Risk Assessment for a Payment Platform

Led a structured risk assessment for a proposed payment platform, identifying financial, operational, and compliance exposures prior to implementation.

Mapped control gaps, dependency risks, and regulatory considerations to ensure the solution would scale without introducing undue financial or governance risk. Provided clear recommendations to inform go/no-go decision-making and future platform design.

My Role

Owned the end-to-end evaluation of introducing payments functionality into the product platform, with particular focus on safeguarding client billing accuracy, talent payouts, and financial controls.

Worked cross-functionally with Product and operational stakeholders to surface exposure points across workflows, dependencies, and regulatory obligations. Designed pragmatic mitigation approaches to reduce implementation risk without slowing delivery.

Advised senior leadership on risk trade-offs and sequencing, influencing both rollout strategy and longer-term platform design.

Launch, impact, results

🔎 Identified critical vulnerabilities before implementation.

🏗 Consulted on a sustainable & scalable rollout framework.

📊 Phase 1 completed within 4 payment cycles, successfully transitioning a global workforce of 500+ contractors from Deel and other payment platforms to the new system.

Challenges & Reflection

Introducing payments functionality within a regulated environment required disciplined execution and a high bar for precision. Decisions carried material financial and reputational implications, demanding careful judgement around sequencing, control design, and stakeholder alignment.

There was also initial tension around role clarity and ownership. I addressed this by making risk exposure visible, grounding discussions in shared commercial objectives, and demonstrating value through clear, structured thinking. The result was stronger cross-functional alignment and more confident decision-making at leadership level.

Project context

Initiated by: Finance Teams, Product Team

Organization Type: Fintech / Global Payments Platform

Project Duration: 4 months

Reporting to: CFO & Head of Compliance

PM Methodology: Hybrid - Predictive (Exec), Agile (Product team), Scrum (Engineering)

Project Tooling: Smartsheets, Jira, Asana