Senior Director - Head of Visa Direct Ecosystem

Role Overview

The Senior Director, Head of Visa Direct Ecosystem, North America will lead the strategy, team, governance, enablement, and performance of the Visa Direct ecosystem across the United States and Canada. This includes issuers, acquirers, processors, enablers, fintechs, financial institutions, wallets, strategic partners, and emerging digital asset participants.

This leader will build and manage a high-performing team while developing a scalable, compliant, and commercially effective ecosystem that supports domestic and cross-border money movement growth. The role will own the North America ecosystem roadmap, drive market and corridor expansion, oversee issuer and partner readiness, improve acceptance quality and operational performance, and ensure strong regulatory integrity, risk discipline, liquidity readiness, and scalability.

The successful candidate will serve as the senior Visa Direct ecosystem lead for North America, with strong knowledge of Visa Direct, crypto, digital assets, stablecoins, liquid assets, liquidity models, treasury operations, and cross-border settlement dynamics. They will partner across Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, Legal, Client Services, Licensing, Treasury, Operations, and Commercial teams to deliver market-ready capabilities and measurable ecosystem outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

Ecosystem Strategy and Leadership

• Define and lead the Visa Direct ecosystem strategy for North America.

• Own the regional ecosystem roadmap across issuers, acquirers, processors, enablers, fintechs, wallets, financial institutions, strategic partners, and digital asset participants.

• Lead, manage, and develop the North America ecosystem team, setting priorities, operating rhythms, performance expectations, and accountability.

• Represent ecosystem priorities in senior leadership forums, governance routines, business reviews, and strategic planning discussions.

• Identify ecosystem gaps, capability needs, performance constraints, liquidity requirements, liquid asset considerations, and opportunities to scale.

• Align ecosystem readiness with commercial growth priorities, client demand, product strategy, regional objectives, and evolving money movement and digital asset trends.

Market Expansion and Corridor Enablement

• Lead ecosystem readiness for North America market expansion, new use cases, and cross-border corridor activation.

• Oversee readiness planning for issuers, acquirers, processors, fintechs, wallets, digital asset participants, and other ecosystem partners.

• Partner with Commercial, Product, and Market teams to support client launches, corridor growth, and Visa Direct adoption.

• Establish scalable playbooks, operating models, and governance processes to accelerate market, corridor, and partner expansion.

• Remove launch blockers and coordinate cross-functional execution to improve speed to market, launch quality, and long-term ecosystem performance.

• Support readiness for payment and settlement models involving crypto, digital assets, stablecoins, liquid assets, treasury, and liquidity considerations where applicable.

Issuer and Partner Readiness

• Own issuer and partner readiness across onboarding, activation, operations, compliance alignment, and post-launch performance.

• Develop frameworks to assess partner capability, implementation quality, risk controls, liquid asset exposure, operational maturity, and data integrity.

• Improve partner performance, acceptance quality, approval rates, transaction reliability, settlement efficiency, and end-user experience.

• Own ecosystem performance management, including approval rates, decline drivers, fraud and risk trends, data quality, service levels, liquid asset considerations, settlement performance, and operational health.

Compliance, Governance, and Regulatory Alignment

• Ensure ecosystem readiness aligns with Visa rules, product requirements, network standards, regulatory expectations, risk controls, digital asset requirements, and liquid asset considerations.

• Partner with Legal, Compliance, Risk, AML, Sanctions, Licensing, Treasury, and Regulatory teams to assess market requirements and implement compliant operating models.

Cross-Functional and People Leadership

• Lead cross-functional execution across Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, Legal, Licensing, Treasury, Client Services, Operations, Data, and Commercial teams.

• Influence senior stakeholders across a global, matrixed organization to align priorities, secure resources, and drive execution.

• Coach, develop, and guide team members supporting ecosystem development, partner enablement, performance optimization, liquidity management, and operational delivery.

• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, execution excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement.

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

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. Masters/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. Masters, MBA, JD, or MD), PhD with 9+ years of experience

• Extensive experience in payments, financial services, fintech, money movement, payment networks, crypto, digital assets, or liquid asset ecosystems.

• Proven people leadership experience, including leading, developing, and scaling high-performing teams.

• Deep understanding of Visa Directand similar real-time money movement capabilities, including card, account, wallet, cross-border, and digital asset flows.

• Strong knowledge of the North America payments ecosystem, including issuers, acquirers, processors, fintechs, wallets, financial institutions, and strategic partners.

• Strong understanding of crypto, digital assets, stablecoins, liquid assets, liquidity models, treasury operations, settlement flows, and cross-border funding.

• Proven experience leading ecosystem strategy, market expansion, issuer/acquirer readiness, partner enablement, liquidity readiness, liquid asset governance, or payment network operations at scale.

• Knowledge of issuer performance drivers, acceptance quality, decline management, fraud and risk controls, data integrity, settlement performance, and operational health.

• Understanding of regulatory, compliance, AML, sanctions, licensing, digital asset requirements, liquid asset considerations, and scheme rule requirements for domestic and cross-border payments.

• Demonstrated ability to lead complex cross-functional initiatives across Product, Technology, Legal, Compliance, Risk, Treasury, Client Services, Operations, and Commercial teams.

• Experience developing governance models, KPIs, dashboards, scorecards, executive reporting, and operating rhythms.

• Strong commercial orientation with the ability to connect ecosystem capabilities to client adoption, market expansion, revenue growth, liquidity efficiency, and business outcomes.

• Exceptional analytical, communication, problem-solving, negotiation, and executive stakeholder management skills.

• Ability to influence without direct authority and drive outcomes across multiple teams, markets, and partners in a global, matrixed environment.