Director, Cross Project Strategy – Ecosystem Development and New Product Strategy

At American Express, we know that with the right backing, people and businesses have the power to progress in incredible ways.

Whether we’re supporting our customers’ financial confidence to move ahead, taking commerce to new heights, or encouraging people to explore the world, our colleagues are constantly redefining what’s possible
– and we’re proud to back each other every step of the way.

When you join #TeamAmex, you become part of a diverse community of over 60,000 colleagues, all with a common goal to deliver an exceptional customer experience every day.”

American Express has recently completed the acquisition of Kabbage, a leading financial technology company providing cash flow management solutions to U.S.

small businesses.

As part of American Express Global Commercial Services (GCS), a global leader in commercial payments solutions, Kabbage will continue to offer an integrated suite of digital checking, payments, financing, and cash flow management products and tools.

Kabbage operates as an agile FinTech group within the broader GCS organization, to develop and enhance innovative digital solutions for small businesses customers.

“Kabbagers” are innovative, customer-obsessed, FinTech market-savvy, and passionate about creating market-leading products that deliver exceptional customer experiences.

The Director, Cross Project Strategy will be responsible for developing and gaining sponsorship for horizontal product strategies that will define how Kabbage’s digital experience, and hence it’s holistic offering for SME customers, evolves over the next one to three years.

In this role, you will become deeply knowledgeable about the myriad of unique customer journeys when a customer has multiple American Express or Kabbage products and develop new strategies to deeply embed customers within our proprietary ecosystem.

In addition, in this role, you will be responsible for spearheading innovation through exploration and testing of new products that enhance the overall Kabbage value proposition.

In this role, you will identify and prioritize solutions employing a data-driven approach that improve upon customer experiences and drive adoption of the Kabbage platform as a cashflow management solution.

You will also be responsible for closely tracking the external landscape to identify opportunities to leverage innovative technologies to further streamline key customer journeys and enhance the value proposition of Kabbage.

As part of this role, you will not only be responsible for setting the strategy but for ensuring these strategies are prioritized and executed against as part of the cross-product roadmap.

To accomplish this, you will collaborate closely with UX Design, Product Development, and Technology to refine the strategic intent for key workstreams.

In managing these workstreams, you will work with cross-functional partners across Marketing, Risk, Operations, Legal, and Compliance to ensure all initiatives are properly reviewed by the necessary internal functions and ready to go-to-market.

In this role, you will:

• Set the strategy for cross product capabilities, experiences and co-own Kabbage’s cross-product roadmap

• Map the current and proposed customer journeys to best serve the different target customer personas

• Identify and work to resolve pain points in the customer experience through iterative releases

• Own key financial metrics and progress towards cross product roadmap priorities

• Serve as intent owner for cross product priorities including coordination across multiple stakeholder and COE teams to ensure the team is executing against the product roadmap, and meeting target release dates

• Develop thought leadership on key players, external trends and noteworthy events with potential implications for how Kabbage is positioning products vs.

  competition

• Identify and evaluate opportunities to partner or acquire capabilities to accelerate the cross product roadmap

• 8+ years’ experience in financial services, with expertise in payments and emerging technologies a plus

• Track-record of successfully leading strategic initiatives, including the development of business cases to solicit necessary resources and/or sponsorship

• Exceptional communication and presentation skill-set with proven ability to communicate effectively across levels

• Ability to break down complex problems in simple ways and build enthusiasm around a strategic initiative

• Experience coordinating between Product, Business and Technology teams to define, prioritize, & deliver projects

• Ability to build relationships, influence others, and bring multiple cross-functional teams together toward common goals

• Self-starter and solutions-driven, with a willingness to learn and adapt to new responsibilities

• Comfort in a fast-paced and high growth environment

• Effectively challenges the status quo and able to respectively voice a contrasting point of view

• Software Application Skills – Proficiency in Excel, Visio and Power Point, Jira and Rally a plus

• Bachelor’s Degree required; Masters Degree Preferred

• American Express is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, age, or any other status protected bylaw.