Director - Strategy & Operations
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 1, 2026. First seen by Alion on Sep 17, 2026. Zeta scores A on the Alion truth index.
About Zeta
Zeta is a globally recognized next-gen banking technology company. Our modern platforms enable financial institutions and fintechs to launch extensible and compliant banking asset and liability products spanning cards, loans, and deposits. Our cloud-native and fully API-enabled stack supports processing, issuing, lending, core banking, fraud, loyalty, digital banking, and agentic AI solutions amongst many other capabilities.
Zeta has 1700+employees with over 70%in technology roles across locations in the US, Middle East, and Asia, representing one of the largest and most capable teams ever assembled in banking tech. Globally, customers have issued 30M+cards on Zeta's platform expected to grow to 60M+in the coming years. Most recently valued at $2B, Zeta counts Softbank, Mastercard, and Optum amongst its investors.
About the Role
Zeta is currently laying the foundations for and incubating multiple new business lines in the US across multiple areas that include prospective customers such as fintechs, sponsor banks, banking solutions for non-banks and more. This effort is being led by Zeta’s Chief Business Officer who is looking to bring on board an enterprising individual to assist with all aspects of these GTM motions.
This is a hands-on individual contributor role reporting to the CBO, with strong ownership of the operating rhythm across the CBO's full remit: strategy and planning, hiring & training, cross-functional program management, Sales & BD support, sales engineering & enablement, and marketing narrative.
Responsibilities
Own the CBO's planning calendar: quarterly OKRs, board and leadership-team materials, and the narrative that ties disparate initiatives into one story
Turn a strategic direction into a written plan with owners, milestones, and a decision log, and chase it to completion rather than to a slide
Prepare the CBO for every high-stakes room, investor updates, executive reviews, by sharpening arguments & perspectives
Run point on flagship, cross-functional programs spanning various GTM, delivery, and tech functions, where no single function owns the outcome end to end
Unblock stalled work by finding the actual decision-maker and getting a decision, not a status update
Build the reporting rhythm, dashboards, weekly reviews, escalation paths, that lets the CBO manage by exception rather than by memory
Assist with standingup new business lines, partnerships, or markets from a one-paragraph thesis: market sizing, business case, initial plan, and the first few actions
Operate without a playbook or precedent, and write the playbook as you go so the next 0-to-1 motion starts faster
Know when to kill a 0-to-1 bet early rather than let it drift on inertia
Support deal structuring, diligence, and negotiation prep for new partnerships and strategic relationships
Own the follow-through after a deal signs: the handoff to the functions that will run it, and the check that it delivers what was promised
Shape the external and internal narrative for major announcements, positioning shifts, and thought leadership tied to the CBO's initiatives
Partner with Marketing to convert field and partner evidence into content and messaging: what a partner program needs next, what a bank objected to, what changed a deal
Produce research, reports, analysis, commentary, and PoV to support the above
Build the models, market maps, and competitive analyses that back executivedecisions, at a rigor that survives a board's questions
Turn ambiguous, half-formed asks into a structured problem with a recommendationand clear narrative
Represent the CBO's office in cross-functional rooms, partner meetings, and internal reviews the CBO cannot attend, with standing authority to speak for the office's position
Know which decisions must go back to the CBO and which can be made and reported
Strategic planning and operating cadence
Cross-functional program management
0-to-1 business building
BD and partnerships support
Marketing, research, and narrative
Analysis and decision support
Acting as the CBO's proxy
Key Performance Metrics
An operating cadence, OKRs, program reviews, a decision log, that runs without the CBO chasing it, covering at least three concurrent cross-functional programs
At least one 0-to-1 business motion carried from a one-paragraph thesis to a running initiative with its own plan and owner
A reporting and escalation system that surfaces a stalled cross-functional decision before it slips a quarter, not after
A written playbook for standing up a new business line, partnership motion, or program, reusable by the next person who has to do it
Faster time-to-decision on cross-functional bets currently gated by the CBO's calendar
At least one strategic partnership or program taken from thesis to signed terms
Board and leadership materials that ship on schedule and hold up under questioning, across at least two board or investor cycles
Narrative and marketing work that changes how a partner or the market describes the company's position, traced to a named announcement or campaign
Success in the initial 18 months is measured in two parts. The first is what you build, and it is yours alone. The second is what you contribute to, alongside the functions the CBO's office touches.
What you build and own:
What you contribute to:
Skills
Translation: convert an ambiguous strategic direction into a plan with owners, milestones, and a decision log
Payments and banking fluency: enough command of how card issuing, processing, and lending businesses make money to build the case without asking someone else to check the math
Programdiscipline: run several cross-functional workstreams at once without dropping the one that isn't on fire yet
0-to-1 judgment: build a business line from a one-paragraph thesis, and know when to kill it instead of defending it
Analytical rigor: build models and analyses that survive a board's questions, not just a first read
Influence without authority: move work across functions you do not manage, on the strength of the argument and the relationship, not the org chart
Written communication: memos and decks that make the CBO's argument for them, not just record it
Discretion: handle information that touches deal terms, board discussions, and partner relationships before either is public
AI-Native : significant understanding of and established personal workflows and harnesses across writing, research, programmanagement, and more
Experience and Qualifications
12+years of experience spanning more than one of strategy consulting, investment banking, programor product management, and business operationsfocused on high-tech
Prior experience in payments or banking is required: card issuing, processing, lending, or core banking, with enough fluency in how these businesses make money to build a credible business case unassisted
Strong programmanagement and/or top-tier management consulting experience, with a demonstrated record of running multiple cross-functional workstreams to completion against a tight deadline
A track record of building something from zero, a business line, a partnership, an internal function, with nothing but a mandate to start from
An engineering degree plus an MBA from a top-tier institution is preferred