Associate Director - Strategic Partnerships

Associate Director – Strategic Partnerships, Connected Banking

Location: Mumbai | Team: B2B, Startups and Connected Banking

About the Team:

Join PayU’s growth Vertical, where we’re building the next generation of embedded financial services with entrepreneurial agility and fintech expertise. Our B2B, Startups and Connected Banking teams are at the forefront of transforming India’s disbursements landscape, bridging our robust acquiring business with innovative credit solutions. We operate with startup speed while leveraging PayU’s scale, focused on capturing significant market share through our strategic “Build, Partner, Buy” approach.

About the Role:

We are looking for a commercially savvy and execution-driven Associate Director, Strategic Partnerships to lead and grow PayU’s ecosystem partnerships across banks, card schemes, regulators, and the venture capital community — a critical lever for the P&L of our B2B, Connected Banking and Startups businesses.

In this role, you will shape and drive the partnerships strategy that powers our Payouts and Account Verification Services (AVS) franchise, working closely with banks and schemes for supply side partnerships. Internally, you will work with product managers, engineers, and the broader commercial organization to deliver strong, measurable outcomes. You will structure and negotiate new opportunities, deepen relationships with key partners, and elevate PayU’s influence across the payments and banking ecosystem.

We are looking for someone who is thoughtful, adaptable, and able to balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution while building strong relationships across the financial services ecosystem.

What you’ll do:

Ecosystem Partnerships – Banks, Schemes, Regulators & VCs

• Build, manage, and grow strategic partnerships with banks (supply-side sponsor and B2B relationships), card schemes, and networks to expand the Connected Banking and Payouts franchise
• Engage proactively with regulators and industry bodies (RBI, NPCI) to shape favorable outcomes and ensure PayU is well-positioned on emerging frameworks
• Cultivate relationships across the venture capital community to drive portfolio-company partnerships, founder referrals, and pipeline for the Startups business
• Structure, negotiate, and close commercial agreements that directly enhance the P&L of the B2B Connected Banking and Startups verticals

Partnership Strategy & P&L Impact

• Drive the strategy and prioritization of key partnership initiatives, owning the roadmap from origination to execution
• Translate partnerships into revenue — cross-selling bundled “Collections + Payouts” solutions and transitioning monetization from transaction fees toward premium value-added services and Net Interest Margins (NIM)
• Drive the “Invisible Rail” partner strategy through deep API integrations, and forge embedded-finance alliances with HRMS (Keka, GreytHR, SAP, Darwinbox) and ERP/SaaS providers (Zoho, Tally, CashFlo)
• Partner with PayU Finance (LazyPay) to commercialize credit-linked products such as Working Capital as a Service and dynamic overdraft solutions

Relationship & Ecosystem Leadership

• Oversee ongoing partner management and strengthen relationships with key banking, scheme, and platform partners
• Elevate PayU’s influence in the ecosystem through joint product development, co-marketing, and other strategic initiatives
• Act as a subject matter expert on payments and disbursement trends, rules, and regulations, sharing insights with internal stakeholders
• Support Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) with key merchants by providing insights on partnerships and ecosystem developments
• Manage partner escalations and ensure issues are resolved with the appropriate internal teams

Cross-Functional & Product Collaboration

• Partner with Product and Engineering teams to support the development and rollout of new capabilities, including Composite Payout APIs and self-serve sandboxes
• Support Corporate Development on M&A and integration of strategic acquisitions (Banking-as-a-Service, PA-CB platforms), compressing GTM timelines from 18–24 months to ~90 days
• Foster strong cross-functional collaboration across Product, Engineering, Legal, Risk, and Commercial teams

Who you are:

• 5+ years of progressive experience managing partnerships or strategic accounts, preferably within payments, fintech, banking, or financial services
• Strong understanding of the payments, disbursements, and banking ecosystem, with awareness of emerging industry and regulatory trends
• Commercially minded with proven experience structuring partnerships and negotiating commercial agreements that move the P&L
• Excellent stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence and build strong relationships with banks, schemes, regulators, VCs, and C-level stakeholders, internally and externally
• Working knowledge of RBI frameworks including Payment Aggregator (PA), PA-Cross Border (PA-CB), and NPCI UPI guidelines
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate data into insights and actions across commercial, product, and technical discussions
• Comfortable with experience working in global, cross-functional environments and a proven track record of delivering results on complex initiatives
• Entrepreneurial mindset with startup agility paired with corporate execution capability — thoughtful, adaptable, and equally at home with strategy and hands-on delivery

Preferred / Specialized Knowledge

• Fintech startup experience with hands-on scaling of financial services products
• Banking or financial services background, including familiarity with sub-ledger architecture and banking operations
• Domain knowledge across e-commerce refunds, gig-economy payouts (Reverse Penny Drop), Real Money Gaming compliance, and corporate finance workflows (TDS, invoicing, Maker-Checker approvals)
• Credit and lending knowledge, particularly working capital and overdraft solutions

What we offer?

• A positive, get-things-done workplace
• A dynamic, constantly evolving space (change is par for the course – important you are comfortable with this)
• An inclusive environment that ensures we listen to a diverse range of voices when making decisions
• Ability to learn cutting-edge concepts and innovation in an agile start-up environment with a global scale
• Access to 5000+ training courses accessible anytime/anywhere to support your growth and development (corporate tie-ups with top learning partners like Harvard, Coursera, Udacity)

About us:

PayU, India’s leading diversified fintech platform with Prosus as an investor, operates businesses that are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India and offers advanced solutions to meet the digital financial services needs of customers (merchants, banks, and consumers).

PayU provides payment gateway solutions to online businesses through its cutting-edge and award-winning technology and has empowered 4.5 lakhs+ businesses, including India’s leading enterprises, e-commerce giants and SMBs. It enables businesses to collect digital payments across 100+ online payment methods. Through its PayTech division, Wibmo, it provides market-leading authentication and risk TSP services to banks in India and 30+ countries, and through its NBFC, PayU Finance, it empowers 3.5 lakh+ merchants and 6 million consumers with innovative and flexible credit solutions. Please visit www.payu.in for more information.

Our Commitment to Building a Diverse and Inclusive Workforce

As a global and multi-cultural organization with varied ethnicities thriving across locations, we realize that our responsibility towards fulfilling the D&I commitment is huge. We continuously strive to create a diverse, inclusive, and safe environment for all our people, communities, and customers. Our leaders are committed to creating an inclusive work culture which enables transparency, flexibility, and unbiased attention to every PayUneer so they can succeed, irrespective of gender, color, or personal faith. At PayU we have zero tolerance towards any form of prejudice, whether towards a specific race, ethnicity, persons with disabilities, or the LGBTQ communities.