Director of Risk Strategy

Relay

Boston, MA, USA

Published: 6/14/2022

Full Time

Job Description

Our mission is to increase the success rate of small businesses. Traditional banking has been a growth limiter rather than a growth enabler for business owners, and we’re changing that. Relay is the all-in-one, collaborative money management platform. We’re building for employer SMBs and their finance function, internal and external, and are focused on delivering a human-centric customer experience. Ultimately, we help SMBs be ‘on the money'.

We're looking for a Director of Risk Strategy to take our risk operations to the next level. We've built a strong foundation with a smart, passionate team, solid infrastructure, and effective strategies that have kept our fraud losses in check. Now, we're ready for the next phase.

In this role, you'll bring experience, leadership, and vision to help us mature our risk function. You'll drive automation and intelligence into our systems, develop and mentor a growing team, and partner cross-functionally to deliver secure, and scalable products for our customers. You'll have a meaningful impact on Relay's growth by helping us effectively minimize fraud while keeping customer experience high.

Joining Relay means an opportunity to make a huge impact in building solutions with the potential to reach 29 million small businesses across North America. With over 100k customers, and strong growth, we're well past the startup stage. At the same time, there's still so much to build. If you're excited by the idea of shaping the future of fintech and building systems that make a real impact, we want to hear from you!

What You’ll Be Doing:

Own and evolve Relay’s fraud and risk strategy to support our next stage of growth
Scale the capabilities of our existing risk infrastructure by unlocking new sources of internal and external intelligence
Identify and address patterns in fraud activity to improve the accuracy and efficiency of decision-making
Drive a consistent march toward automation, including transaction reviews and customer interactions
Apply emerging technologies like AI to fraud detection, mitigation, and operations
Prioritize and influence cross-functional roadmaps to ensure risk-related needs are met across Product, Engineering, and Data
Partner with customer-facing and compliance teams on escalations, investigations, and high-impact incidents
Act as a key stakeholder in product rollouts to ensure risk and fraud implications are addressed early
Cultivate strong relationships and partner closely with Sales & Growth teams to understand their objectives and concerns, and proactively identify how risk strategies can support their goals without creating unnecessary friction
Build, mentor, and develop the next generation of risk leaders—empowering them with autonomy and growing their thought leadership
Represent risk as an organizational leader, influencing strategy and shaping team structure as we scale

Who You Are:

You have significant experience in fraud, risk strategy, or related roles, ideally within fintech or banking
You’ve successfully led and scaled a risk team - you know how to develop high-potential talent into future leaders, and leaders into future senior leaders
You’re a strategic thinker who’s also comfortable rolling up your sleeves
You’re a builder with a proven track record of implementing automated systems, tools, and processes to manage risk
You have strong data instincts, and a deep understanding of how data can be analyzed and leveraged to make smarter risk decisions proactively, or in real-time
You’re deeply collaborative and can drive initiatives across teams and functions
You’re excited by the challenge of solving complex risk problems with limited resources and high urgency
You know how to advocate for your team’s priorities and influence stakeholders across the company
You’re passionate about small business and want to help underserved entrepreneurs thrive

Bonus Points:

You have experience applying AI/ML to fraud detection and prevention
You’ve implemented new fraud detection technology or rules engines from scratch
You’ve worked in a fintech company during a period of high growth or early scaling
You have experience working with SMB risk (e.g., invoice scams, BEC, synthetic identities)

Our Commitment To You:

Competitive salary and meaningful equity: Relay employees are Relay owners, complete with equity and a competitive salary.
Comprehensive health benefits: enjoy full health benefits from day one. We offer flexible Health or Wellness Spending Accounts and medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents.
Flexible vacation and time off: every team member starts with 15 vacation days and 5 flex days to use as needed, plus an extra week of office closure during the end-of-year holidays so you can take time off to recharge and come back better for our customers.
Parental leave with top-up: we offer 12 weeks off with a 100% salary top-up for all full-time employees, regardless of location, and accessible for all parents: birthing, non-birthing, and adoptive.
Hybrid work environment: we value meaningful collaboration and connection at our Toronto office twice a week, with lunch, snacks, and beverages on us.
Dog-friendly space: can dogs really make you happy and healthy? We don’t know for sure, but since we don’t want to chance it, our office is 100% floof-friendly.
Personal and professional growth: through ongoing feedback, mentorship, and coaching, work with peers and leaders who are invested in your growth and success.
Top-tier equipment: as a Mac-first company, our Toronto offices have everything you need to produce your best work comfortably, from multiple screens to ergonomic seating.
Social connection: we believe in celebrating our wins with two annual company-wide get-togethers, quarterly team events, happy hours, and special events and networking opportunities with industry leaders.

The Interview Process:

Stage 1: A 45-minute video call with a member of the Talent Team
Stage 2: A 45-minute video call with our CEO
Stage 3: A 60-minute whiteboarding session with our Director, Compliance & CTO/Co-Founder
Stage 4: A 45-minute values interview with a member of the Leadership Team
Stage 5: A take-home case study around how you would approach solving a risk problem at Relay, followed by a 60 minute presentation of your solution to our team

Why Relay Might Be the Perfect Fit For You

You push relentlessly for reinvention: You’re built to constantly ask, “How can this be better?” Change excites you and you drive it.
You crave autonomy: We trust our team with big challenges and the freedom to solve them. If you’re someone who takes initiative, is comfortable taking risks, and seeks input when needed, you’ll find the freedom here empowering.
You own your work: You take pride in your work, follow through on commitments, and feel a deep sense of responsibility for outcomes, not just tasks.
You treat comfort as a red flag: You seek growth. When things feel too comfortable, you lean into change. You’re excited about stepping into the unknown and navigating new terrain to create something better alongside your team.
You care about impact, not noise: You care deeply about the substance of your work. You measure success by results, not recognition and you let your work speak for itself.
You’re energized by complexity and ambiguity: You enjoy tackling problems that don’t come with a playbook. You’re comfortable building from scratch, iterating as you go, and collaborating to shape the best path forward.
You seek out feedback: We value directness, clarity, and respect. We believe honesty fuels great work and career growth. You see feedback as a tool for learning and improvement, and you know that open, honest dialogue is key to achieving the best results — together.
You’re here for more than a job: At Relay, everything we do is in service of our mission to help small businesses thrive. To drive impact and have purpose here, that mission must matter to you too.

Our Promise

We’re driving real change for small business owners, powered by truly remarkable people. At Relay, you’ll find the confidence to take chances, trust to take initiative, and the support you need to build a career you love. Here, we make sure every team member feels empowered to make big decisions, encourage to ask tough questions, and challenged to take risks that result in work we’re all proud of. We give you the baton–you run the Relay.

What’s Important to Us:

Research shows that women-identifying and other marginalized individuals often apply only if they meet 100% of the qualifications. But no one is a perfect match on paper. If this role excites you, we’d love to hear from you and figure out together if it’s a great fit.

At Relay, we believe that diversity is key to building high-performing teams, and creating an inclusive work environment is our priority. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome people of diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills.

We will work with applicants to provide accommodations at any stage of the hiring process. If you require accommodations during the interview process, please email your Talent Partner, and we will work with you to meet your needs.