Senior Manager Innovation Consulting

Company Description

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

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!  

Essential Functions:

• 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.  

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

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:

• 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

Preferred Qualifications:

• 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
• 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) 
• 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 

Additional Information

Work Hours: Varies upon the needs of the department.

Travel Requirements: This position requires travel 5-10% of the time.

Mental/Physical Requirements: This position will be performed in an office setting.  The position will require the incumbent to sit and stand at a desk, communicate in person and by telephone, frequently operate standard office equipment, such as telephones and computers.

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.

Visa will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable local law, including the requirements of Article 49 of the San Francisco Police Code.

U.S. APPLICANTS ONLY: The estimated salary range for this position is 143,700 to 270,800 USD per year, which may include potential sales incentive payments (if applicable). Salary may vary depending on job-related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, and location. In addition, this position may be eligible for bonus and equity. Visa has a comprehensive benefits package for which this position may be eligible that includes Medical, Dental, Vision, 401 (k), FSA/HSA, Life Insurance, Paid Time Off, and Wellness Program.