Senior Director, Marketing Services, Strategy

Description

Visa is a world leader in payments technology, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories, dedicated to uplifting everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

At Visa, you'll have the opportunity to create impact at scale — tackling meaningful challenges, growing your skills and seeing your contributions impact lives around the world.

Join Visa and do work that matters – to you, to your community, and to the world. Progress starts with you.

Visa is a world leader in payments and technology, connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions, fintechs, businesses, and governments across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable, and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive. We are driven by a common purpose: to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

The North America Marketing Services team is transforming how Visa partners with clients to drive measurable customer and commercial outcomes. As part of Visa’s broader value-added services growth strategy, Marketing Services helps clients deepen customer relationships, acquire and activate new cardholders, increase usage, grow loyalty, and deliver more effective full-funnel marketing programs across the payment lifecycle.

This position reports to the Head of Marketing Services, North America and leads the Payments Lifecycle Marketing Strategy team. The Senior Director will work closely with client account executives, the North America Marketing Services leadership team, Visa Consulting & Analytics, Product, Insights & Analytics, Creative, Media, Sponsorships, Finance, Legal, Marketing Technology, and Delivery teams across Visa.

The Senior Director, Payment Lifecycle Marketing Strategy, North America will lead the Payments Lifecycle Marketing Strategy team and set the strategic direction for how Visa helps clients grow across the full cardholder and payment relationship journey. This leader will be responsible for building the frameworks, talent, advisory approach, and scalable solutions that enable clients to acquire new customers, onboard and activate accounts, stimulate usage, deepen engagement, improve retention, drive loyalty, and re-engage valuable segments.

This is a high-impact leadership role that requires equal parts payments expertise, client advisory, commercial discipline, people leadership, and operating-model development. The selected candidate will lead a team of senior lifecycle strategists who translate client growth priorities into integrated marketing strategies, measurement plans, audience approaches, campaign roadmaps, and repeatable service offerings. The role will partner closely with Sales, Visa Consulting & Analytics, Product, Insights & Analytics, Creative, Media, Sponsorships, Finance, Legal, and Delivery teams to ensure lifecycle strategy becomes a proactive growth engine for Marketing Services in North America.

Team Leadership Mandate

The Marketing Services Strategy team will serve as the strategic center of excellence for marketing strategy within North America Marketing Services. The team will be accountable for helping Visa move upstream with clients by defining the business challenge, developing the strategic roadmap, connecting Visa’s differentiated assets to client priorities, and enabling integrated execution across audiences, lifecycle, brand, experiential, sponsorship, and other strategic disciplines. The Senior Director will be expected to build the team’s operating model, develop consistent standards for strategic work, and ensure the function delivers measurable client outcomes while supporting Marketing Services revenue, margin, and retained-partnership goals.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

Lead the Marketing Services Strategy team, setting clear priorities, operating rhythms, quality standards, advisory expectations, and success metrics across audience/customer strategy, lifecycle marketing, brand marketing, experiential marketing, and sponsorship marketing strategy work in North America.

Define Visa’s North America Marketing Services strategy frameworks, strategic narratives, client discovery approaches, go-to-market approaches, and repeatable offerings that address client needs across brand building, audience engagement, customer lifecycle growth, live and hosted experiences, and sponsorship activation.

Build and manage a team of senior strategists across audience, lifecycle, brand, experiential, and sponsorship disciplines capable of diagnosing client business challenges, identifying growth opportunities, shaping strategic recommendations, and translating insights into practical marketing roadmaps.

Establish the strategic toolkit for engagements, including audience and customer frameworks, brand and positioning frameworks, customer journey and experience mapping, sponsorship and experiential planning approaches, message architecture, measurement strategies, and optimization playbooks.

Partner with Sales and MS BD teams to identify high-value strategy opportunities, lead strategic discovery, shape client proposals, support RFPs and executive pitches, and position Marketing Services as an advisory-led partner for priority clients.

Collaborate with Visa Consulting & Analytics, Product, Insights & Analytics, and Data teams to connect Visa’s proprietary insights, transaction intelligence, research, and measurement capabilities to strategy development and client recommendations.

Translate strategy into integrated solutions with MS Delivery partners, ensuring recommendations are actionable, measurable, commercially viable, and designed for execution at scale.

Commercialize marketing strategy capabilities by developing value propositions, pricing inputs, delivery models, sales enablement materials, case studies, packaged solutions, best-practice guidance, and training for the broader Marketing Services organization.

Drive a shift from reactive, project-based execution to proactive, strategy-led client partnerships that support retained engagements, multi-service programs, repeatable revenue, margin improvement, and long-term client growth.

