Director of Fraud

Get to Know Us Kafene is revolutionizing the lease-to-own space. We're the point-of-sale powerhouse making flexible lease-to-own accessible to everyone—prime and non-prime customers alike. Our secret weapon? Cutting-edge AI and machine learning that analyzes 20,000+ data inputs in real-time, empowering retailers across furniture, appliances, electronics, tires, and durable goods to say "yes" to more customers. The numbers tell our story: over $500 million in originations and counting. But we're just getting started. Our 175-person team spans NYC headquarters, Wilmington, and remote talent across the globe—all united by a culture that thrives on collaboration, innovation, and genuine support. We don't just talk about great workplace culture; we deliver it. That's why Built In named us a Startup to Watch and Forbes recognized us as one of the Best Startup Employers. Ready to be part of the fintech revolution? Join us. Our Risk team already catches fraud signals. What we don't have yet is the function that takes a flagged signal and sees it all the way through. That's the seat we're building, and it's yours. As Senior Director of Fraud, you'll build and own Kafene's fraud function end to end: intake, investigation, determination, response, and escalation across consumer, merchant, and payments fraud. You'll corroborate signals, make the formal call, and run the response across every team involved, from Risk and Compliance & Legal to Collections, Merchant Support, Sales, Technology, and Finance. This is a hands-on leadership role. You'll work cases yourself, lead a General Fraud Investigator, and design the day-to-day mechanics of how each team engages. The role is based in NYC (hybrid) or remote in the US. What You'll Do

• Own the fraud lifecycle. Run intake, routing, investigation, classification, response, and escalation across consumer, merchant, and payments cases.

• Make the call. Decide routine cases where the evidence is clear, and bring contested or ambiguous ones to the executive team with a recommendation.

• Direct the response. Lead every confirmed case through merchant communication, fund recovery, lease cancellation, credit reporting corrections, termination notices, and law enforcement referrals.

• Partner with Risk. Work with the team that owns detection and the fraud scoring model so new rules and threshold changes get deployed when a case calls for them.

• Build the function. Lead the General Fraud Investigator, stand up intake and case tracking quickly, build a second monitoring layer on operational data, and shape longer-term case management tooling with Technology.

• Own the playbook and the numbers. Maintain our merchant fraud playbook, escalate confirmed cases that cross our thresholds within 24 hours, and report on volume, time to resolution, recovery rate, and false-positive trends.

What You'll Bring

• 10+ years in fraud, with hands-on investigation experience. You can judge the quality of an investigation because you've run them yourself.

• Experience across at least two of consumer identity fraud, merchant fraud, and payments or chargeback fraud.

• A track record of getting other teams to act on your findings without direct authority over them.

• Comfort working directly in the data: you can write or read SQL, build a simple dashboard, and tell when a pattern is real.

• Sound judgment under ambiguity and clear, calm communication with executives, merchants, and outside counsel. You can tell suspected cases from confirmed cases of fraud, and you report them that way.

• Strong plus: experience building a fraud function or case management process from the ground up, or shaping fraud tooling and product flows with an engineering team. Plus: CFE certification or familiarity with LexisNexis, CLEAR, Stripe Radar, Snowflake, and Sigma.

• Likely backgrounds: fraud leadership in lending, lease-to-own, BNPL, merchant acquiring, or SMB fintech.

How We'll Assess You A recruiter conversation, a conversation with our CFO, a working session on a realistic fraud case, and conversations with the teams you'll partner with most. We'll tell you what to expect before each step. Compensation and Benefits

• Base Salary: Earn a competitive base salary of $145,000 to $218,000, plus an equity package.

• Healthcare: We prioritize your well-being by covering 80% of medical, dental, and vision insurance costs, including coverage for your spouse, children, and other dependents.

• Retirement Benefits: Begin planning for your future from day one with our 401(k) plan.

• Paid Time Off: We understand the importance of work-life balance. That's why we offer flexible paid time off days starting from day one of your employment.

We're building a team as diverse as the customers we serve. Kafene is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer, and we mean it. We welcome qualified applicants of every race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, veteran status, and all other legally protected characteristics. Need accommodation during the application process? We've got you. If you're applying for a U.S. position and require reasonable accommodation at any stage, reach out to [email protected] with details about your request and contact information. We're here to help make the process work for you. Note: This email address is specifically for accommodation requests and will only respond to those inquiries.