Senior Director, Marketing Strategy & Innovation, Travel Experiences

Visa•San Francisco, CA

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Director of Travel Experiences Marketing is primarily responsible for driving consumer usage and payment volume growth for our business units, products, and markets that seek to build relevance and preference among international travelers. A deep expert-level understanding of the travel and hospitality industry, consumer trends and insights, the client and product landscape is critical to success, as well as an ability to then turn that perspective into effective and innovative marketing strategies for our global business units and markets around the world. Importantly, this position will lead the Center of Excellence tasked with driving innovation, subject matter expertise, and market enablement. This Marketing Leader and her/his team will work with executives, key global business stakeholders and regional brand and client teams to successfully bring to life – and evolve over time – the travel proposition for Visa. The position reports to the Vice President, Global Brand Marketing – Consumer Products and will be based in Visa’s San Francisco, California office.

Requirements

12 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 10 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters/MBA /JD/MD), or a minimum of 5 years of work experience with a PhD

Nice To Haves

15 or more years of experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, or MD), PhD with 9+ years of experience
Thought leader of effective creative, brand development, and multichannel marketing campaigns, with a focus on international travelers, as a subject matter expert.
Deep agency-side or client-side experience working with or at global brands focus on the international travel segments, such as OTAs, airlines, or hospitality companies, and having held a combination of global, regional or local market positions.
Experience working and living in multiple countries as well as managing teams across geographies to have an informed market-first view to global marketing.
Excellent people leader with proven ability to manage teams, the work, and influence outcomes in highly matrixed organizations with multiple stakeholders.
Role models and influences aspirational behaviors of leading courageously, obsessing about customers, collaborating as one Visa, and executing with excellence.
Strong executive presence with highly effective written and verbal communication skills including the ability to present with impact.
Strong planning, organizational and problem-solving skills.
Resourcefulness with strong sense of accountability and results-oriented drive.
Ability to initiate and drive opportunities independently across multiple complex projects that have strategic implications for the brand and company, while operating in an environment that changes quickly.

Responsibilities

Establish global marketing strategies based on consumer and product insights enabling markets and regions to meet key business performance measures
Define and manage strategy across high-value traveler segments, shaping consumer demand, guiding the end-to-end traveler journey, and accelerating innovation.
Develop and oversee consumer demand architecture across full b2b2c approach and ensure Visa’s travel corridors are activated efficiently and effectively to meet business unit results.
Lead ongoing alignment of Marketing function behind the cross-border business strategies and infuse the positioning in all activities, achieved through equipping the function with relevant platforms, insights, investment planning, and resources to support commitment and clarity across marketing and business units.
Oversee global campaign strategy for cross border creative as well as when infused into marquee sponsorships (FIFA, OLY, F1) and branded globally-led events (Visa Live).
Partner with the Insights and Analytics team to ensure measurement plans are aligned to business outcomes, and support markets on achieving those outcomes.
Provide functional thought leadership to Global CMO, Global Head of Brand, and Marketing Leadership team on topics related to International Travel.
Innovate the Visa brand by anticipating traveler trends and applying insights to actionable strategies that improve brand preference for this segment
Lead innovation sprints across AI experiences, partner platforms, benefits‑led propositions to expand differentiation in the modern travel ecosystem.
Manage new corridor activation strategy in sender and receiver markets with Regions.
Evaluate and build new global channel strategy to determine new central optimization of media planning and buying and partner with partnership team to establish Creator Talent Strategy.
Gather market intelligence as a subject matter expert on the traveler segments (who they are, how they buy, market fit and gaps, etc.) and then distribute intel across key stakeholders for effective go-to-market plans.
Oversee and optimize ‘Visa Destination’ marketing strategy and GTM approach and scale the program globally — transforming travel hubs into high value ecosystems that drive preference, benefits engagement, partner value, and cross border spend – delivering for both XB and Affluent Benefits teams
Develop and deploy city marketing playbooks, content, offers, benefits, and experiences to enable regional and market teams
Ensure enterprise activates full travel proposition throughout the ecosystem opportunity
Identify cross-portfolio integration (audience first approach) and ensure multi-channel and or cross-regional approach to cross border and affluent marketing.
Assess regionally led deals (e.g., sponsorships) to deploy more effective non-host market advertising of ‘sending markets’ and lift preference and usage of Visa – includes cross border specific marketing strategy for Visa owned properties, such as Visa Live.
Partner with B2B team to drive growth by activating the premium and travel ecosystem through issuers, merchants, OTA platforms, and regional product marketing teams
Work cross functionally to build new merchant marketing alliances (hospitality, luxury retail, attractions, wellness, dining) to support value prop enhancements.
At request of the business, drive marketing programs through new partnerships with OTA/travel platform joint propositions.
Lead team of marketers overseeing team vision, project delivery, and talent growth and development to consistently meet or exceed Brand and Segment Goals
Partner with agency roster to build best-in-class work and manage associated budgets on quarterly and annual basis.