Director, Strategy & Commercial Operations

Role Purpose 
Visa Commercial Solutions (VCS) is a global organisation and its goal is to ensure Visa is the best way for businesses to pay.  We help businesses succeed by providing innovative and secure B2B payment solutions. Commercial payments are an untapped market with low card penetration but huge potential. The Commercial payments landscape is evolving rapidly and getting increasingly sophisticated so for us to expand our Commercial footprint, VCS needs to solve industry issues not necessarily core to payments, develop acceptance solutions and partner with key players across the payments and technology ecosystem.
The Director of Strategy is accountable for the development and direction of the functional strategy, the target setting and aggregate view of the sales pipeline across the region to ensure the B2B Travel and VCS EU teams meet or exceed their financials (i.e., PV, Net Revenue, YoY growth and Opex targets) and scorecard goals. This is a Director level role reporting into the Head of Strategy and Commercial Operations for Visa Commercial Solutions in Europe. The position is responsible for evolving the functional strategy to address new strategic issues and opportunities and for building strong commercial capabilities that will significantly grow the VCS business and drive revenue growth and diversification. Further responsibilities include key functional governance, and the application of performance insights to orchestrate delivery of the strategy.

Responsibilities

Strategy

• Leads and directs the European VCS strategy at functional level as appropriate, through a cohesive, integrated data-led approach for the short/mid/long-term to drive sustained revenue growth, client retention, regulatory engagement, and Visa industry leadership.
• Partners with key stakeholders across the VCS organisation and beyond to identify expansion opportunities and GTM execution plans across both VCS EU and Global B2B Travel
• Works in partnership with the Global VCS, and regional Corporate Strategy, Corporate Development, Marketing and Communications teams to build strategic frameworks and content to influence, align with, and adapt functional/divisional strategies and acquisition opportunities.
• Collaborates with Commercial/Business Development Teams and other key Stakeholders on the strategic components for individual Client RFP responses
• Coordinating inputs for functional business planning cycle linking Multi-year Strategic Outlook (MSO) to Annual Operating Plan (AOP) to Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR). This includes ensuring the Visa Commercial Solutions (VCS) strategy and Go-To-Market (GTM) plans are fully integrated.
• Leads on development and direction of strategic projects that are of high strategic impact to business (i.e., market acceleration, GTM initiatives and training, required to bring VCS capabilities together in one narrative, and other fundamental supporting sales tools). Partners with global and regional hub and cluster team to deep dive into specific opportunities.

Sales and Revenue  Operations

• Owns Sales 2.0 (and ongoing iterations) to embed Visa’s new global sales approach including: customer segmentation, role profiles and incentive plans
• Proactively manages sales pipeline for function. This includes creating view of all opportunities, assessing mix of client pipeline as part of pipeline health, creating calendar of incoming RFPs (across wins and losses), identifying must win opportunities and tracking view of 3-5 game changing deals.
• Fosters a strong sales and performance mindset and culture across the function.  
• Devise and deliver sales enablement training and tools to clusters, other functions, and AEs with support of sales excellence, e.g., training content, survey regional needs.
• Captures and prioritizes client feedback to inform strategy and commercial priorities.
• Acts as the lead point of contact with the Sales Excellence team for VCS sales related queries and analysis.

Governance

• Responsible for defining and implementing key functional governance and business operating rhythm e.g., functional leadership meetings, client councils and sales pipeline reviews.
• Lead and input on priority Global projects/activities. This includes weekly executive reporting, Global MBR/QBR input, AMK/RMK content and employee engagement surveys.
• Owns content for the Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR) and may assist in the creation of content for Monthly Business Reviews (MBR)

Function operations

• Be responsible for key functional operational activities e.g., development of content for executive visits.
• Consulted on quality of workforce data (by Workforce Planning Lead) to identify data gaps and issues.
• Identify opportunities to drive process improvement/efficiency across business area.

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.

• Previous experience in either Consulting, Corporate Strategy and/or Proposition Development
• Proven experience developing strategy, commercial business cases, financial models and reporting to a senior executive audience
• Commercial growth mindset, with demonstrated experience in driving strategic initiatives to that have a direct P&L impact
• Proactive with a self-starter / can-do attitude, with ability to form strong working relationships with all levels of the organisation
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills to be able to “connect the dots” and approach issue resolution with a “forward-looking” view to anticipate and address problems
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including excellent written, oral, listening, and presentational
• Ability to work well under pressure and influence at all levels as a thought-partner
• Knowledge and experience of the payments business and/or financial services
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, complex and dynamic environment with significant change, ambiguity and adapting to evolving organisational requirements
• Fluent in English

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.