Senior Project Manager - Payments

Huntington; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 102,000 - 208,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Wellness program

Retirement savings plan

Paid leave & PTO

Job summary

Huntington in Chicago seeks a Senior Project Manager - Payments to own end-to-end delivery of complex payments initiatives, coordinating with product, technology, operations, risk, legal, and external partners.

You will apply payments domain expertise to manage rails such as Visa, Mastercard, NACHA/ACH, and real-time networks, ensure regulatory compliance, security standards, and effective vendor management throughout the program lifecycle.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in project or program management, including payments/fintech.
• 5+ years in payments, fintech, or financial services.
• Proficient with Jira or Monday.com and related PM tools.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end delivery of strategic payments programs, including product launches, platform migrations, FinTech integrations, and regulatory compliance initiatives.
• Develop and maintain comprehensive project plans, RAID logs, and status dashboards for executive audiences.
• Drive project execution through structured agile/hybrid delivery frameworks; manage budgets and vendor contracts.
• Proactively identify schedule risks and elevate blockers with clear resolution paths.
• Mentor junior PMs and contribute to governance and process improvements.

Skills

Project management

Payments knowledge

Regulatory compliance

Education

Bachelor’s Degree

Tools

Jira

Monday.com

Job description

Description Summary: The Senior Project Manager - Payments will have deep domain expertise in payments to join our growing Payments team. In this role, you will own the end-to-end delivery of complex, cross-functional payments initiatives. You will serve as the connective tissue between product, technology, operations, risk, legal, and external partners, ensuring programs are delivered on time, within scope, and with measurable business impact. The ideal candidate brings a rare combination of rigorous project management methodology and hands-on payments knowledge - someone who can speak fluently about Payment networks in the same conversation as they manage a critical path schedule or elevate a risk to leadership.

Key Responsibilities

• Program & Project Delivery Lead end-to-end delivery of strategic payments programs, including product launches, platform migrations, FinTech integrations, and regulatory compliance initiatives. Develop and maintain comprehensive project plans, RAID logs (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies), and status dashboards for executive and working-group audiences. Drive project execution through structured agile/hybrid delivery frameworks, adapting methodology to fit the complexity and compliance requirements of payments projects. Manage project budgets, resource planning, and vendor contracts in collaboration with Finance and Procurement. Proactively identify schedule risks and develop mitigation strategies; elevate blockers with clear recommended paths to resolution.
• Payments Domain Leadership Apply deep knowledge of the payments ecosystem to shape project scope, anticipate integration challenges, and guide technical teams through payments-specific complexity. Serve as the internal subject matter authority on payment rails and schemes including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, NACHA/ACH, RTP, FedNow, SWIFT, and emerging real-time networks. Partner with Product and Technology to define acceptance criteria for payment flows, ensuring compliance with network rules, regulatory requirements (PCI-DSS, Reg E, PSD2, NACHA Operating Rules), and security standards. Champion best practices in payments security, fraud mitigation, tokenization, and authentication (3DS, biometrics) throughout the project lifecycle.
• Stakeholder Management & Communication Build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across Product, technology, risk, compliance, finance, and external partners. Facilitate and lead cross-functional steering committees, working groups, and executive readouts — distilling complex technical and regulatory issues into clear decisions and actions. Produce high-quality written communications including project charters, executive briefings, business cases, and post-implementation reviews. Serve as the primary point of contact for third-party payment partners and vendors during integration and certification phases.
• Process Improvement & Governance Define and continuously improve PMO standards, playbooks, and governance frameworks specific to payments programs. Conduct post-mortem reviews and embed lessons learned into future project planning and team capability building. Support the development of junior project managers through mentorship, coaching, and structured knowledge sharing. Contribute to strategic planning cycles by helping translate business objectives into executable roadmaps and investment cases.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree
• 7+ years of experience in project or program management, with at least 5+ years in a payments, fintech, or financial services environment.
• 5+ years of experience with project management tools such as Jira, Monday.com or similar.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience utilizing a variety portfolio project management tool and creating and tracking project schedules in MS Excel or MS Project.
• Strong understanding of project lifecycle methodologies (e.g., Waterfall, Iterative, Agile/Scrum) and project management processes and standards.
• Strong aptitude in both business and technology.
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills; ability to explain project risks and issues, and IT related concepts clearly and concisely to multiple layers of peers and leadership.
• High motivated with strong organizational, analytical, decision making, and problem solving skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and to handle multiple priorities effectively prioritize them.
• Ability to provide strong program and project leadership during periods of uncertainty, ambiguity, and change.
• Willingness and drive to learn and understand detailed software solutions.
• High level of professionalism and confidence with the ability to build credibility with leadership, team members, and business partners and establish effective working relationships.
• Ability to initiate and facilitate change, whether indicated by corporate needs, market or regulatory requirements.
• Experience leading large, cross-functional information technology programs and projects.

Exempt Status: (Yes = not eligible for overtime pay) (No = eligible for overtime pay) Yes

Workplace Type: Office

Our Approach to Office Workplace Type Certain positions outside our branch network may be eligible for a flexible work arrangement. We’re combining the best of both worlds: in-office and work from home. Our approach enables our teams to deepen connections, maintain a strong community, and do their best work. Remote roles will also have the opportunity to come together in our offices for moments that matter. Specific work arrangements will be provided by the hiring team.

Compensation Range: $102,000 - $208,000 Annual Salary

The compensation range represents the anticipated low and high end of the base compensation range for this position. Actual compensation will vary based on various factors including but not limited to location, experience, and education.

Colleagues in this position are also eligible to participate in an applicable incentive compensation plan. In addition, Huntington provides a variety of benefits to colleagues, including health insurance coverage, wellness program, life and disability insurance, retirement savings plan, paid leave programs, paid holidays and paid time off (PTO).

Huntington is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Tobacco-Free Hiring Practice: Visit Huntington's Career Web Site for more details.

Welcome to Huntington! At Huntington, we look out for people. From reinventing banking with game-changing innovations to building an internal culture that creates lifelong bonds, together, we can make people’s lives better. And amazing things happen when we look out for each other. We prove it every day. Whether it’s helping a colleague or collaborating on a new tool that will revolutionize the way you save money, our actions can have a huge impact. Our colleagues look out for people with a Can-Do Attitude, Service Heart and Forward Thinking. Those are our values—simple but powerful. Each of them pushes us do the right thing, to do right by people. Because people are what matter.

If you would like to learn more about how Huntington looks out for people, visit https://www.huntington.com/lookingout

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