Senior Director, Marketing Services, Strategy

• Lead the Marketing Services Strategy team, setting clear priorities, operating rhythms, quality standards, advisory expectations, and success metrics across audience/customer strategy, lifecycle marketing, brand marketing, experiential marketing, and sponsorship marketing strategy work in North America.
• Define Visa's North America Marketing Services strategy frameworks, strategic narratives, client discovery approaches, go-to-market approaches, and repeatable offerings that address client needs across brand building, audience engagement, customer lifecycle growth, live and hosted experiences, and sponsorship activation.
• Build and manage a team of senior strategists across audience, lifecycle, brand, experiential, and sponsorship disciplines capable of diagnosing client business challenges, identifying growth opportunities, shaping strategic recommendations, and translating insights into practical marketing roadmaps.
• Establish the strategic toolkit for engagements, including audience and customer frameworks, brand and positioning frameworks, customer journey and experience mapping, sponsorship and experiential planning approaches, message architecture, measurement strategies, and optimization playbooks.
• Partner with Sales and MS BD teams to identify high-value strategy 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 strategy development and client recommendations.
• Translate strategy into integrated solutions with MS Delivery partners, ensuring recommendations are actionable, measurable, commercially viable, and designed for execution at scale.
• Commercialize marketing strategy 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 point of view, offering roadmap, and advisory approach across core marketing strategy disciplines.
• Prepare executive-ready updates, strategic recommendations, business cases, performance reporting, and thought leadership that demonstrate the value and impact of Marketing Services 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.

• 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, audience/customer strategy, lifecycle marketing, brand marketing, experiential marketing, sponsorship marketing, customer engagement, 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, or marketing functions focused on customer and commercial growth.
• Deep understanding of the payments ecosystem, including issuer, co-brand, fintech, processor, merchant, and consumer payment dynamics.
• Strong expertise in one or more core marketing strategy disciplines, with the ability to lead integrated strategies across audience/customer strategy, lifecycle marketing, brand marketing, experiential marketing, and sponsorship marketing.
• Experience building integrated marketing frameworks, audience and customer strategies, brand strategies, customer journey strategies, experiential and sponsorship planning approaches, messaging architectures, 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, annual planning, or P&L accountability.
• Exceptional executive communication, storytelling, facilitation, and presentation skills, with the ability to simplify complex concepts and influence senior decision makers.
• Experience working with creative, media, analytics, marketing technology, agency, consulting, product, legal, finance, and delivery teams to bring integrated marketing programs to market.
• Ability to innovate in ambiguous or white-space environments, turning emerging needs into structured offerings, playbooks, operating models, and measurable business impact.
• Proven people leadership experience, including the ability to set a vision, build capability, coach senior talent, manage capacity, and create a high-performing team culture.

Key Competencies

• Strategic leadership and structured problem solving
• Broad marketing strategy expertise across audience/customer, lifecycle, brand, experiential, and sponsorship disciplines
• Team leadership, coaching, and capability building
• Client advisory, consultative selling, and executive influence
• Commercial and financial acumen
• Data-driven decision making, measurement discipline, and optimization mindset
• Executive presence, storytelling, and facilitation
• Cross-functional leadership, operating-model design, and stakeholder alignment
• Innovation, adaptability, and bias for action

Reporting Structure This position reports to the Head of Marketing Services, North America and leads the Marketing Services 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.