Senior Product Manager, Payments Strategy & Growth

ABOUT THE ROLE The Senior Product Manager, Payments Strategy & Growth is a senior payments subject matter expert for Accela’s Payments portfolio, combining deep payments expertise with market analysis, go-to-market execution, partner collaboration, portfolio support, and AI-driven innovation. This role works within the established Payments portfolio strategy to identify and validate growth opportunities, develop recommendations and business cases, support sales and marketing, and drive adoption of Accela’s payment solutions. The role partners closely with the delivery product team and Engineering to translate approved strategy, customer needs, and priorities into executable roadmap recommendations. The ideal candidate understands modern payment ecosystems, payment providers, compliance requirements, fintech trends, and the language needed to help Sales position payment solutions with confidence. SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES - Contribute payments expertise, market analysis, and recommendations that support the established vision, positioning, growth strategy, and business objectives for Accela’s Payments portfolio. Identify and assess market opportunities, emerging trends, competitive threats, regulatory changes, partner opportunities, and potential growth investments within the established Payments portfolio strategy. - Conduct market research, TAM assessments, buyer segmentation, customer validation, win/loss analysis, and competitive intelligence. Develop business cases, investment recommendations, adoption plans, pricing inputs, revenue models, and executive-ready portfolio recommendations. - Serve as Accela’s payments subject matter expert across payment providers, merchant services, payment facilitation, gateways, digital wallets, fraud prevention, settlement, reconciliation, PCI, and emerging fintech capabilities. Lead execution of approved go-to-market plans, including messaging, positioning, launch planning, sales enablement, customer-facing narratives, ROI materials, and competitive battlecards. - Partner with Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Support, Professional Services, partners, and executive leadership to support pipeline, expansion, customer adoption, and strategic sales opportunities. Build relationships with customers, prospects, payment providers, fintech partners, and industry stakeholders. - Assess build, buy, partner, and acquisition opportunities and provide recommendations that support payments innovation, revenue growth, and customer value. Identify and recommend opportunities to use AI for fraud detection, transaction intelligence, payment optimization, customer assistance, market insights, operational efficiency, and portfolio decision-making. - Partner with the delivery product team and Engineering to provide market context, customer validation, recommendations, and success metrics that inform roadmap prioritization and execution. - Track and communicate key outcomes including adoption, revenue growth, retention, customer satisfaction, market penetration, portfolio performance, and business impact. - Lead as a Product Owner on the SCRUM team, own roadmap, prioritizing the backlog, dependency management, go to market strategy, and cross departmental education. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS - 7+ years of Product Management experience in enterprise software or SaaS. - 5+ years of direct payments industry experience. - Deep knowledge of payment ecosystems, payment providers, merchant acquiring, payment gateways, digital wallets, fraud management, settlement, reconciliation, payment orchestration, and payment compliance. - Experience bringing products to market, supporting sales teams, and driving customer adoption. - Strong understanding of PCI requirements, payment regulations, risk management, and fraud prevention practices. - Experience conducting market research, competitive analysis, strategic planning, and business case development. - Proven ability to influence executive stakeholders and lead cross-functional initiatives through data-driven recommendations. - Strong communication, presentation, storytelling, and stakeholder management skills. - Technical understanding of APIs, integrations, cloud platforms, and SaaS architectures. - Experience using AI, analytics, and data-driven decision-making to improve product strategy and business outcomes. DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS - Experience working with State and Local Government, GovTech, or Civic Technology. - Experience with payment facilitation, embedded payments, payment orchestration, ACH, card processing, and alternative payment methods. - Experience leading portfolio strategy, growth initiatives, strategic planning, or investment governance. ABOUT ACCELA For nearly 20 years, Accela has been an industry leader in designing and delivering government software to improve efficiency, increase citizen engagement and enable the development of thriving communities. Today, citizens are savvy to how services should be delivered, and expect a consistently convenient, openly transparent view into their local government. While government agencies struggle to do more with less, our mission has never been more critical. Accela provides a robust, cloud-based platform of government software solutions that accelerate growth, efficiency, and transparency in communities of all sizes. From planning, to building, to service request management and more, Accela’s SaaS offerings level the playing field for small and medium governments and enable smaller agencies to leverage larger city technologies. Our open and flexible technology helps agencies address specific needs today, while ensuring they are well prepared for the emerging challenges of the future. OUR COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION Accela believes in developing and nurturing a workplace community where our differences are celebrated, and everyone feels a sense of psychological safety and belonging. Accela is committed to putting resources and attention towards evolving our practices, policies, and philosophies to enable diversity to thrive and to support equity in opportunity for everyone. COMPENSATION AND WELL-BEING The annual base salary range for this full-time position is $130,000-$165,000 (less applicable taxes). The actual annual base salary offered may be adjusted based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to, location, education, skills, training, and experience. In addition to an annual base salary, this position is eligible for an annual bonus target. This is a discretionary bonus awarded based on company and individual goal achievement. Accela’s U.S. team members will receive a generous benefits package consisting of options including flexible time off, comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans, family planning benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plan with company match, health savings account with company contributions, flexible spending account, life, accident, and disability coverage, business travel insurance, employee assistance programs, and other well-being benefits. Accela is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Affirmative Action Employer and will respond to requests for job accommodations. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, national origin, protected veteran status, or based on disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation #LI-Remote