Sr. Director, Chief of Staff, Strategy & Operations NA VCS

Visa is a world leader in payments and technology, with over 259 billion payments transactions flowing safely between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and government entities in more than 200 countries and territories each year. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable, and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive while driven by a common purpose – to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

Make an impact with a purpose-driven industry leader. Join us today and experience Life at Visa.

Visa Commercial Solutions (VCS) is a rapidly growing team focused on providing innovative payment solutions to businesses and governments worldwide. We collaborate with Financial Institutions and Fintechs to deliver frictionless experiences that streamline critical business processes such as expense management, compliance, and vendor payments. Our goal is to enhance cash flow, productivity, and efficiency for our clients.

Job Description

As the Chief of Staff for North America VCS, you will work closely with the SVP, Head of North America VCS, providing strategic and operational support to drive the strategy and transformation of NA VCS. You will collaborate across the NA VCS Leadership Team and with global partners to ensure alignment, execution, and continuous improvement of our business objectives. You will be successful in this role if you:

• Have organizational intelligence, allowing you to navigate complex structures, influence outcomes, and build strong partnerships across the enterprise

• Can anticipate and avert problems before they escalate, ensuring business and operational process continuity and effective risk management.

• Can grasp and add value to the leader’s vision, providing thoughtful feedback, strategic insights, and actionable recommendations to drive best, highest use of time and resource and advance the agenda.

• Are a thought leader in strategy and business growth with a proven track record of success in fast-paced environments with demanding timelines.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy & Operations

• Coordinate and drive strategic business decisions related to revenue generation, expense control, business optimization, investments, and resource allocation.

• Lead the annual operating plan and multi-year outlook process in close partnership with Finance, strategy and key business partners.

• Drive key strategic, financial, and operational activities, including leading business reviews, executive client councils, off-sites, OKR planning, regular OKR reviews, and proactively highlighting areas requiring attention.

• Manage the North America VCS Sales Incentive Plan (SIP) structure, including SIP planning, adjudication, and process improvement.

• Partner with the global sales ops lead to incorporate global guidance into NA region SIP planning, adjudication, OKR/MBO planning, and roll-up processes.

• Develop metrics and reporting that promote behaviors maximizing both short-term and long-term revenues and ensure consistency in target setting and program execution.

• Provide pipeline insights, ensure coverage of opportunities and capacity to pursue key initiatives, and partner with sales excellence teams to improve pipeline hygiene.

• Lead special projects, ranging from spinning up new processes to addressing time-sensitive requests from senior management.

Execution

• Serve as a strategic advisor, organizing and prioritizing critical information and data to enable efficient decision-making.

• Deliver on a wide range of strategic initiatives.

• Lead a team, ensuring quality, high performance and coaching for professional growth.

• Partner with Global teams, Product groups, Sales, Operations, Risk, Marketing, Communications, Legal, Strategy, Interchange/Pricing and Finance to advocate and be the ambassador for VCS.

• Provide pipeline insights, ensure coverage of opportunities and capacity to pursue key initiatives, and partner with sales excellence teams to improve pipeline hygiene.

Change Management & Executive Support

• Lead continuous change management, creating automated processes and controls to increase team productivity and improve operations.

• Drive organization for the SVP, Head of VCS NA through helping to manage preparation of calendar, events, client meeting and senior executive engagements.

• Help senior executives navigate through matrixed asks, bringing more clarity to ambiguous situations and supporting effective data collection and decision-making.

Culture, Collaboration & Process Improvement

• Lead continuous process improvements, creating automated processes and controls to increase team productivity, particularly around SIP management and pipeline practices.

• Champion and energize initiatives, leading the NA VCS team’s participation in the Visa Payments Forum and North America Market Kick Off (NAMK) and other industry events, and ensuring best-in-class contributions.

• Proactively identify opportunities to improve employee engagement & recognition.

Enablement & Knowledge Management

• Ensure training is meaningful and addresses the needs of both Generalists and Sales Specialists, developing content as needed.

• Partner to enhance reporting for NA VCS sales and leadership teams, and lead knowledge management initiatives to support segment leads.

Communications

• Develop and maintain internal communications, including weekly leadership team meetings and newsletters, to empower, align, and motivate the team.

• Coordinate and prepare materials for key events such as executive meetings, all-staff meetings, CEO updates, and client councils/forums.

• Work with cross-functional stakeholders to collect, prioritize, and communicate key business topics and developments.

• Proactively seek and share success stories to demonstrate progress against scorecards and important milestones.

This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.

Basic Qualifications
• 12 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 10 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters/MBA /JD/MD), or a minimum of 5 years of work experience with a PhD

Preferred Qualifications
• 15 or more years of experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, or MD), PhD with 9+ years of experience
• 10+ years of experience, including at least eight years of experience in management consulting or strategy organization
• Demonstrate excellent communication skills, both verbal and written, and are comfortable presenting to broad audiences.
• Proven experience in project management and managing cross-functional teams.
• Take decisive action after analyzing relevant information and ensure personal and team efforts are aligned with functional objectives.
• Are adept at explaining complex business and technical concepts in an approachable way.
• Are comfortable working in fast-paced environments, integrating global guidance into regional execution, and driving successful outcomes.
• Have a strong sense of urgency, high learning agility, and a technology/digital-first approach.
• Continually seek new perspectives, value diversity of thought, and have a passion for fintech and the payments ecosystem.

Work Hours: Varies upon the needs of the department.

Travel Requirements: This position requires travel 5-10% of the time.

Mental/Physical Requirements: This position will be performed in an office setting.  The position will require the incumbent to sit and stand at a desk, communicate in person and by telephone, frequently operate standard office equipment, such as telephones and computers.

Visa is an EEO Employer.  Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status.  Visa will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with EEOC guidelines and applicable local law.

Visa will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable local law, including the requirements of Article 49 of the San Francisco Police Code.

U.S. APPLICANTS ONLY: The estimated salary range for a new hire into this position is 180,000 to 281,250 USD per year, which may include potential sales incentive payments (if applicable). Salary may vary depending on job-related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, and location. In addition, this position may be eligible for bonus and equity. Visa has a comprehensive benefits package for which this position may be eligible that includes Medical, Dental, Vision, 401 (k), FSA/HSA, Life Insurance, Paid Time Off, and Wellness Program.