Director of Payments

Job description

Our mission at Oura is to empower every person to own their inner potential. Our award-winning products help our global community gain a deeper knowledge of their readiness, activity, and sleep quality by using their Oura Ring and its connected app. We've helped millions of people understand and improve their health by providing daily insights and practical steps to inspire healthy lifestyles. Empowering the world starts with living our values and empowering our team. As a quickly growing company focused on helping people live healthier and happier lives, we ensure that our team members have what they need to do their best work — both in and out of the office. Oura is exploring how the ring can extend beyond biometrics into everyday utility. Payments will be the first industry Oura supports with tap-to-pay capability; transit is an additional vertical this role will help manage in the future. We're evaluating and building toward in-ring payment capability, and we need a Director of Business Development to own the commercial partnerships that will make it real: identifying and securing ecosystem relationships, structuring the commercial terms, and driving go-to-market execution as the capability comes online. This is a build role. You'll source and develop relationships with card issuers, build the business case internally and externally, and lead negotiations from first conversation through signed agreement and launch. The work is still early — you'll be shaping the partnership strategy and playbook as much as executing against one. What You Will Do: Build and prioritize a qualified pipeline of card issuers, networks, processors, wallet platforms, and future transit partners. Secure signed issuer partnership agreements with strong commercial terms ahead of Oura’s tap-to-pay launch. Develop and execute partner-specific go-to-market plans covering co-marketing, enrollment, activation incentives, adoption, and usage. Establish clear cross-functional alignment across Product, Engineering, Legal, and Marketing on partner requirements, technical dependencies, and launch sequencing. Create the commercial operating model for Payments, including pipeline reporting, partnership economics, activation and usage targets, and P&L visibility. Manage partnerships through launch and scale, resolving adoption or technical friction and identifying renewal and expansion opportunities. Build a clear strategy and partnership roadmap for extending Oura’s tap-to-pay capability into transit. Open to SFO and NY - Note these are two geos where most issuers are concentrated. What you'll bring 10+ years of global experience in payments, wallets, fintech, or adjacent ecosystem partnerships. Direct experience working with card issuers, networks, processors, wallet platforms, or comparable payments partners. Demonstrated ownership of complex partnerships from sourcing and business-case development through commercial negotiation, contracting, launch, and expansion. Strong understanding of the payments ecosystem, including issuer, processor, and network roles; interchange economics; and relevant regulatory considerations. Experience structuring commercial models involving co-marketing funding, activation incentives, exclusivity, tiering, and revenue or interchange-sharing economics. Proven ability to build a new partnership function or playbook in an early-stage, ambiguous environment. Strong cross-functional leadership skills, with the ability to translate external partner needs into clear priorities for Product, Engineering, Legal, and Marketing. Executive-level communication and influence, including presenting business cases to senior leadership and representing the company with partner executives. Ability to travel periodically for partner meetings, industry events, and internal offsites Nice to have: Experience launching a new payment, wallet, or tap-to-pay capability from pre-launch through go-to-market and scale. Background in wearables, consumer hardware, consumer technology, or digital health. Existing senior-level relation