Director, Payment Platform Strategy

Visa•Foster City, CA

6d•$203,800 - $326,100•Onsite

About The Position

The Director, Payment Platform Strategy is a senior individual contributor responsible for setting and driving strategy across Visa’s domestic and regional processing portfolio. The role owns Visa’s localization and sovereignty strategy, defining platform offerings across VisaNet and OVN in partnership with regional, market, and corporate strategy teams. The Director provides strategic oversight of domestic and regional demand, including priorities, capacity, work in flight, and backlog. In partnership with product and technology leaders, the role helps shape prioritization and provides regional teams with timely, transparent guidance on whether requests can be accommodated and when. This hands-on position connects strategy to execution. It partners with product delivery, release management, VisaNet, OVN, and regional teams to improve intake and handoffs, speed decision-making, expand adoption of the agentic toolchain, and identify opportunities for reuse and standardization. The role also builds cross-functional alignment and provides leadership with clear views of demand, roadmap priorities, capacity constraints, and investment tradeoffs. The position requires at least three days in the office; the specific expectations will be confirmed by the Hiring Manager. Work hours vary according to department needs, and the position requires travel 5–10% of the time. The work is performed in an office setting and involves sitting and standing at a desk, in-person and telephone communication, and frequent use of standard office equipment such as telephones and computers.

Requirements

At least 10 years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree, or at least 8 years with an Advanced Degree (e.g., Master’s, MBA, JD, or MD), or at least 3 years with a PhD.
Deep familiarity with payment systems, including card networks, ACH, or real-time payments.
Track record shaping strategy or roadmaps for platform products used by multiple internal and external stakeholders across regions.
Experience working across two or more platforms or product lines to build a shared roadmap and manage dependencies.
Ability to translate technical concepts into clear choices and recommendations for senior stakeholders.
Strong analytical skills and ability to turn client, market, and technology inputs into clear prioritization recommendations.
Track record bringing structure to complex cross-functional decision-making involving multiple stakeholders, competing priorities, and platform dependencies.
Direct, plainspoken written and verbal communication skills and ability to influence without direct authority.
Ability to operate in ambiguous, cross-functional, global environments.
Ability to build trust, exercise sound judgment, facilitate decisions, and communicate complex platform topics clearly to senior audiences.

Nice To Haves

12 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree, or 8–10 years with an Advanced Degree (e.g., Master’s, MBA, JD, or MD), or 6 or more years with a PhD.
Direct VisaNet or comparable network platform experience.
Interest in and familiarity with the future of payments, platform modernization, localization, sovereignty, emerging technologies, and the impact of emerging payment models on Visa’s platform strategy.

Responsibilities

Own and evolve Visa’s strategy for domestic processing, localization, and sovereignty across the platform portfolio.
Partner with regional, market, and corporate strategy teams to define platform offerings, deployment models, and operating approaches that address evolving market and sovereignty requirements.
Recommend how market needs should be addressed across global VisaNet capabilities, localized deployments, OVN-based solutions, and sovereign platform models.
Identify reusable capabilities and common platform patterns that reduce dependence on market-specific solutions and accelerate future deployments.
Own the strategic relationship between VisaNet and OVN for domestic and regional processing initiatives.
Align VisaNet and OVN roadmaps, modernization plans, and client migration approaches into a coherent long-term platform strategy.
Evaluate where capabilities should converge or remain distinct, and identify strategic gaps, dependencies, and investment needs.
Assess how regional, localization, and sovereignty requirements should be addressed across VisaNet and OVN and help define suitable platform approaches for different market needs.
Maintain a consolidated view of regional demand, work in flight, backlog, and investment priorities.
Lead monthly regional reviews and communicate roadmap priorities, delivery expectations, and tradeoffs.
Identify opportunities for platform reuse and common solutions across markets while highlighting areas requiring unique local treatment.
Partner with product and technology leaders on prioritization decisions and capacity tradeoffs.
Provide stakeholders with timely, transparent guidance on request disposition and expected delivery timing.
Improve intake quality, handoffs, and decision-making processes.
Ensure domestic, regional, and sovereign market needs are represented in platform strategy, roadmap discussions, and modernization planning.
Build trusted relationships across product, technology, strategy, risk, compliance, release management, delivery, and regional teams.
Bring VisaNet, OVN, regional, product, and technology stakeholders together to resolve cross-platform dependencies, communicate decisions, and align on strategic priorities.
Develop executive-ready views of regional demand, roadmap priorities, capacity constraints, and investment tradeoffs.
Promote adoption of agentic ways of working to improve visibility, coordination, and decision speed.