Fraud Strategist Expert - São Paulo (Hybrid)

Clara is the leading platform in Latin America for companies to execute and manage every payment operation. More than 50,000 leading and fast-growing businesses run on our corporate cards, bill pay, financing and B2B payments, and in 2025 the Financial Times named Clara the region’s fastest-growing company. We’re passionate about helping every company we work with become more effective—and, through that, raising the region’s competitiveness. We’re ~400 people, backed by Notable Capital, Coatue, Kaszek, monashees, DST Global, ICONIQ, General Catalyst and Goldman Sachs, among others.

What you'll do
We're looking for a Fraud Strategist Expert to shape and scale Clara's global fraud detection strategy across all markets and fraud vectors. Fraud prevention at Clara goes beyond reacting to suspicious transactions—it's about building intelligent, scalable systems that stay ahead of evolving fraud threats. This is a senior Individual Contributor role reporting to the Head of Fraud. You will combine deep fraud expertise, strong analytical judgment, and a builder mindset focused on AI and automation to ensure innovation is balanced with strong governance and effective risk controls.
In this role, you will:

• Define and own global fraud detection strategies, methodologies, and standards across fraud vectors, ensuring consistency and effectiveness across regions.
• Drive the evolution of Clara's fraud detection infrastructure, including rule engines, machine learning models, risk signals, and case management tools.
• Lead the AI and automation roadmap for fraud detection, identifying opportunities to automate alert triage, investigations, decision-making, and operational workflows using tools like N8N .
• Explore and implement AI-powered detection capabilities, including anomaly detection, behavioral analysis, intelligent alerts, and automated rule optimization.
• Anticipate emerging fraud threats, including AI-enabled fraud, synthetic identities, deepfakes, and evolving attack patterns, and develop robust mitigation strategies.
• Establish strong model governance and risk management practices, ensuring explainability, fairness, performance monitoring, auditability, and appropriate human oversight.
• Build mechanisms to share fraud intelligence across regions, enabling faster identification of emerging patterns and consistent deployment of detection strategies.
• Independently monitor and challenge regional fraud detection performance, identifying gaps, risks, and opportunities for improvement using data platforms like Databricks and Metabase .
• Partner closely with Fraud Operations, Risk, Product, Engineering, and Data Science to translate detection strategies into scalable tools and solutions.
• Define automation and monitoring strategies that enable 24/7 fraud detection coverage, reducing manual dependencies while maintaining effective controls.
• Establish clear KPIs and performance frameworks to measure detection effectiveness, automation coverage, model performance, and platform reliability.

Who you are
We’re looking for someone who meets the minimum requirements to be considered for the role. The preferred qualifications are a bonus, not a requirement.
We're looking for an experienced fraud professional who combines strategic thinking with deep technical understanding and a hands-on approach. You know how fraud detection works, understand how technology can improve it, and can turn complex challenges into scalable solutions across markets.

Must haves

• 7+ years of experience in Fraud Strategy, Fraud Prevention, Risk Analytics, Fraud Detection, or related functions, ideally within fintech, banking, payments, or financial services.
• Strong expertise in fraud detection methodologies, rules-based strategies, risk signals, and transaction monitoring.
• Experience designing, implementing, or optimizing fraud detection strategies and automated decisioning frameworks.
• Strong understanding of machine learning, AI-driven fraud detection, and automation, with the ability to collaborate effectively with technical teams.
• Experience working with fraud detection platforms, rule engines, case management systems, or risk decisioning tools.
• Strong analytical skills, with experience using SQL , Python , or similar tools to analyze fraud patterns, evaluate detection performance, and identify opportunities.
• Experience defining and monitoring fraud detection KPIs, including detection rates, false positives, automation coverage, and model effectiveness.
• Understanding of model governance, explainability, risk controls, and human oversight in automated decision-making.
• Proven role-specific execution with an ability to influence cross-functional and regional stakeholders without direct management authority.
• Adaptability to fast-changing environments, strong ownership, problem-solving skills, and the ability to translate complex fraud challenges into practical, scalable solutions.
• Experience or strong interest in using AI tools to automate workflows.

Nice to haves

• Experience designing or scaling fraud detection frameworks across multiple countries or business units, specifically within Latin American fintech or financial services ecosystems.
• Hands-on experience with AI-powered fraud detection, machine learning models, or automated investigation workflows.
• Familiarity with GenAI, LLMs, agentic workflows, or automation platforms applied to fraud operations.
• Experience with feature stores, model monitoring, anomaly detection, graph analytics, or advanced risk decisioning.
• Knowledge of emerging threats such as synthetic identity fraud, deepfake-enabled attacks, and AI-driven fraud schemes.
• Experience with model risk management, validation, fairness assessments, or AI governance.
• Familiarity with card fraud, payment fraud, account takeover, identity fraud, or other financial fraud vectors.
• Independent analytical skills using spreadsheets, SQL , or Python .
• A good sense of humor.

Why Clara

• A high talent-density team driven to make an impact in Latin America — low ego, high ownership.
• Competitive salary and stock options (ESOP) from day one.
• An annual learning budget and accelerated development paths.
• English is our working language, with Spanish and Portuguese every day.

How we work

• Clarity — Open and direct communication: we say what we mean and give context where it matters.
• Simplicity — If it can be simpler, it should be.
• Ownership — We own everything we do, end to end. When something needs to happen, we don't wait.
• Pride — We hold ourselves to a high standard, and it shows in what we deliver.
• ABC (Always Be Changing) — We adapt fast, embrace change, and keep learning.
• Inclusivity — Diverse ideas, stories and perspectives build a better Clara.

If you meet the must-haves, apply — the nice-to-haves are a bonus, not a requirement.