You Lead the Way. We’ve Got Your Back. With the right backing, people and businesses have the power to progress in incredible ways. When you join Team Amex, you become part of a global and diverse community of colleagues with an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities and each other. Here, you’ll learn and grow as we help you create a career journey that’s unique and meaningful to you with benefits, programs, and flexibility that support you personally and professionally. At American Express, you’ll be recognized for your contributions, leadership, and impact—every colleague has the opportunity to share in the company’s success. Together, we’ll win as a team, striving to uphold our company values and powerful backing promise to provide the world’s best customer experience every day. And we’ll do it with the utmost integrity, and in an environment where everyone is seen, heard and feels like they belong. Join Team Amex and let's lead the way together. The Certification Product Team is part of the Network and Acquirer Solutions (NAS) organization within Global Merchant & Network Services (GMNS) and is responsible for supporting GMNS growth by building, testing, and supporting tools needed to ensure our customers have a flawless experience when joining the Network and using our payment products. This role will develop tools to support 100+ Network and 400+ Proprietary partners as they certify to use our dynamic inventory of payment products including EMV, Debit, Digital Wallets, and Mobile Point of Sale. The certification tools supported are both internal and externally managed, spanning the Issuing and Acquiring ecosystems.  The Certification Product Team is the key to ensuring these tools run seamlessly for external customers and internal operations teams while evolving with the modernization of products and processes. As part of the Solution Enablement & Distribution (SE&D) team - whose mission is to help Amex scale and provide a frictionless experience - this role is an exciting opportunity for a talented individual to collaborate with Product and Operations Teams to optimize the onboarding experience and drive faster time to market by automating key aspects of the customer journey. This role is a unique opportunity to combine & develop strategic thinking and payments knowledge. Key responsibilities of the role are: 1) Drive a strategy and create a roadmap to enhance certifications for all AXP products and partners.

• Design the creation of a product vision and a customer journey, that ties to a roadmap for certification – including monetization opportunities
• Conduct an analysis on industry trends and external partner feedback, in order to inform the roadmap and challenge the status quo
• Understand and map out existing customers journeys through all various platforms and products
• Set milestones and objectives, hold tension to the strategy and manage the outcomes for the team responsible for creating business requirements and manages existing tools and vendors
• Understand and incorporate external customer needs, new technology trends and competitive best practices into product roadmap and requirements
•  Develop proposals for future product enhancements, creating business cases that outline pros / cons and weighs costs to build vs. buy, and quantifies efficiencies of specific enhancements
• Support development of appropriate tracking and reporting to determine product performance

  2) Collaborate and influence stakeholder teams to deliver the overall strategy.

• Collaborate with stakeholder teams (i.e., Product & Partner Enablement, Global Acquisition Capabilities, and Product) to understand internal and external customer needs, pain points, opportunities for additional automation, product enhancements, and other initiatives impacting certification strategy 
• Contribute to testing enhancements and partner closely with Next Generation Certification team responsible for building a future host and acquirer simulation and certification solution
• Partner with Certification Operations team to understand and resolve certification tool production issues 
• Collaborate and work with technology teams to integrate, test and deliver enhancements to certification tools
• Partner with stakeholder teams (i.e., Product & Partner Enablement and Global Acquisition Capabilities) to understand pain points, operationalize new functionality including implementation planning, mapping process changes, training, and documentation

  3) Lead change management with Partner/Vendor at the forefront of industry forum.

• Lead conversations with existing and potential new vendors, manage integration and testing of any new tools 
• Engage in conversations with potential new vendors, manage integration and testing of any new tools along with ongoing oversight and management when tools deployed 
• Participate in key industry working groups, such as within EMVCo and at the US Payments Forum, representing Amex testing and certification 

Qualifications/Required skills:

• 5+ years in a product management, strategy, and/or product development role with proven success ideating and delivering all elements of a product lifecycle, including creating product roadmaps, working with capability delivery teams and/or external vendor partners on prioritization and defining requirements, then operationalizing and launching product enhancements 
• Exceptional communication skills with ability to engage, influence, negotiate and inspire partners and stakeholders at all levels and drive collaboration and alignment
• Ability to lead market research and competitive benchmarking with a strong understanding of industry leading automated certification solutions 
• Experience with process mapping, UX design, putting customer first, and customer journey mapping 
• Exceptional communication skills with ability to engage, influence, negotiate and inspire partners and stakeholders at all levels and drive collaboration and alignment, as well as experience presenting to senior leaders
• Experience leading product needs through annual investment planning, forecasting and tracking progress against financial plan 
• Experience representing Amex’s interest externally, working within external standard setting organizations desired, but not required
• Understanding of the Agile project management methodology and Scaled Agile (SAFe) approach is a plus
• Subject matter expertise in Host, Acquiring, or Issuer certification is a plus
• 5+ years of experience in the payments industry
• Bachelor’s degree required, MBA and/or industry product management certifications such as SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager a plus

Salary Range: $80,000.00 to $155,000.00 annually + bonus + benefits The above represents the expected salary range for this job requisition. Ultimately, in determining your pay, we'll consider your location, experience, and other job-related factors. Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the U.S. is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.   We back our colleagues and their loved ones with benefits and programs that support their holistic well-being. That means we prioritize their physical, financial, and mental health through each stage of life. Benefits include:

• Competitive base salaries 
• Bonus incentives 
• 6% Company Match on retirement savings plan 
• Free financial coaching and financial well-being support 
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits 
• Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need 
• 20+ weeks paid parental leave for all parents, regardless of gender, offered for pregnancy, adoption or surrogacy 
• Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location) 
• Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program 
• Career development and training opportunities

For a full list of Team Amex benefits, visit our Colleague Benefits Site. American Express is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status, age, or any other status protected by law. We back our colleagues with the support they need to thrive, professionally and personally. That's why we have Amex Flex, our enterprise working model that provides greater flexibility to colleagues while ensuring we preserve the important aspects of our unique in-person culture. Depending on role and business needs, colleagues will either work onsite, in a hybrid model (combination of in-office and virtual days) or fully virtually. US Job Seekers/Employees - Click here to view the “Know Your Rights” poster and the Pay Transparency Policy Statement. If the links do not work, please copy and paste the following URLs in a new browser window: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/posters to access the three posters.