Sr. Director

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

Overview:

Visa US Marketing is seeking a strategic, analytically strong media leader to serve as Senior Director, US Media Audience, Investment & Performance. This role leads Visa’s US media investment strategy, audience strategy, and the systems that guide allocation, optimization, and accountability across paid media investments.

The role manages a significant annual media portfolio for Consumer marketing and is responsible for setting allocation strategy, guiding investment trade-offs, and owning high-value audience development so media dollars are directed to the opportunities with the greatest business value.

This leader works across Brand, Product, Analytics, Finance, Legal, Risk & Privacy, Data Science, Marketing Technology, agency partners, the content leadership team, and Marketing Services Media to improve how Visa plans, measures, and optimizes media investment decisions and to identify opportunities where investment choices can benefit both the brand and clients.

The role helps evolve Visa’s media approach by using audience intelligence, targeting, and measurement together to improve portfolio decisions, speed learning, and strengthen business results over time.

Strategy & Portfolio:

• Lead Visa’s US media investment model and audience strategy, including allocation frameworks, investment priorities, high-value audience development, and decision rules across brand and performance objectives.
• Set the portfolio operating model for how investment decisions are made, adjusted, and reviewed over time.
• Guide trade-offs across audiences, tentpole moments, and investment priorities so media dollars go to the opportunities with the strongest strategic and commercial value.
• Own the portfolio prioritization and media investment recommendations for Visa’s largest sponsorship moments, including the Olympics and FIFA.
• Partner with the content leader to align investment choices to the most strategically important brand opportunities while retaining ownership of audience strategy, media allocation, investment governance, and performance accountability.
• Partner with Marketing Services Media to identify investment opportunities where both the brand and clients can benefit while keeping portfolio decisions grounded in clear commercial and strategic priorities.
• Lead the operating rhythm and decision environment for internal media experts and agency partners, ensuring clear accountability, stronger prioritization, and higher execution quality.
  

Audience + Measurement System:

• Own audience strategy for the portfolio, including defining priority cohorts, high-value audience frameworks, and the signals used to guide targeting and investment decisions.
• Use audience and cohort intelligence from first party and near first-party signals to determine where Visa should concentrate investment, sharpen targeting, and improve delivery decisions.
• Lead modern audience delivery systems across addressable media, platform-native buying environments, automated activation, and AI-enabled optimization.
• Build measurement capabilities that connect media exposure to business outcomes, including closed-loop approaches tied to brand outcomes, high-value behaviors, payment volume, and other priority signals.
• Partner closely with Insights & Analytics teams to define measurement frameworks, testing strategies, incrementality approaches, and learning agendas that strengthen portfolio decisions.
• Advance measurement infrastructure by integrating martech, platform data, and internal systems to improve signal capture, attribution, reporting, and decision support.
• Establish investment guardrails, KPI frameworks, and operating rhythms that enable faster learning, clear trade-offs, and strong accountability across audiences and investments.
• Partner with Finance to ensure disciplined budget management, accurate forecasting, and a clear view of return, efficiency, and scaling decisions.

Thought Leadership:

• Bring a clear point of view on how signal loss, AI-driven discovery, platform automation, and changing consumer behavior are reshaping media investment and performance.
• Use external trends, tools, and market intelligence to understand how leading brands are evolving allocation models, targeting, and measurement.
• Help define where Visa can create advantage through stronger investment discipline, audience intelligence, closed-loop measurement, and integrated platform systems.
• Turn market learning and US experience into recommendations that improve portfolio governance and future scale.

Leadership & Culture:

• Build a team culture grounded in clear decision-making, disciplined investment management, and continuous learning.
• Create operating clarity across internal teams and partners so media decisions move faster and with stronger accountability.
• Operate effectively within a complex, matrixed organization, building alignment and influence without direct authority where needed.
  

What Success Looks Like:

• Visa’s US media investments are guided by a clear, repeatable allocation model that improves decision quality across audiences, priorities, and major moments.
• Audience strategy is clearly owned within the role and works together with measurement as a connected system that improves targeting, strengthens delivery, and helps Visa place more confident bets.
• Media dollars move with greater speed and discipline because trade-offs, decision rules, and performance signals are clearly defined.
• Major sponsorship investments, including the Olympics and FIFA, are evaluated as enterprise portfolio decisions with clear rationale, strong governance, and measurable business value.
• Leadership has greater confidence in where media dollars are going, why those choices are being made, and what results they are producing.
• The partnership with the content leader produces stronger integrated opportunities while preserving clear ownership of media investment and performance accountability.
• The partnership with Marketing Services Media helps identify investment opportunities that benefit both the brand and clients while keeping decisions grounded in portfolio discipline.
• The US market develops repeatable investment practices that can inform broader scale where relevant.
• Visa is recognized internally as a disciplined media investor with stronger allocation governance, clearer measurement, and improving business outcomes over time.

Visa requires at least 3 days in office, expectations of these days will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.

No visa sponsorship will be provided for this position.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:

• 12 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor's Degree or at least 10 years of work experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g., Master's, MBA, JD, MD), or a minimum of 5 years of work experience with a PhD.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 15 or more years of experience with a Bachelor's Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g., Master's, MBA, JD, or MD); PhD with 9+ years of experience.
• 15+ years of experience in paid media, media strategy, investment management, audience development, or related marketing disciplines, including meaningful agency-side experience.
• Proven success building audience strategies using first-party or near first-party data, segmentation, cohort frameworks, and advanced activation techniques.
• Strong expertise in marketing technology, platform automation, AI-enabled optimization, and the application of these tools to improve media performance.
• Deep knowledge of media measurement, attribution, testing, incrementality, and executive-level performance reporting.
• Experience leading high-performing teams and influencing cross-functional stakeholders in complex, matrixed organizations.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, with experience managing significant media budgets and making data-informed investment decisions.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complexity into clear, compelling recommendations for senior leaders.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• A test-and-learn mindset, strong curiosity, and a bias toward action, innovation, and measurable outcomes.

Information for US Applicants

Work Hours

Varies upon the needs of the department.

Travel Requirements

This position requires travel 5-10% of the time.

Mental/Physical Requirements

This position will be performed in an office setting. The position will require the incumbent to sit and stand at a desk, communicate in person and by telephone, frequently operate standard office equipment, such as telephones and computers.

Visa is an EEO Employer