Senior Strategy Manager, Product and Digital Design

Visa•Ashburn, VA

13d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Strategy Manager - Product Experience, Design +Digital (PxDD) will be part of the team that is transforming our product development and design process into one that leverages human centered design practices with a focus on actively engaging clients in product development and co-creation. The Strategy Manager will be part of “design thinking” engagements that include ideation, iteration and testing. The engagements will be both onsite with internal product teams and offsite at client sites. The position is located in the San Francisco and will focus on North American products and clients. This role will also contribute to driving much of Visa’s new product roadmap through applied exploration and development. This role reports to the Director, PxDD. The successful candidate will ideally have experience in FinTech/Payments and design thinking and will be responsible for supporting projects based on human centered design methods and working across functions (e.g. design, technology, products, etc.). The role requires the person to be comfortable with ambiguity, developing solutions that begin with the customer and rapid iterations of prototypes to deliver customer experiences that are simple, powerful, and exceptional. The role also requires the person to be comfortable and charismatic in front of clients. In addition, they will need to play a critical role in project management and strategy for the full lifecycle of product development - from ideation and working through to pilot processes which may require them to wear many hats (e.g., customer support, operations, reporting, etc.) They will bring prior experience in hands-on development of solutions, UI and prototypes, and a close knowledge of developments in consumer and payment related technology. They is creative and hands-on, has a bias for action and is able to inspire others with their vision. Lastly, the person should be a “SWAN” – someone who is smart, works-hard ambitious, and is nice!

Requirements

8 or more years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor Degree or at least 5 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or 2 years of work experience with a PhD
Must have a mindset that embraces creativity, optimism, ambiguity and failing-fast
Proven ability to work on complex and often ambiguous problems, to drive results
Analytical thinker, team oriented, collaborative, diplomatic, and flexible, with excellent presentation skills, including strong oral and writing capabilities
Must have a client-first mentality and demonstrate maturity when interacting and leading client workshops
Excellent project management skills, organization, and ability to manage multiple workstreams at the same time
Comfortable interacting, interviewing and iterating with people through exploration of new concept, prototyping (low and high) and testing
Experience in a data driven and/or business strategy role (eg consulting/investment banking)

Nice To Haves

9 or more years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor Degree or 7 or more relevant years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or 3 or more years of experience with a PhD
Experience in digital product development and management a plus. Specifically, experience in mobile, web and IoT application development and experience design
Experience in payments or FinTech a plus
Experience with design thinking/human-centered design methodologies
Experience and knowledge of Agile (Scrum) project methodology and practices a plus

Responsibilities

Manage work streams within integrated teams of Product, Design, and Engineering in the development of new products, using a digital-first mindset and the contemporary product management techniques of digital native companies (e.g., minimum viable product, rapid development, A/B testing and iteration)
Demonstrate in-depth knowledge of Visa’s capabilities and be able to apply them to clients’ business problems in order to actively engage with clients to co-develop meaningful solutions to address their business challenges.
Design, lead, and facilitate client workshops then synthesize insights into defensible visions, frameworks, and concepts using human-centered design and lean start-up processes.
Rapidly convert ideas into working prototypes, mashing together solutions/capabilities that exist within Visa or externally
Use business as a lens to inspire fellow designers about new possibilities by sharing innovative business models and product offerings with your teams.
Energize and improve the status quo using creativity and intelligent, calculated risks to deliver new products and processes that surpass clients’ expectations, demonstrating new methods, capabilities, and mindsets.
Work closely with internal and external product and partner teams to ensure alignment on goals/scope, plan critical path and operational risks, and ensure transparent communication
Drive coordination with core product teams to enable commercialization
Develop processes to support pilot programs including articulating the objective of the test, identifying and implementing operational support, defining and implementing reporting needs and tracking/reporting/summarizing results
Articulate the possibility, viability and feasibility of product recommendations
Create business cases and models using Visa data and external research to support the development of new products, services, solutions, and features
Conduct in-depth market testing using various qualitative and quantitative research methods
Complete large research projects to develop Visa’s point-of-view for the future of specific segments and technologies and turning them into “set plays” of repeatable processes Visa can utilize with clients
Conduct and lead client engagements with stakeholder managers representing Visa and our innovation Point-of-View to clients, industry leaders, and internal product managers.