Director, Production Operations

Job Description About Project Keystone Project Keystone is building a bank-governed network for digital money based on regulated commercial-bank deposits. Backed by FIS and participating financial institutions, Keystone combines an existing technology foundation with the opportunity to build a new financial infrastructure company and its operating capabilities. About the Role The Director, Network Operations and Settlement will build and lead the day-to-day clearing, netting, settlement, liquidity, capacity, payment-exception, and participant-support capabilities for Keystone. This leader will be accountable for the safe and timely completion of Netting Sessions and Fiat Settlement Periods, operational control of payment flows, implementation of approved Network Operator decisions, and coordinated resolution of issues affecting participating financial institutions. This is a hands-on leadership role requiring the ability to move between operating-model design and real-time execution. The Director will work closely with each participant bank’s liquidity and operations managers, as well as Keystone product, technology, risk, finance, compliance, legal, production operations, custodians, settlement banks, and other service providers. During launch and early scale, the leader will personally manage critical settlement events, investigate exceptions, write procedures, test controls, and establish the operational discipline expected of regulated financial infrastructure. What You Will Be Doing Build and execute Keystone’s network operations and settlement strategy, target operating model, governance, staffing approach, operating calendar, coverage model, escalation paths, and service standards. Own the operational lifecycle of each Netting Session and Fiat Settlement Period, including cut-off control, calculation and validation of Pay-In Obligations and Pay-Out Amounts, participant notifications, transition into constrained or limited-session operation, confirmation of Pay-ins, authorization of Pay-outs, restoration of participant capacity, token close processing, and formal cycle closure. Lead intraday liquidity and capacity management by monitoring payment activity, participant positions, payment queues, prefunding, collateral availability, debit or exposure limits, settlement obligations, concentration, and emerging shortfalls. Administer approved operational processes for Liquidity Contributions, Guarantee Fund Contributions, Net Debit Limit activation and adjustment, Custodian-confirmed intraday funding, permitted withdrawals, valuation and haircut exceptions, top-up and replenishment notices, periodic recalibration, and post-event restoration of participant capacity. Partner directly with liquidity managers and operations contacts at each participant bank to coordinate funding, resolve shortfalls, manage cutoffs, communicate settlement status, and support continuous readiness across business days, weekends, and holidays. Establish controlled procedures for participant funding, settlement-file generation and release, maker-checker approvals, manual adjustments, emergency actions, account or standing-instruction changes, and end-of-cycle attestation. Maintain the authorized-instruction framework for Custodian and settlement-bank actions, including signer authority, instruction validation, transmission evidence, confirmation matching, exception escalation, and periodic review of standing instructions. Direct investigations involving rejected, failed, cancelled, expired, duplicate, missing, delayed, misdirected, or incorrectly valued instructions; manage authorized pre-COMMIT cancellation and adjustment processes; and ensure any post-COMMIT return of value is processed as a separately authorized and correlated payment rather than as an in-place reversal. Create a tiered reconciliation framework and enforce the authoritative-record hierarchy across the Ledger, network settlement records, participant positions, settlement instructions, Custodian records, bank-account activity, participant confirmations, and internal accounting records, including controlled disposition of breaks where sources do not agree. Maintain operational readiness for payment activity involving traditional rails and approved digital-money infrastructure, including funding and settlement dependencies, operating windows, transaction and capacity limits, message exceptions, and fallback arrangements. Lead operational response to failed, delayed, partial, or disputed settlement events; participant funding shortfalls; unavailable payment rails; Custodian or settlement-bank outages; connectivity failures; data issues; and other material operational incidents. Operationalize authorized Network Operator decisions to extend or defer a Fiat Settlement Period or Netting Session; restrict, suspend, throttle, queue, or delay network activity; and issue controlled operational notices to affected Participant Banks. Lead the controlled operational execution of delinquency and default procedures, including event determination support, notices, Custodian instructions, application of approved waterfall resources, participant restriction, recalculation of capacity and funding requirements, incident documentation, cure monitoring, and reinstatement. Establish key performance and risk indicators for settlement timeliness, liquidity utilization, funding exceptions, reconciliation breaks, manual interventions, payment aging, capacity, participant responsiveness, and operational incidents. Define capacity thresholds and forecasts across transaction volumes, values, participant growth, operating queues, staffing, settlement processing, and external-provider dependencies; initiate remediation before service or settlement risk emerges. Develop and maintain standard operating procedures, desk-level procedures, settlement checklists, control evidence, authorized-contact lists, participant communication templates, issue logs, and au