Senior Director, Marketing Services, Strategy (San Francisco)

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.

Visa will accept applications for this role until at least 07-16-2026

Job Description

Visa is a world leader in payments and technology, connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions, fintechs, businesses, and governments across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable, and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive. We are driven by a common purpose: to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

The North America Marketing Services team is transforming how Visa partners with clients to drive measurable customer and commercial outcomes. As part of Visa’s broader value-added services growth strategy, Marketing Services helps clients deepen customer relationships, acquire and activate new cardholders, increase usage, grow loyalty, and deliver more effective full-funnel marketing programs across the payment lifecycle.

This position reports to the Head of Marketing Services, North America and leads the Payments Lifecycle Marketing Strategy team. The Senior Director will work closely with client account executives, the North America Marketing Services leadership team, Visa Consulting & Analytics, Product, Insights & Analytics, Creative, Media, Sponsorships, Finance, Legal, Marketing Technology, and Delivery teams across Visa.

The Senior Director, Payment Lifecycle Marketing Strategy, North America will lead the Payments Lifecycle Marketing Strategy team and set the strategic direction for how Visa helps clients grow across the full cardholder and payment relationship journey. This leader will be responsible for building the frameworks, talent, advisory approach, and scalable solutions that enable clients to acquire new customers, onboard and activate accounts, stimulate usage, deepen engagement, improve retention, drive loyalty, and re-engage valuable segments.

This is a high-impact leadership role that requires equal parts payments expertise, client advisory, commercial discipline, people leadership, and operating-model development. The selected candidate will lead a team of senior lifecycle strategists who translate client growth priorities into integrated marketing strategies, measurement plans, audience approaches, campaign roadmaps, and repeatable service offerings. The role will partner closely with Sales, Visa Consulting & Analytics, Product, Insights & Analytics, Creative, Media, Sponsorships, Finance, Legal, and Delivery teams to ensure lifecycle strategy becomes a proactive growth engine for Marketing Services in North America.

Team Leadership Mandate

The Payments Lifecycle Marketing Strategy team will serve as the strategic center of excellence for lifecycle marketing within North America Marketing Services. The team will be accountable for helping Visa move upstream with clients by defining the growth problem, developing the strategic roadmap, connecting Visa’s differentiated assets to client priorities, and enabling integrated execution across strategy, insights, creative, media, marketing technology, sponsorships, and delivery. The Senior Director will be expected to build the team’s operating model, develop consistent standards for strategic work, and ensure the function delivers measurable client outcomes while supporting Marketing Services revenue, margin, and retained-partnership goals.

Essential Functions And Responsibilities

• Lead the Payments Lifecycle Marketing Strategy team, setting clear priorities, operating rhythms, quality standards, advisory expectations, and success metrics for lifecycle strategy work across North America.
• Define Visa’s North America Payment Lifecycle Marketing strategy, including frameworks, strategic narratives, client discovery approaches, go-to-market motions, and repeatable offerings that address client needs across acquisition, onboarding, early-month-on-book activation, usage, engagement, retention, loyalty, cross-sell, and win-back.
• Build and manage a team of senior lifecycle marketing strategists capable of diagnosing client business challenges, identifying growth opportunities, shaping strategic recommendations, and translating insights into practical marketing roadmaps.
• Establish the strategic toolkit for lifecycle engagements, including audience segmentation frameworks, needs-state and behavioral journey mapping, message architecture, offer strategy, channel and cadence recommendations, testing agendas, measurement approaches, and optimization playbooks.
• Partner with Sales and account teams to identify high-value lifecycle opportunities, lead strategic discovery, shape client proposals, support RFPs and executive pitches, and position Marketing Services as an advisory-led partner for priority clients.
• Collaborate with Visa Consulting & Analytics, Product, Insights & Analytics, and Data teams to connect Visa’s proprietary insights, transaction intelligence, research, and measurement capabilities to lifecycle strategy development and client recommendations.
• Translate lifecycle strategy into integrated solutions with Marketing Services Business Development partners, ensuring strategies are actionable, measurable, commercially viable, and designed for execution at scale.
• Commercialize lifecycle marketing capabilities by developing value propositions, pricing inputs, delivery models, sales enablement materials, case studies, packaged solutions, best-practice guidance, and training for the broader Marketing Services organization.
• Drive a shift from reactive, project-based execution to proactive, strategy-led client partnerships that support retained engagements, multi-service programs, repeatable revenue, margin improvement, and long-term client growth.
• Set standards for strategic excellence, ensuring client recommendations are insight-led, financially disciplined, operationally feasible, differentiated by Visa’s assets, and connected to measurable business outcomes.
• Monitor market, consumer, technology, payments, and competitive trends to continuously evolve Visa’s lifecycle marketing point of view, offering roadmap, and advisory approach.
• Prepare executive-ready updates, strategic recommendations, business cases, performance reporting, and thought leadership that demonstrate the value and impact of lifecycle strategy for clients and Visa.
• Recruit, coach, and develop high-performing strategy talent, fostering a culture of consultative leadership, collaboration, accountability, creativity, inclusion, and commercial impact.

This role is preferred to be based in San Francisco, CA or Atlanta, GA. This is a hybrid position; employees in hybrid roles are expected to work from the office on designated in-office days and as required by business needs.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

• 12 or more years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor’s degree, or at least 10 years of relevant work experience with an Advanced degree, or a minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience with a PhD.
• Experience leading marketing strategy, lifecycle marketing, customer engagement, CRM, loyalty, performance marketing, consulting, financial services marketing, payments marketing, or related commercial marketing disciplines.
• Demonstrated experience developing and presenting strategic recommendations to senior-level internal and external stakeholders.
• Proven ability to operate in complex, matrixed organizations and lead cross-functional teams toward shared outcomes.

Preferred Qualifications

• 15 or more years of relevant experience with a Bachelor’s degree, or 12 or more years of experience with an Advanced degree.
• Significant experience leading strategy teams, advisory practices, lifecycle marketing functions, CRM/customer engagement teams, payments marketing teams, or consulting teams focused on customer growth.
• Deep understanding of the payments ecosystem, including issuer, co-brand, fintech, processor, merchant, and consumer payment dynamics.
• Strong expertise in payment lifecycle marketing, including acquisition, onboarding, early-month-on-book activation, spend stimulation, digital adoption, card-on-file behavior, merchant category expansion, retention, loyalty, cross-sell, product migration, and reactivation strategies.
• Experience building lifecycle marketing frameworks, customer journey strategies, segmentation models, messaging architectures, channel strategies, offer approaches, testing plans, measurement frameworks, and optimization roadmaps.
• Experience designing data-driven marketing programs using audience insights, behavioral signals, personalization, experimentation, marketing technology, campaign analytics, and ROI measurement.
• Commercial orientation with a proven track record of building, selling, scaling, or managing revenue-generating marketing solutions, advisory services, packaged offerings, or client-facing capabilities.
• Strong financial acumen, including experience with business cases, pricing inputs, margin management, pipeline management, forecasting,]]>