Remote-First Global Expansion Programs Leader

Affirm; Palo Alto (CA); Remote; USD 195,000 - 255,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage for employees and depd

Tech stipend

Flexible time off

Employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)

Job summary

affirm is seeking a senior leader to own the strategy of customer operations for a global portfolio, steering expansion across products, geographies, and channels. You’ll build and scale playbooks, drive cross-functional alignment, and ensure dependable service delivery across markets.

In this remote-first role, you’ll partner with product, engineering, analytics, risk, and training to define standards, governance, and performance metrics, while developing teams and improving customer

Qualifications

• 12+ years of relevant experience, including 5+ years leading teams and/or managing other managers or senior professionals.
• Experience building and scaling global customer experience operations and working in global environments across cultures and geographies.
• Deep program and process management expertise (PMP and/or Lean Six Sigma Black Belt a plus), with a track record of defining methods and standards — not just applying them.
• Broad, cross-disciplinary expertise and a strong understanding of how the wider organization and market operate, complemented by deep functional knowledge of customer care, fraud, and/or merchant operations (processes, systems, and key metrics).
• Strong knowledge of how shared services operate; experience in services, operations, and/or sales.
• Experience delivering programs across multiple geographies or markets strongly preferred; consumer lending or financial services background strongly preferred.
• Proven ability to work on unique, poorly defined problems that lack strategic direction — evaluating intangibles, applying conceptual thinking, and creating the approach and evaluation criteria.
• Demonstrated ability to influence and build alignment among diverse, senior stakeholders in complex or sensitive situations.
• Sound judgment to make discretionary decisions with significant latitude, balancing research, creativity, and business impact.
• Self-starter with a strong sense of urgency, accountability, and results orientation, and a genuine enthusiasm for developing people and building new capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Own the strategy and roadmap for how Customer Operations scales to support global expansion — new products, merchants/partners, geo launches, and channels — translating ambiguous, undefined business direction into structured programs and clear operating plans.
• Establish and modify the team's operational objectives, policies, procedures, and work plans; define the methods, frameworks, and success criteria used to run initiatives across regions.
• Lead, coach, and develop a team spanning two or more disciplines (e.g., program management and service delivery via process/continuous improvement); oversee professionals and, where applicable, other people leaders; delegate assignments and ensure effective execution.
• Drive the strategy and success of large-scale, cross-area programs for operations— merchant/geo launches, automation and efficiency programs, new-product scaling — managing scope, schedule, budget, dependencies, and risk across a complex, multi-market servicing landscape.
• Partner in lock step with Product, Engineering, Analytics, Risk, Training, Knowledge, and Service Delivery leads to run cross-functional discovery and scoping, coordinate planning, and oversee dependencies through the full program lifecycle.
• Build alignment across mid- to senior-level leaders cross-functionally; influence outcomes in complex or sensitive situations while strengthening those relationships.
• Own portfolio-level governance (working groups, weekly/monthly business reviews) to drive awareness, issue resolution, and decision-making; be accountable for decisions that affect team, program, and overall business results over a medium-term (1yr+) horizon and that can carry company-wide effects.
• Own post-launch operational performance for the global international operations portfolio and set up rituals and roles to support global business teams with transparent performance and improvement plans across servicing and operations.
• Serve as a recognized subject-matter expert and thought leader on the global servicing operating model; build networks and represent Customer Operations on broader, organization-wide initiatives.
• Champion an analytical, data-driven culture within the team and across Product, Analytics, Engineering, and the broader business.
• Develop communication and change-management plans for the portfolio, and own the processes for logging and tracking risks, issues, actions, and dependencies.
• Represent the unique customer servicing needs of global customers at scale across core operations.

Skills

Leadership

Global ops

Program management

Cross-cultural

Stakeholder influence

Decision making

Self-starter

Communication

Analytical thinking

Change management

Tools

PMP

Lean Six Sigma Black Belt

Job description

affirm is seeking a senior leader to own the strategy of customer operations for a global portfolio, steering expansion across products, geographies, and channels. You’ll build and scale playbooks, drive cross-functional alignment, and ensure dependable service delivery across markets.

In this remote-first role, you’ll partner with product, engineering, analytics, risk, and training to define standards, governance, and performance metrics, while developing teams and improving customer