Account Executive Leader - Payments
Plaid
Sales & Business Development
United States
USD 116,736-220,050 / year
Posted on Jan 17, 2026
We believe that the way people interact with their finances will drastically improve in the next few years. We’re dedicated to empowering this transformation by building the tools and experiences that thousands of developers use to create their own products. Plaid powers the tools millions of people rely on to live a healthier financial life. We work with thousands of companies like Venmo, SoFi, several of the Fortune 500, and many of the largest banks to make it easy for people to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they want to use. Plaid’s network covers 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Founded in 2013, the company is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, Washington D.C., London and Amsterdam.
The Payments Product Sales team is a solutions-focused sales team that brings deep product and industry expertise to drive adoption and growth of Plaid’s emerging products across both new and existing customers. This team plays a critical role in scaling products, translating customer needs into commercial opportunities, and accelerating Plaid’s next phase of growth through consultative, value-driven selling.
As Account Executive Leader - Payments, you will be responsible for the performance and growth of Plaid’s Payment solutions, serving as a player-coach who both leads and directly closes strategic deals. You will bring deep expertise across ACH, credit cards, payment risk, and money movement to drive new business and expansion, partnering closely with Product and cross-functional Go-To-Market teams to shape sales strategy, develop specialist AEs, and translate complex customer fraud challenges into meaningful, revenue-generating outcomes. This role is hands-on by design and is ideal for a seasoned sales leader who thrives in ambiguity, influences without direct authority, and is motivated by scaling emerging solutions.
Responsibilities
- Owns and drives company-wide revenue performance for Plaid’s Payments solutions, with clear accountability for ARR growth, pipeline generation, and deal execution.
- Maintains a rigorous revenue forecast for Payments solutions, ensuring visibility, accuracy, and predictable performance.
- Builds, hires, and leads a high-performing team aligned to revenue goals, ensuring coverage, productivity, and scalable sales execution.
- Acts as an executive seller and market expert, leading high-impact sales conversations, strategic customer engagements, and industry events to accelerate pipeline creation and close complex, enterprise deals.
- Develops top-tier sales talent by setting a high performance bar, coaching through real deals, and preparing team members for expanded scope and senior leadership roles.
- Coaches sellers with a challenger mindset, enabling teams to lead with insight, reframe customer payments strategies, and uncover net-new and expansion revenue opportunities.
- Maintains a real-time view of product-market fit across segments, verticals, and geographies, identifying growth levers and partnering cross-functionally to unlock new revenue opportunities.
- Serves as a strategic advisor to segment sales and product leadership, shaping and executing go-to-market strategies that maximize revenue impact for Payments solutions.
- Identifies structural, systems, and process gaps that limit revenue scale, partnering with GTM and Product leadership to prioritize and drive improvements.
- Plays a key role in quarterly and annual planning by setting ambitious revenue targets for Payments solutions and defining the strategy, resources, and execution plan required to exceed them.
Qualifications
- 7+ years of relevant market experience in Payments focused solutions
- 3+ years of managing a revenue-driving team.
- Deep experience and market knowledge within the Payments space inclusive of ACH, credit cards and payment risk and money movement.
- Effective territory/account management: planning, opportunity qualification and creation, stakeholder and executive communication, needs analysis, value engineering, services/partner engagement, opportunity management, pipeline management, large dollar licensing and deal negotiation.
- Strong communication and presentation skills, and an ability to build relationships with prospects and customers, up to the C-suite.
- Strong collaboration skills and ability to work across a variety of internal stakeholders.
- Excitement to work in a high-growth environment and to help build processes and scale product growth across the revenue team.
Our mission at Plaid is to unlock financial freedom for everyone. To support that mission, we seek to build a diverse team of driven individuals who care deeply about making the financial ecosystem more equitable. We recognize that strong qualifications can come from both prior work experiences and lived experiences. We encourage you to apply to a role even if your experience doesn't fully match the job description. We are always looking for team members that will bring something unique to Plaid!
Plaid is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and values diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, ethnicity, religion or religious belief, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, military or veteran status, disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Plaid is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance with your application or interviews due to a disability, please let us know at [email protected].
282624 - 440000 USD a year
The on-target earnings (OTE) for this position ranges from $282,624/year to $440,000/year encompassing all zones. The target OTE will vary based on the job's location.
Our geographic zones are as follows:
Zone 1 - San Francisco / New York City / Seattle
Zone 2 - Los Angeles / Washington DC / Austin / Boston / Sacramento / San Diego
Zone 3 - Atlanta / Portland / Chicago / Philadelphia / Denver / Miami / Dallas / Raleigh
Zone 4 - All other US cities
The OTE range listed for this full-time position includes commission, but excludes equity and benefits. The pay range shown on each job posting is the minimum and maximum target for new-hire salaries. Actual pay may be higher or lower depending on factors like skills, experience, and relevant education or training.