Network Director – Global Payments Infrastructure

About Thunes

Thunes is the Smart Superhighway for money movement around the world. Thunes’ proprietary Direct Global Network allows Members to make payments in real-time in over 130 countries and more than 80 currencies.

Thunes’ Network connects directly to over 7 billion mobile wallets and bank accounts worldwide, via more than 350 different payment methods, such as GCash, M-Pesa, Airtel, MTN, Orange, JazzCash, Easypaisa, AliPay, WeChat Pay and many more.

Members of Thunes’ Direct Global Network include gig economy giants like Uber and Deliveroo, super-apps like Grab and WeChat, MTOs, fintechs, PSPs and banks. Thunes’ Direct Global Network differentiates itself through its worldwide reach, in-house Smart Treasury Management Platform and Fortress Compliance Infrastructure, ensuring Members of the Network receive unrivalled speed, control, visibility, protection and cost efficiencies when making real-time payments globally.

Headquartered in Singapore, Thunes has offices in 12 locations, including Barcelona, Beijing, Dubai, London, Manila, Nairobi, Paris, Riyadh, San Francisco, Sao Paulo and Shanghai. For more information, visit: https://www.thunes.com/

Context of the role

We are looking for a Network Director to lead the development and management of global banking and payment scheme partnerships to strengthen our business payments offering. This role balances strategic expansion with the operational rigor required to deliver critical payments priorities. You will be responsible for driving cross-functional collaboration and serving as the Network liaison between internal teams and external network partners.

Network Strategy & Development

• Define & Execute Roadmap: Deliver the global strategy for banking and payment scheme partnerships, expanding direct access to SEPA, Faster Payments, and emerging real-time rails in close partnership with regional network teams.
• Scale Connectivity: Drive prioritisation and execution of infrastructure initiatives for virtual accounts, local clearing, and SWIFT integration to strengthen cross-border payment corridors.

Stakeholder Engagement & Delivery

• Business Payments Representation: Represent Network as a senior lead across all business payments strategic forums, ensuring network roadmap alignment with commercial ambitions.
• Cross-Functional Orchestration: Partner with Product, Treasury, Legal & Compliance, and Commercial teams to align network capabilities with customer needs and cross-functional requirements.
• Reporting & Governance: Own program governance and reporting, providing internal stakeholders with clear visibility into delivery progress, risks, and dependencies.

Network Operations & Excellence

• Quality of Service (QoS): Define and monitor critical performance KPIs (latency, throughput, and success rates). Lead network performance optimization and remediation efforts.
• Outage Management: Lead impact analysis of network disruptions to identify priority areas. Manage critical communications with network partners, drive root cause analysis (RCA) processes, and implement systemic changes to prevent recurrence.
• Credit Terms Management: Partner with Treasury & regional teams to identify key corridors to negotiate favorable credit terms and post-funding arrangements with network partners.
• Cost & Efficiency: Drive continuous improvements in FX competitiveness, settlement speed, and overall network unit costs.

Professional Experience & Qualifications

• Experience: 9+ years in financial services, payments, or fintech with deep expertise in global payments infrastructure.
  Leadership & Execution: Exceptional project management and negotiation skills. Ability to lead multiple, high-impact initiatives across cross-functional teams.
• Strategic Problem Solving: A data-driven mindset with a track record of solving complex cross-border operational and commercial challenges.
• Operational Excellence: Skilled in managing network quality, outage responses, and liquidity/credit terms.
• Interpersonal: Strong stakeholder management, with the communication skills necessary to bridge technical and commercial objectives.
• Hands-on approach: Whilst this is a senior position we expect the person taking this role to be willing to roll-up their sleeves and get involved in the detail
• Fluency in English, both verbal and written