Senior Vice President, Head of North America Marketing

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.

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Over its 66-year history, Visa has become a global leader in the payments industry and has built one of the most valuable and trusted brands in the world.  Visa has more than 4 billion payment credentials in the marketplace, processes over 15 trillion dollar of transaction annually, across more than 200 countries.  As the payments category continues to evolve at an accelerating rate and as consumers’ expectations and engagement with brands have shifted dramatically over the past 10 years, Visa has remained committed to its goal of being the best way to pay and be paid across the world.  Our Marketing team plays a critical role in continues to lead through innovative and progressive thinking.

The SVP, Head of North America Marketing serves as one of the most critical leaders in helping Visa to continue to thrive in the new payments ecosystem.  The SVP should be adept at both the art and science of marketing – leveraging data for deep understanding of the markets and to generate insights, while having the ability to tell stories that inspire people to action. Understanding the key elements of the payments category, while identifying the intersection of such commerce with culture.  This leader should have experience and a deep understanding of how social media and digital technology serve as a primary source for driving business growth through marketing activities.

Visa’s business encompasses B2B, B2C and B2B2C.  The ideal candidate for this role would have experience, skills and capabilities across B2C and B2B marketing. This would include regional campaigns targeted directly to consumers and/or clients, lead generation and management, marketing services (i.e., selling our marketing capabilities and advisory services to banks and merchants), as well as brand marketing.

As the SVP, Head of North America Marketing, this leader will be a strategic partner to the President of North America, the Global CMO and peers within the Marketing department.  Beyond any specific marketing campaign or initiative, the SVP should have the ability to think holistically about the marketplace and provide insight into how marketing (in the broadest sense of understanding consumers or customers and the markets in which the transact) can help drive profitable growth for the North America business. We expect this leader to participate in the overarching strategy of the North America team as well as driving innovation in marketing that inspires new behaviors and best practices for the broader marketing team. 

Visa has a complex, highly-matrixed organizational design.  The ideal leader should thrive working in a fast-paced, globally distributed team and are able to liaise with stakeholders across multiple businesses, products and geographies to get things done.  Moreover, this leader should be highly-collaborative, but also possesses the skill to influence and persuade others who may not be in his or her direct reporting line.

Key responsibilities:

• Lead and develop the North America marketing team into a high performance, best in class organization that exemplifies marketing innovation, strong leadership and first-class execution.
• Establish Visa as a best-in-class marketing company in the region as measured by key performance outcomes.
• Play an active role on both the Global Marketing & Communications Leadership Team and the North America Regional Leadership Team. Function as strategic partner to guide North America Regional Leadership on regional objectives.
• Develop marketing strategies and executional plans that drive agreed outcomes against B2C, B2B and B2B2C audiences, including both performance-based and brand-based activities.
• Develop strong partnerships with key cross-functional partner groups such as Product, Innovation & Strategic Partnerships, and Client Management to drive Visa’s regional strategic agenda.
• Establish, implement and track innovative, creative, aggressive, highly competitive, proactive and reactive, short and long-range marketing plans, strategies and tactics in support of the regions goals.
• Understand Visa’s extensive range of products and solutions and how to position them in the NA market. Lead teams to use predictive analytics and marketing metrics to drive and measure business growth and make adjustments accordingly.
• Continually monitor and shape industry dynamics, trends, and policies, with an emphasis on understanding on how the emerging demographic processes behaviors.
• Understand how to translate larger marketing strategies into smaller, yet equally impactful and attractive campaigns to reach a larger audience.
• Manage a significant marketing budget and work with regional leadership and business heads to ensure that they are aware of how resources are allocated to help them achieve their objectives.
• Manage a regionally and culturally dispersed team that overcomes the barriers that lack of physical presence often creates to work efficiently together.
• Develop the team into a high performance, best in class organization that exemplifies marketing innovation, strong leadership and first-class execution.

Leadership and Personal Attributes:

• Results Orientation: A successful leader will have demonstrated a track record of creating, developing and executing outstanding and innovative strategies and tactics. They will have a mindset and experience focused on outcomes versus activities, driving significant results across key measures of business growth, profitability, and significant movement of the business. They lead by example and are adept at balancing the strategic needs and commercial realities of the business.
• Team orientation: The ideal candidate is an empathetic leader who will have shown ability to balance team and individual responsibilities, exhibits objectivity and openness to others' views, gives and welcomes feedback, challenges their team to think creatively and imagine different possibilities, and contributes to building a positive team spirit. Their leadership ambitions center around elevating their team and helping them grow to reach their highest potential. They are able to build morale, drive group commitments to goals and objectives, and supports others’ efforts to succeed. As such, they will have developed and led teams (ideally both domestically and internationally) and implemented organization structures at scale. They possess strong interpersonal leadership skills.
• Collaboration and Influencing: A successful candidate will be a natural team player with strong influencing and interpersonal communication skills. A resourceful developer of relationships who enhances overall credibility. They should have proven ability to understand and effectively leverage the organization to accomplish regional and global business goals. The ideal candidate thrives in a matrixed environment and welcomes cross-collaboration across different teams and across organizations within the business.
• Strategic Orientation: The ideal candidate must be a strong strategic leader, with the ability to create a vision and lead the implementation of forward-thinking strategic plans. This executive must have a passion for innovation and be unafraid to find and establish new frontiers of understanding and business development.
• Communication Skills and Executive Presence: This leader will have a natural ability to articulate and communicate observations, vision and tactical and strategic ideas with compelling rationale for decision making. They will have the gravitas and presence to interact with the highest levels of Visa leadership, as well as to collaborate with senior partners in the bank partner’s organizations. They will also have a reputation for seeking information and insight from others within and outside the company, and to secure commitment and buy-in from multiple parts of an organization. The ideal candidate can work effectively across different personalities and can bridge the gaps between the business mentalities and cultures.

This is a hybrid position. Hybrid employees can alternate time between both remote and office. Employees in hybrid roles are expected to work from the office 2-3 set days a week (determined by leadership/site), with a general guidepost of being in the office 50% or more of the time based on business needs.

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

Preferred Qualifications
• 18 or more years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD, PhD)
• 15 or more years of experience in professional B2B and B2C marketing experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD, PhD)
• World-class marketing and business leadership experience in multiple geographies is required (expertise in North America is preferred)
• Possesses knowledge of experiential, social, digital, and various new forms of content creation
• Deep understanding of social media platforms and comfort in utilizing them as part of marketing strategies
• Experience leading cross-functional teams, achieving goals on-time and on-budget
• Proven track record for cultivating strong relationships with key internal and external partners that have resulted in high customer satisfaction
• Proven capability of balancing strategic, creative, and commercial perspectives
• Demonstrated ability to define and successfully deliver complex projects with superior results—from business case development through deployment
• Ability to deal with ambiguous problems and build solutions with proper project management
• Ability to influence multiple stakeholders, manage agencies, creativity and corporate teams, and lead cross-functional projects across category or other departments
• Ability to manage multiple simultaneous projects requiring frequent communication, organization/time management and problem-solving skills

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 300,000 to 450,000 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.