Director, CMS - Strategy & Commercial Operations –

About Us
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.

Job Description

Role Purpose
Visa Direct is a key growth engine for Visa, enabling real-time payments to consumers, businesses, and governments globally. The European market represents a significant opportunity, driven by evolving client needs, new payment flows, and increasing demand for faster, more flexible payment solutions.

The Director,

Visa Direct Europe is accountable for shaping and driving the regional strategy and supporting commercial execution to accelerate growth across the Visa Direct business. This includes setting the strategic direction, driving the sales pipeline agenda, enabling go-to-market execution, and supporting delivery against financial targets (e.g., revenue, volume, pipeline health).

This is a Director-level role reporting into the Head of Strategy and Commercial Operations, CMS Europe. The role acts as a key thought partner to regional and cluster leadership, with responsibility for translating strategy into execution and building the commercial frameworks required to scale the Visa Direct business across Europe.

What we expect of you, day to day.

Strategy

• Lead the development and evolution of the Visa Direct Europe strategy, leveraging a data-driven approach to drive sustained revenue growth, client expansion, and market leadership

• Partner with regional and cluster stakeholders to identify priority growth opportunities, segments, and use cases, and translate these into actionable go-to-market plans

• Collaborate with Global Visa Direct, Corporate Strategy, and other functional teams to align regional strategy with global priorities and adapt to local market dynamics

• Support strategic input into key client engagements, including RFPs and complex deal structuring

• Coordinate inputs across the business planning cycle, linking Multi-year Strategic Outlook (MSO), Annual Operating Plan (AOP), and Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR)

• Lead high-impact strategic initiatives (e.g., market acceleration programs, new use case development, ecosystem partnerships) to unlock incremental growth

Commercial

• Collaborate on driving the Visa Direct sales pipeline across Europe in close partnership with Sales and Commercial teams, ensuring a clear view of opportunities, pipeline health, and conversion dynamics

• Identify and track strategic “must-win” opportunities and large, transformational deals that will drive step-change growth

• Embed a strong commercial and performance mindset, supporting Sales 2.0 principles including segmentation, coverage, and incentive alignment

• Partner with Sales, Product, and functional teams to support effective go-to-market execution through tools, frameworks, and insights

• Contribute to sales enablement initiatives, including development of playbooks, training materials, and performance tracking

• Capture client and market feedback to continuously inform strategy and commercial priorities

Strategic Operations & Executive Reporting

• Collaborate with the SCO team on the operating rhythm for the Visa Direct business in Europe, including leadership forums and pipeline reviews

• Own content and insights for executive reporting, including Monthly and Quarterly Business Reviews (MBR/QBR)

• Lead regional input into global reporting and governance processes, ensuring alignment and consistency

• Support senior leadership engagements, including preparation of executive materials and participation in key forums

Collaboration across Function

• Work closely with the broader SCO team and operational leads to ensure alignment between strategy, commercial priorities, and execution

• Provide strategic input into operational activities such as performance tracking, business insights, and executive materials where relevant

• Contribute to cross-functional initiatives aimed at improving ways of working, scalability, and consistency across the business

• Act as a connector across functions (Sales, Product, Finance, Strategy) to support coordinated delivery of strategic priorities

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

Qualifications

• Significant experience in strategy, consulting, commercial operations, or business development, preferably within payments or financial services
• Proven ability to develop and execute strategy with direct impact on revenue growth and business performance
• Strong commercial acumen, with experience managing sales pipelines, business cases, and performance metrics
• Demonstrated ability to operate as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders and influence across functions and geographies
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with ability to synthesize complex information and translate into clear actions
• Strong communication and presentation skills, with experience engaging senior executive audiences
• Proactive, self-starter mindset with ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, dynamic, and evolving environment
• Foster a strong team culture built on collaboration, trust, and positive energy, inspiring high performance and engagement across the organisation
• Experience in the payments ecosystem and knowledge of push payments / real-time payments is a strong advantage
• 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.