Impress employers and recruiters.
Choose from hundreds of resume examples.

Target Resume Now

About the Role

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, is seeking a Chief Operating Officer to lead the operational transition and growth of its UK business. This individual contributor role involves managing day-to-day operations, supporting regulatory authorization efforts with the FCA, and identifying growth opportunities, particularly in payments. The role is ideal for an experienced operator looking to build a regulated business from within.

Responsibilities

Run day-to-day operations across UK entities, including EMI operations at Payward Services Limited.
Lead the operational work behind FCA authorization efforts, including crypto (CASP) authorization and MiFID scope application.
Serve as the operational counterpart to the FCA for information requests, supervisory queries, and incident notifications.
Identify and execute growth opportunities for the UK business, prioritizing payments.
Own UK product operations and launch readiness, centered on payments.
Gate go-lives against regulatory and operational requirements.
Oversee financial promotions (three lines of defence).
Build controls for regulated products.

Requirements

8-12 years of experience with roots in strategy consulting (MBB, Big 4 strategy, or boutique) and a proven track record of operational execution in-house.
Experience operating within a scaling UK fintech, bank, or crypto firm in roles such as special projects, chief of staff, operations strategy, or operations lead.
Deep familiarity with the UK regulatory environment, including experience operating within an FCA regulated firm (ideally MiFID investment firm, bank, or EMI).
Understanding of SMCR, safeguarding, financial promotions rules, Consumer Duty, operational resilience, and outsourcing rules.
Track record of running complex cross-functional programs without formal authority.
Ability to pick up work outside of the job description.
Structured and rigorous approach to governance and controls, while being allergic to bureaucracy.
Excellent communication skills across regulators, boards, engineers, and commercial partners.
Comfortable with ambiguity and a broad remit.
Ability to measure success by shipped and landed outcomes rather than headcount.

Skills

Operational execution
Regulatory compliance
Payments operations
Cross-functional program management
Governance and controls
Communication

Location

Work Type

Individual contributor role with executive scope

Experience Level

8-12 years

About the Company

Payward is the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services, and CF Benchmarks.
Has spent 15 years building a modern, globally accessible financial infrastructure platform.
Aims to advance an open, global financial system.
Kraken, founded in 2011, is a long-standing crypto platform trusted by over 10 million individuals and institutions.
Kraken offers spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services.
Kraken is building the leading regulated crypto and payments platform in the UK.
Kraken is moving with the UK's transition from MLR registration to a full FSMA authorisation regime.
Kraken has live authorization workstreams with the FCA.
Kraken has a fast-growing payments business.
Kraken aims to make the UK one of its most important markets globally.

Equal Opportunity

Payward is powered by people from around the world and celebrates diverse talents, backgrounds, contributions, and unique perspectives.
Hires based on merit, seeking individuals with the right abilities, knowledge, and skills.
Encourages applications even if not fully meeting listed requirements, especially if passionate or knowledgeable about crypto.
May ask candidates to complete job-related skills or work-style assessments.
As an equal opportunity employer, does not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.