Visa Inc. is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and territories, enabling them to use digital currency instead of cash and checks. 

Visa does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa's innovations enable its bank customers to offer consumers choices: Pay now with debit, ahead of time with prepaid or later with credit products. From the world's major cities to remote areas without banks, people are increasingly relying on digital currency along with mobile technology to use their money anytime, make purchases online, transfer funds and access basic financial services. All of which makes their lives easier and helps grow economies.

Behind the Visa brand are our talented employees who continuously raise the bar with innovative solutions and products that deliver the convenience and security of digital currency to more people all over the world.

Visa Direct is a payment service that Visa provides to clients (issuers, acquirers, processors, merchants and service providers) to facilitate fund transfers/disbursements to Visa accounts around the world using push payment technology, i.e. Original Credit Transaction (OCT).  Visa Direct consumer and business applications include person-to-person (P2P) transfer, person to micro-business transfer (e.g. payments to landscaper), funds disbursement (e.g. insurance claim disbursements), bill payment, cross-border remittance and more.  Currently, the push payments market around the world is estimated to be an $80T opportunity. 

The Visa Direct Regional Sales Leader will lead sales acceleration for Visa Direct in CEMEA.  This is a unique opportunity to be part of building a new ecosystem in the fast moving world of payment and one of the most important initiatives at Visa.

This role will be responsible for leading the team to achieve aggressive sales targets and ensuring breakout growth of Visa Direct across the region.  We will be working in an agile environment, so this person must be aggressive and proactive to ensure we achieve our goals.  Must be able to pivot and adjust as new information and lessons learned come to light.

This is a matrix, cross-functional role so organizational savvy and interpersonal skills are critical, as we interface with specialized product groups, financial institution sales, merchant and acquiring sales, client consulting, marketing and corporate communications, legal, and finance to coordinate the end goal of achieving aspirational objectives. 

Visa is looking for an individual that is a thought leader in strategy and business growth with a proven record of success in fast-paced environments with demanding timelines

Responsibilities include:

• Achieve or exceed aggressive sales targets for Visa Direct across the region

  • Achieve annual sales goals for both merchant and acquirer sales of Visa Direct, in partnership with local sales teams

  • Take clients through the sales cycle from prospecting to solutioning to deal structure to contract

  • Develop sales strategy for sales acceleration, including determining high potential client targets, use cases, verticals, etc.

  • Drive lead-generation and prospecting program and ensure good response to new leads coming in

• Drive four key workstreams for Visa Direct growth

  1. Work with existing Visa merchants and their Account Executives to cross-sell Visa Direct solution where a good fit exists

  2. Lead prospecting to non-Visa merchants to find the right contacts and build relationships, and sell where a good fit exists

  3. Identify and sell to acquirers, processors, gateways and FinTechs (i.e., “Enablers”) to have them add Visa Direct to their portfolio of offerings to their clients

  4. Develop and lead a reseller program to help those Enablers grow their new Visa Direct product offering

• Build the Visa Direct sales team from scratch and lead them through transformational change

  • Determine how to deploy our resources for optimal growth across the wide set of opportunity

  • Establish team roles, build job requirements, hire and onboard new team members

  • Lead annual team goal planning and execution plans to achieve them

  • Develop sales compensation plan for the team in accordance with the regional model

  • Work with team on engagement and professional development

• Work with cross functional partners across the region to ensure we have what we need to be successful with our clients

  • Work with VD Product team to develop the go-to-market strategy and ensure we have the right value proposition and product construct to meet client needs

  • Work with Marketing to ensure our client facing materials are excellent and help accelerate the learning and sales process

  • Work with Communications to share progress and growth to external audiences through a communication plan, PR, conference events, etc.

  • Work with Finance to ensure appropriate incentive structure, modeling and incentive deal review structure and approval process

  • Work with Legal to ensure client contracts that drive to successful outcomes for both Visa and our clients

  • Work with Client Services to handoff from sale to implementation and ensure well-run projects

• Develop the sales strategy, including determining high potential markets, use cases, and verticals, and how to deploy our resources for optimal growth.

  • Leverage market-sizing study along with regional deep dives to develop the target use cases and clients

  • Develop strategies and work with constituents to get buy-in on new use cases, including the regional Visa Direct product team

  • Liaise with global Visa Direct client team to understand their expansion plans and how that fits into regional growth

  • Identify trends in the each market where real-time payments can solve pain points and develop plans to target each

• Drive pipeline development and pipeline review process in the region

  • Drive consolidation and roll-up of all pipelines and progress across multiple sales teams in the region to summary level and report back to GSM&A and Visa Direct product leadership

  • Lead regular pipeline review and problem solving sessions with the sales teams and help problem solve when client plans are stalled

  • Support the Regional MS&A executive in a regular Regional Commercial Steering Committee, including support on material development

• Ensure sellers are ready and able to sell Visa Direct to clients

  • Work with the training liaison to drive initial and ongoing sales training across the client sales cycle

  • Ensure sellers know about and have access to client-ready, legal approved sales materials

  • Help sellers trouble-shoot and overcome client objections

• Develop and execute a process to capture client feedback on product and value-added services, and socialize with other Visa teams, in particular the VD Platform team

• Work with regional global VD product teams and operations to understand state of Issuer readiness, and state of client implementations and post-launch support

• Creative Self-starter with a bias toward action and proven track record for successfully developing, building, launching and commercializing technology products that delight customers
• 15+ year of industry related and leadership experience, including at least two years of experience leading commercialization teams, product management, strategy organization and/or management consulting  
• Excellent problem solving skills with a strong focus on delivering for clients
• Excellent listening and communication skills (both verbal and written), and executive presence; must be able to interface with our most senior client executives
• Ability to explain complex business and technical concepts to a broad audiences in an approachable way to drive adaption
• Demonstrated thought leadership and the aptitude to think creatively and identify new ways to innovate and differentiate products with evidence of tangible business results
• Passionate about what you do and excited about the opportunity to transform payments working for the industry leader
• Ability to inspire direct reports and influence those without direct management responsibility
• Possess a high level of professionalism and leadership skills to build business relationships, trust and respect with business partners and suppliers
• Strong team player, self-motivated and the ability to work independently at coordinating across functional activities, obtain buy-in and elevate issues at critical junctures appropriately
• An advanced degree from a top school strongly preferred
• Visa or financial/payment industry knowledge required; push payments or real-time payments experience a plus