Finance & Strategy Lead, Payments Product at Stripe in Chicago, IL

Who we are About Stripe Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies - from the world’s largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups - use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet, and we have a staggering amount of work ahead. That means you have an unprecedented opportunity to put the global economy within everyone's reach while doing the most important work of your career. About the team The Finance & Strategy team is a key thought partner to Stripe’s product leaders. We bring financial rigor, strategic clarity, and analytical depth to the decisions that shape Stripe’s product portfolio and long-term growth strategy. The Payments Products Finance & Strategy team sits at the intersection of Payments and Agentic Commerce. The team is increasingly evaluating opportunities across the entire Stripe Payments portfolio with rapidly evolving market dynamics as new agentic commerce tools and behaviors form.  These areas require a finance leader who can operate across different stages of maturity, bring structure to complexity, and drive financial outcomes in an ambiguous environment. What you’ll do We're seeking a seasoned finance leader to lead our Agentic Commerce ambitions, both internally and externally. You’ll partner with product and engineering leads for Agentic Commerce, acting as a trusted financial and strategic advisor.  You’ll be a thought partner in developing frameworks for how to assess the evolving landscape, identify areas for growth and drive investment frameworks / strategic insights that enable Stripe to best capture this opportunity. This is a highly cross-functional role and requires the ability to understand the different needs in each organization and translate technical language into concise commercial insights.  Moreover, you’ll build the analytical infrastructure leveraging AI and tooling, to ensure this team delivers system-level improvements in how we deliver insights going forward. Responsibilities Act as a financial and strategic advisor to the business, building investment cases and business plans, and evaluating business performance. Create executive-ready presentations that tell the “investor narrative” taking into account internal data as well as external resources Support new business / product launches, helping drive strategy and decision-making by bringing rigorous driver-based financial analyses / frameworks and product and industry expertise to help product leaders evaluate tradeoffs and shape strategic roadmaps. As the business matures, establish and maintain key business metrics and KPIs to measure performance of new products. Lead the quarterly forecast and annual strategic financial planning process. Develop long range financial models with scenario analysis and actionable recommendations on growth, monetization and where to prioritize investments. Present performance in business forums, highlighting drivers, risks and actionable insights. Drive process improvement and analytics scalability, partnering cross-functionally to evolve data infrastructure, reporting and analytics. Identify opportunities to leverage AI and automation to enable the team to operate at the leading edge of financial analysis. Who you are We're looking for someone who meets the minimum requirements to be considered for the role. If you meet these requirements, you are encouraged to apply. The preferred qualifications are a bonus, not a requirement. Minimum requirements At least 10+ years of relevant experience within strategic finance, ideally at a high-growth technology company and/or with prior experience in hedge funds, sell-side, or VC with strong analytical background (i.e. investment banking) B.A. or B.S degree in related field Exceptional analytical capabilities and business acumen, with the ability to simplify and distill complex information in a rigorous but consumable way Ability to create polished, executive- and investor-ready presentations that communicate complex narratives clearly and concisely with high impact Broad exposure to multiple industries and sectors; experience in technology, SaaS, or AI is a plus Proven ability to build strong collaborative working relationships with business partners and executives; you are seen as a trusted and objective advisor An enthusiastic self-starter with a "roll up your sleeves" mentality Ability to manage multiple work streams and maintain high performance under tight timelines Ability to deal effectively with ambiguity and thrive in an unstructured, fast-moving environment Experience with SQL or a willingness to learn Excellent verbal and written communication skills Preferred qualifications Deep understanding of payment and card networks economics Experience as a finance business partner supporting a partnerships or deal-making function