Head of Risk and Money Services

Gusto is on a mission to grow the small business economy, handling payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR for more than 500,000 small businesses nationwide. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, Gusto is building a workplace that reflects the people it serves. All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs).

Gusto is seeking a seasoned financial services operator and regulated-domain leader to own the Risk & Money Services function, which sits within Customer Experience and Gusto's Financial Services organization, reporting directly to the Head of Financial Services. This role leads three interconnected practices: Risk Operations (fraud ops, account takeover detection, payment-risk decisioning, collections, BSA/AML compliance), Dispute Operations (Reg E dispute processing), and Money Services and Banking (operational home for Gusto Wallet, Cash Advance, and consumer financial products).

• Own Risk & Money Services end to end, accountable for fraud and payment risk decisioning, BSA/AML compliance, Reg E dispute operations, collections, and the operational backbone of Gusto's money products.
• Lead a multi-disciplinary regulated financial services organization through senior leaders, developing, hiring, and scaling the team.
• Stand up Risk & Money Services as a defined operational function, defining governance, metrics framework, SLAs, and reporting infrastructure.
• Own the highest-stakes real-time financial decisions, including whether payroll goes out when something looks wrong, whether a dispute warrants provisional credit, and whether a fraud signal warrants action.
• Own Gusto's Reg E compliance posture at the operational level, leading the operational program for dispute obligations in partnership with Compliance and Legal.
• Lead BSA/AML operational response, including transaction monitoring response, customer outreach, and account action.
• Build Consumer Money for growth, owning operational infrastructure for Gusto Wallet, Cash Advance, and expanding consumer financial products.
• Drive AI-native transformation in a regulated financial domain, partnering with Gusto's shared service platform and AI organization to bring AI agents, semantic knowledge, and automation capabilities into Risk & Money Services.
• Be the operational counterpart to Product, Engineering, and Risk partners, translating operational and regulatory reality into product priorities.
• Represent Risk & Money Services externally with sponsor bank partners, regulators, and auditors.
• Build the playbook for new financial products, establishing Risk & Money Services as the operational home for risk and money movement functions.
• Bring out the best in your people, caring deeply about team members and helping them grow.

• 12+ years of industry experience leading financial services operations in banking, payments, money movement, fraud and risk, or related regulated domains.
• 7+ years as a departmental leader running large, multi-disciplinary financial services operations teams.
• Deep expertise in banking and money movement operations, including Reg E dispute processing, BSA/AML operational response, ACH and real-time payments risk, sponsor bank operational requirements, and controls infrastructure.
• Hands-on background in fraud and payment risk, including payment risk scoring, account takeover response, and fund recovery operations.
• Experience in consumer financial products, such as consumer banking, digital wallet, or cash advance.
• Track record of standing up or formalizing regulated financial functions.
• Demonstrated experience navigating sponsor bank and regulatory relationships.
• Track record of leading through high-stakes, real-time financial decisions.
• Experience building reliable, scalable, AI-native operations in regulated domains.
• Strong cross-functional muscle with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Legal, and Risk.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through significant organizational change.
• Empathetic and employee-focused, with a track record of building diverse and inclusive teams.

Cash compensation range is $170,000 to $215,000 per year in Denver and $200,000 to $250,000 per year in San Francisco and New York. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors. All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs).

This role is hybrid, based in Denver, CO; New York, NY; or San Francisco, CA. Employees based in those locations are expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week (or more depending on role).

Apply via the Gusto Greenhouse job posting.