Visa—Senior Director, Head of Specialist & Consulting Delivery VCA-X

Job description

Description: 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 Team Summary Visa Consulting and Analytics (VCA) is the consulting arm of Visa, and drives tangible, impactful results for clients. Drawing on our expertise in consulting, data analytics, technology, payments and economics, VCA solves the most strategic problems for our clients. VCA's core client segments include issuers, acquirers, merchants, fintech's, payment enablers and governments. VCA-X is VCA's global delivery capability, designed to scale high-value solutions across Regions through multidisciplinary teams, common delivery standards, AI-enabled assets, and continuous learning from delivery. Working in partnership with Regional teams and Practice Areas, VCA-X enables consistent, efficient, and scalable delivery while maintaining client and market relevance. Specialist & Consulting Delivery is a core pillar of the VCA-X operating model. It provides the specialist expertise, consulting delivery capacity, consulting leadership, and quality oversight required to ensure VCA-X delivers credible, consistent, and client-ready outputs. The role operates as one of three core delivery leadership pillars within VCA-X, alongside Program Management and Data & Analytics Delivery. It will form part of the VCA-X Leadership Team, and report directly to the Head of VCA-X. What a Senior Director, Specialist & Consulting Delivery, VCA-X does at Visa: The Senior Director, Specialist & Consulting Delivery will build and lead the specialist and consulting organization responsible for ensuring VCA-X delivers credible, consistent and client-ready outputs across its portfolio. This leader will ensure VCA-X engagements have the specialist expertise, consulting delivery capacity, consulting leadership, and quality oversight required to deliver high-quality outcomes at scale. Working closely with Practice Areas and Regional VCA teams, the Senior Director will operationalize methodologies, strengthen specialist and consulting capability, and establish the standards required for scalable consulting delivery excellence. Core responsibilities of the role include: Specialist & Consulting Organization Leadership - Establish the organizational structure, leadership model, and skills required to support the VCA-X portfolio. - Build specialist depth across priority use cases and domains. - Build and manage a flexible consulting delivery pool that can be deployed across priority use cases, Regions, and multidisciplinary engagement teams. - Recruit, develop, and retain high-performing specialist and consulting talent. - Foster a culture of intellectual rigor, collaboration, learning, and client impact. Consulting Delivery Leadership - Ensure engagements are supported by the appropriate specialist expertise and consulting leadership. - Provide senior oversight for complex, high-impact, or strategically important engagements. - Lead deployment of consulting delivery resources across the VCA-X portfolio, balancing expertise, capacity, development opportunities, and delivery priorities. - Coach teams in structured problem solving, insight development, recommendation formulation, and executive communication. - Serve as a senior advisor and escalation point for delivery teams. Delivery Quality & Client Readiness - Establish delivery standards, quality expectations, and review processes across the VCA-X portfolio. - Ensure outputs are commercially relevant, supported by sound specialist judgement, and appropriate to client and market context. - Drive continuous improvements in delivery quality, consistency, and effectiveness. - Partner with Regional VCA teams to ensure outputs support successful client engagement. Practice Area Partnership & Methodology Enablement - Partner with Practice Areas to operationalize established methodologies into scalable delivery approaches. - Lead validation of new use cases and delivery approaches before they are scaled broadly across the VCA-X portfolio. - Capture delivery feedback and provide structured input to methodology evolution and improvement. Expertise Development & Continuous Learning - Define the specialist expertise and consulting capabilities required across the portfolio. - Establish learning pathways and leadership development approaches. - Capture specialist, consulting and quality learnings from engagements and translate them into improved methodologies, delivery approaches, training and reusable assets. - Partner with Analytics and Engineering teams to strengthen multidisciplinary delivery. Why this is important to Visa Scaling VCA-X is central to VCA's strategy for expanding delivery capacity, accelerating execution, and creating greater impact for clients globally. The ability to scale delivery successfully depends not only on capacity but on maintaining the quality, expertise, and consulting rigor that clients expect from VCA. This role is critical to ensuring that VCA-X delivers consistent, high-quality outputs while building the specialist and consulting capability required to support future growth. The Senior Director will play a key role in strengthening delivery excellence, accelerating learning, and increasing the impact of VCA across Regions. Visa requires at least 3 days in office, expectations of these days will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager. Qualifications Basic Qualifications: - 18 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 15 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters/MBA) Preferred Qualifications: - 18 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 15 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters/MBA) What you will need: - 18+ years of experience in consulting, advisory services, professional services, specialist delivery, or related fields. - Demonstrated success leading complex client engagements and ensuring executive-level quality standards. - Strong consulting toolkit including structured problem solving, analytical reasoning, synthesis, storylining, and recommendation development. - Experience scaling consulting or specialist organizations across multiple markets or regions. - Ability to translate methodologies into repeatable and scalable delivery approaches. - Executive presence and strong stakeholder-management skills. - Proven ability to recruit, develop, and lead high-performing teams. - Demonstrated ability to influence senior leaders and build partnerships across matrixed organizations. - What will also help: - Master's degree or equivalent advanced qualification in a quantitative, technical, or business discipline. - Expertise in one or more VCA domains such as portfolio optimization, risk, or digital. - Experience operating within global consulting, managed-services, or professional-services organizations. - Knowledge of payments, financial services, or adjacent industries. - Experience building new capabilities, operating models, or delivery organizations from the ground up. - Ability to operate effectively across cultures, organizational boundaries, and time zones. 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.