Associate/AVP, Cross Border and Agentic Commerce, RiverX

Who We Are

Cross River builds the infrastructure behind the world’s most innovative financial products. Our technology and capital solutions power payments, cards, lending, and digital asset capabilities that move money safely, instantly, and inclusively — trusted by leading fintechs, enterprises, and disruptors across the globe.

Our mission is simple: to build the financial infrastructure that expands access and opportunity for all. Guided by a culture of collaboration, curiosity, and purpose, Cross River has been named one of American Banker’s Best Places to Work in Fintech year after year. Whether you’re designing code, solving regulatory puzzles, or developing strategy, you’ll join a team where innovation and integrity drive everything we do — and where your work helps shape the future of finance.

What We're Looking For

We're looking for an exceptional early-career operator to join the Corporate Strategy & Transformation team and help turn Cross River's strategic ambitions into reality. Reporting to the Head of Corporate Strategy & Transformation, you'll sit at the center of the bank's most important cross-functional initiatives — from AI adoption to international expansion — and play a hands-on role in driving them from idea to delivery.

This is a builder role. You'll spend little time producing decks and most time scoping problems, finding solutions, moving initiatives forward, and bringing people along. It's a rare chance to work directly with senior leadership on the questions that shape where the company goes next.

Responsibilities:

Drive AI adoption across the bank (~40% of time)

• Partner with the AI team and business-line leaders to identify high-value AI use cases — sitting with teams to understand where the real friction and opportunities are.
• Pressure-test and validate each opportunity: size the impact, gauge feasibility, and separate the genuinely transformative bets from the noise.
• Work hand-in-hand with product and technical teams to turn a validated use case into a working solution.
• Drive the change-management side hands-on — helping build the playbook, engaging stakeholders directly to explain what's changing and why it matters, turning skeptics into champions, and sustaining adoption through the messy middle of a rollout until it sticks.

Support hands-on, high-priority strategic initiatives (~40%)

• Support hands-on the execution of strategic bets like global expansion — helping select target geographies, shape entry and partnership models, and support partner negotiations and deal structuring.
• Do the real work alongside leadership rather than advising from the sidelines: scope and own discrete workstreams, proactively surface risks, and clear roadblocks before they become problems.

Support the corporate strategy agenda (~20%)

• Help shape Cross River's long-term strategy — pressure-testing where the bank should play and how it wins, and turning that into clear, defensible direction for leadership.
• Help translate executive vision into a clear, practical narrative the organization can rally around — breaking big strategic intent into concrete initiatives with defined owners and accountable timelines.
• Establish lightweight, repeatable ways to scan and synthesize external developments — partner moves, regulatory shifts, competitive activity — into clear implications for leadership.
• Look for opportunities to automate, templatize, and systematize the team's work so the function punches well above its headcount.

Qualifications:

Must-Haves

• ~2–3 years of relevant experience in strategy consulting, corporate strategy, or a strategy & operations role at a high-growth startup or scaling company — weighted toward operating and execution experience over planning.
• High emotional intelligence and real people skills. You build trust quickly, read a room, and bring busy or skeptical stakeholders along through change — comfortable engaging directly with everyone from analysts to executives.
• A genuinely AI-native way of working. You use AI tools fluently to multiply your output and move at exceptional speed — and you hold a high enough quality bar that what you ship is sharp, accurate, and trustworthy, never generic or half-checked.
• A builder's instinct. You'd rather put a rough working version in front of people than polish a plan; you default to "how could I automate or build this?"; and you likely tinker and build things outside of work too.
• Strong autonomy. You operate well with ambiguity and limited direction, take initiative without waiting to be told, and figure out what needs doing.

Nice-to-Haves

• Prior financial services, payments, or fintech experience.
• Experience working on change management for technology rollouts.
• Exposure to partnership/deal structuring.

#LI-KR1 #LI-Hybrid

Salary Range: $80,000.00 - $130,000.00