At Visa, your individuality fits right in. Working here gives you an opportunity to impact the world, invest in your career growth, and be part of an inclusive and diverse workplace. We are a global team of disruptors, trailblazers, innovators and risk-takers who are helping drive economic growth in even the most remote parts of the world, creatively moving the industry forward, and doing meaningful work that brings financial literacy and digital commerce to millions of unbanked and underserved consumers.
You're an Individual. We're the team for you. Together, let's transform the way the world pays.
Job Description
About the Team
Visa Innovation is a global team that drives Visa’s innovation agenda and supports Visa’s clients and partners in designing and accelerating new digital solutions that advance the future of commerce. Visa runs innovation centers in various regional headquarters, and this position is for Visa Innovation Center in Singapore which covers all major markets in Asia Pacific including Australia, Singapore, Japan, China, India, Indonesia, Thailand among others.
About the Position
We are looking for a Senior Director to head up our Fintech & Partner Innovation initiatives, with the goal of driving net new growth for Visa and partners, by jointly designing and launching new solutions that leverage Visa’s network and capabilities. We are passionate about helping growth-stage fintech startups, digital partners and financial institutions accelerate the development and commercialisation of new products / solutions / technology, and scale up with Visa’s clients and partners.
The Senior Director will directly oversee the Visa Accelerator Program in Asia Pacific, which helps startups who have launched successful solutions in their home markets and are looking towards their next stage of growth. The program intends to enable startups to quickly test and validate partnership opportunities, co-create new capabilities with Visa, and move promising opportunities forward with a fast-tracked path to pilots, partnerships, and commercialization. You’ll have end-to-end accountability over the program, including program design, startup recruiting and selection, proof of concept scoping and delivery, and defining our post-program engagement model with the startups. You’ll also be expected to mobilise startup and Visa stakeholders against these objectives, and evangelise the program through marketing, communications and outreach to startup networks.
The Senior Director will also be responsible for leading end-to-end delivery for Innovation engagements with high-potential fintech companies and large digital platforms. You’ll work with market-leading players who are keen to take their partnership with Visa to the next stage, accelerating capability and solution deployment. You’ll have accountability over each innovation engagement end-to-end, connecting partners with subject matter experts from Visa and beyond, to ultimately drive towards unlocking new growth for our partners and enabling new capabilities at Visa.
This role reports to the Vice President of Innovation. You will be part of a high-performing team that collaborates regularly with stakeholders (e.g. product owners, account leads, technologists, designers) across the organisation. The team believes in curiosity, experimentation, continuous learning, respectful collaboration, inclusion, empathy, resilience and fun!
- End-to-end accountability and oversight of the Visa Accelerator Program in Asia Pacific:
- Responsible for overall program strategy, budget, implementation and operations
- Oversee recruitment, screening and evaluation of potential startup participants together with regional product, partnerships and sales teams
- Mobilise startups and cross-functional Visa stakeholders to scope out proof of concepts that deliver tangible value, and are mapped to the strategic priorities of both the startups and Visa
- Deliver against these proof-of-concepts with measurable technical and commercial outcomes within the duration of the program
- Build compelling rationale, business case and development roadmap to obtain senior stakeholders’ buy-in, and ensure successful hand-off to other Visa teams for the next phase of startup partnership
- Evaluate and refine program structure and approach on a regular basis
- Evangelise and champion the program within Visa, and with external parties through marketing, communications and outreach to startup networks
- Manage external agencies to deliver against the above goals
- Accountable for end-to-end innovation engagement delivery with larger fintechs and digital platforms:
- Define project scope and approach, ensuring alignment with partner and Visa objectives
- Design and conduct research to understand end-user needs, ecosystem players’ roles and requirements, revenue potential, regulatory requirements and competitive landscape (as required by the project)
- Lead a cross-functional team of SMEs (designers, product managers, solution architects and marketers) from Visa and clients / partners to design holistic solutions and define new enabling capabilities (technology, process, commercial)
- Ensure top-quality, compelling deliverables for client and internal stakeholders, which include clear value proposition, business case, go-to-market strategy, commercials, UI/UX, product roadmap, solution architecture and development roadmap
- Nurture relationships with companies and stakeholders in the wider innovation ecosystem (e.g. innovation labs, corporate innovation teams), identifying opportunities for collaboration and partnership on fintech & innovation
- 12+ years of work experience, with strong understanding of trends and themes in payments and commerce
- Familiarity with the fintech scene in Singapore and across the Asia-Pacific region
- Knowledge of the corporate innovation landscape in Singapore and across the Asia-Pacific region – know key players, competitors, strategic accounts, trends and opportunities
- Experience forming partnerships with startups and/or large corporates
- Proven experience in managing complex, cross-functional projects, with the agility and influential skills to work collaboratively with external and internal stakeholders across markets and functions
- Ability to lead a small team and manage a program end-to-end – project/program management, client-facing experience, event planning experience
- Experience in using venture-building methodologies (e.g. Design Thinking, Agile, Lean)
- Detailed-oriented, organized, dependable and strong in operations, events and project management
- Highly adaptable, quick learner, self-starter with a structured mindset to approaching problem solving
- Demonstrated capabilities in client engagement at C-level – communication, presence, and thought leadership; with strong experience in designing and facilitating workshops based on human-centered design principles
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills; knowledge of other Asian languages a plus
- Experience managing open innovation programs, accelerator programs, hackathons, and nurturing startup communities a plus
- Minimum of Bachelor’s degree; MBA or Master Degree highly desirable
- Must have a mindset that embraces creativity, optimism, ambiguity and failing-fast
Additional Information
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the evolving visa/travel restrictions in place, we are currently only able to extend offers to candidates with the right to work in Singapore. We are keeping the situation under close review and will adjust accordingly should the restrictive measures be lifted.
As the world's leader in digital payments technology, Visa's mission is to connect the world through the most creative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company's dedication to innovation drives the rapid growth of connected commerce on any device, and fuels the dream of a cashless future for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce.