Set standards for strategic excellence, ensuring client recommendations are insight-led, financially disciplined, operationally feasible, differentiated by Visa’s assets, and connected to measurable business outcomes.

Monitor market, consumer, technology, payments, and competitive trends to continuously evolve Visa’s point of view, offering roadmap, and advisory approach across core marketing strategy disciplines.

Prepare executive-ready updates, strategic recommendations, business cases, performance reporting, and thought leadership that demonstrate the value and impact of Marketing Services strategy for clients and Visa.

Recruit, coach, and develop high-performing strategy talent, fostering a culture of consultative leadership, collaboration, accountability, creativity, inclusion, and commercial impact.

This role is preferred to be based in San Francisco, CA or Atlanta, GA. This is a hybrid position; employees in hybrid roles are expected to work from the office on designated in-office days and as required by business needs.

Requirements

• Basic Qualifications
• 12 or more years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor’s degree, or at least 10 years of relevant work experience with an Advanced degree, or a minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience with a PhD.
• Experience leading marketing strategy, audience/customer strategy, lifecycle marketing, brand marketing, experiential marketing, sponsorship marketing, customer engagement, consulting, financial services marketing, payments marketing, or related commercial marketing disciplines.
• Demonstrated experience developing and presenting strategic recommendations to senior-level internal and external stakeholders.
• Proven ability to operate in complex, matrixed organizations and lead cross-functional teams toward shared outcomes.
• Preferred Qualifications
• 15 or more years of relevant experience with a Bachelor’s degree, or 12 or more years of experience with an Advanced degree.
• Significant experience leading strategy teams, advisory practices, or marketing functions focused on customer and commercial growth.
• Deep understanding of the payments ecosystem, including issuer, co-brand, fintech, processor, merchant, and consumer payment dynamics.
• Strong expertise in one or more core marketing strategy disciplines, with the ability to lead integrated strategies across audience/customer strategy, lifecycle marketing, brand marketing, experiential marketing, and sponsorship marketing.
• Experience building integrated marketing frameworks, audience and customer strategies, brand strategies, customer journey strategies, experiential and sponsorship planning approaches, messaging architectures, measurement frameworks, and optimization roadmaps.
• Experience designing data-driven marketing programs using audience insights, behavioral signals, personalization, experimentation, marketing technology, campaign analytics, and ROI measurement.
• Commercial orientation with a proven track record of building, selling, scaling, or managing revenue-generating marketing solutions, advisory services, packaged offerings, or client-facing capabilities.
• Strong financial acumen, including experience with business cases, pricing inputs, margin management, pipeline management, forecasting, annual planning, or P&L accountability.
• Exceptional executive communication, storytelling, facilitation, and presentation skills, with the ability to simplify complex concepts and influence senior decision makers.
• Experience working with creative, media, analytics, marketing technology, agency, consulting, product, legal, finance, and delivery teams to bring integrated marketing programs to market.
• Ability to innovate in ambiguous or white-space environments, turning emerging needs into structured offerings, playbooks, operating models, and measurable business impact.
• Proven people leadership experience, including the ability to set a vision, build capability, coach senior talent, manage capacity, and create a high-performing team culture.
• Key Competencies
• Strategic leadership and structured problem solving
• Broad marketing strategy expertise across audience/customer, lifecycle, brand, experiential, and sponsorship disciplines
• Team leadership, coaching, and capability building
• Client advisory, consultative selling, and executive influence
• Commercial and financial acumen
• Data-driven decision making, measurement discipline, and optimization mindset
• Executive presence, storytelling, and facilitation
• Cross-functional leadership, operating-model design, and stakeholder alignment
• Innovation, adaptability, and bias for action
• Reporting Structure
• This position reports to the Head of Marketing Services, North America and leads the Marketing Services Strategy team. The Senior Director will work closely with client account executives, the North America Marketing Services leadership team, Visa Consulting & Analytics, Product, Insights & Analytics, Creative, Media, Sponsorships, Finance, Legal, Marketing Technology, and Delivery teams across Visa.

Conditions

This role is preferred to be based in San Francisco, CA or Atlanta, GA. This is a hybrid position; employees in hybrid roles are expected to work from the office on designated in-office days and as required by business needs. This position requires travel approximately 5–10% of the time, based on client and business requirements.

Additional Information

Work hours vary upon the needs of the department. This position will be performed in an office setting and will require the incumbent to sit and stand at a desk, communicate in person and by telephone, frequently operate standard office equipment such as computers and phones, and collaborate across time zones as needed.

Information for US Applicants

For roles located in the US, the estimated salary range for this position is $176,500 to $332,300 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.

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