Director - Project Management

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.

Team Summary

Client Services provides industry-leading operational support to Visa’s clients around the world. With our deep knowledge and expertise, we bring the voice of the customer into the design, development and successful deployment of Visa products and services. We are trusted partners to Visa’s clients, providing expertise to support and successfully grow their business.

Job Description

Director leads a talented team of professional services organization including Consultant and Analysts level Project Managers responsible for endpoint refresh and infrastructure mandates implementation services provided to Clients (Banks). The role oversees specialists who coordinate Visa technical resources and work with Global network provisioning teams to implement necessary changes to Visa endpoints and network connections for Clients.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and motivate an organizational team of professionals and managers that provide an Infrastructure refresh and mandates project management support to Visa client institutions and processors in assigned region to ensure customer expectations are met and exceeded.

• Provide technical leadership for all client project implementation activities of infrastructure refresh and mandates requests with zero or minimal client impact.

• Provide functional responsibility for leading CEMEA Infrastructure Implementation Services team to increase knowledge sharing and learnings to enable consistent interaction with clients.

• Be a thought leader within the organization for how best to implement new Visa connectivity, products/services within Visa’s proprietary systems, relied upon by the Product and Technology organizations.

• Achieve operational objectives through recommendations to strategic plans and reviews including tracking progress of refresh initiatives, preparing and completing action plans, implementing productivity, quality, and customer-service standards, identifying trends, and resolving problems. 

• Act as an escalation point for the team and serve as a liaison between senior management and the team.

• Establish department strategy in line with broader corporate and customer service objectives and goals.

• Build a strong and cohesive team by providing leadership to direct reports through coaching, setting strategic direction and applying working knowledge of Visa products, systems and procedures.

• Manage all staff issues, including staffing selection, training, goal setting, coaching, annual reviews, compensation planning, and career development.

• Utilize customer service metrics to identify opportunities for continuous improvement.

• Develop, motivate, and challenge individuals and teams.

• Provide leadership for complex cross-regional or cross-functional customer service projects and work towards achieving client and key stakeholder acceptance of deliverables.

• Build relationships with regional and global technology teams to identify support or implementation gaps of infrastructure mandates to create strategies to add value and resolve known issues.

• Stay current with industry and client trends and maintain a strong knowledge of Visa network related rules and requirements.

• Overall planning, directing and oversight responsibility of multiple projects, products and services or functions typically requiring the utilization or management of resources across multiple departments or functional areas.

• Lead by example and hold direct reports accountable for their development by utilizing the Visa Leadership Principles and Rewards and Recognition programs inclusive of Annual Review.

• Provide project management support to Visa clients and processors to ensure client expectations are exceeded.

• Manage non-routine, complex processing requests, as well as tactical and strategic customer initiatives.

• This position requires off scheduled work including late evenings / weekends in support of client and company configuration changes and associated post-production validation.

Why this is important to Visa

• The Director is responsible for providing project implementation leadership, oversight, and direction for implementations team. The role requires a keen insight into Visa-client connectivity and product offerings, best practices, and calls for deep collaboration and partnership with business leadership across Client Services, Technology, Sales, Product and other internal stakeholders.

Projects that you will be a part of

• Leadership of the Client Implementations unit responsible for managing a team of professionals comprising of Senior Project Managers and Project Managers delivering implementation of new Visa endpoint connectivity, products and services for Visa Client, Strategic Partners and Processors.

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

Basic Qualifications
•Minimum of 12 years of success in progressive leadership roles in client facing roles ideally in the Payments industry
•Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or equivalent work experience in a project management or role in software or financial services. Advanced degree (e.g. Masters/MBA/PhD) preferred.
•Proven track record of leading and driving a team of technical and/or professional services to achieve and exceed established goals and objectives
•Demonstrated strategic ability to solve complex global cross-functional issues exercising critical thinking and sound judgment and to lead cross functional teams through high impact complex business issues that do not have precedent
•Experience shaping and delivering professional services delivery strategy
•Ability to influence and negotiate in order to drive results, using analytics to measure performance against key initiatives
•Demonstrated ability to build and maintain strong business relationships with internal and external stakeholders at senior and executive management levels
•Functional experience in bankcard technology and project management, supporting highly complex clients and/or services
•Solid working knowledge of Visa’s payment systems including authorization & clearing systems, client connectivity, and settlement services
•In-depth knowledge of payments network and processing services
•In-depth knowledge of Client business drivers for their operations and processing businesses
•Proven record of accomplishment in leading and driving teams to achieve and exceed established goals and objectives
•Experience shaping and delivering professional services delivery strategy
•Candidate is required to interact with internal stakeholders in US / India / Singapore, hence the ability to speak/write English fluently is a must
•Candidate is required to interact with client stakeholders in Russia and South Africa, hence the ability to speak/write Russian and French fluently is an added advantage
•Project management of retail banking, card schemes or new technologies that are applicable to the payment industry

Preferred Qualifications
•Excellent time management, organization and planning skills a must
•Strong leadership skills, influencing and negotiating skills, highly effective communicator
•Demonstrated Influencing and negotiation skills, managing client expectations and multi-task under tight deadlines

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.