.

Capital One will consider for employment qualified applicants with a criminal history in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable laws regarding criminal background inquiries, including, to the extent applicable, Article 23‑A of the New York Correction Law; San Francisco, California Police Code Article 49, Sections 4901-4920; New York City’s Fair Chance Act; Philadelphia’s Fair Criminal Records Screening Act; and other applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations regarding criminal background inquiries.

Capital One does not provide, endorse nor guarantee and is not liable for third‑party products, services, educational tools or other information available through this site.

Capital One Financial is made up of several different entities. Please note that any position posted in Canada is for Capital One Canada, any position posted in the United Kingdom is for Capital One Europe and any position posted in the Philippines is for Capital One Philippines Service Corp. (COPSSC).

At Capital One, we’re building a leading information‑based technology company. Still founder‑led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Fairbank, Capital One is on a mission to help our customers succeed by bringing ingenuity, simplicity, and humanity to banking. We measure our efforts by the success our customers enjoy and the advocacy they exhibit.