Senior Director, VAS Sales

Company Description

Visa is a world leader in payments and technology, with over 259 billion payments transactions flowing safely between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and government entities in more than 200 countries and territories each year. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable, and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive while driven by a common purpose – to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

Make an impact with a purpose-driven industry leader. Join us today and experience Life at Visa.

Job Description

Team Overview

Value Added Services (VAS) is one of three growth strategies for Visa globally, aimed at diversifying Visa’s revenue with products and solutions that differentiate its network and deliver valuable solutions across other networks. Japan VAS team is the newly created function that reporting into the Japan Country Manager and the Head of AP VAS. All Product VAS and associated capabilities/services will report into the functions’ 3 units: CyberSource sales, Solution Sales and Technical enablement.

What does Senior Director, VAS Issuing Sales Lead Japan Market do at Visa?

This role is going to be leading the issuing solutions sales in market. Issuing Solutions refer to a comprehensive set of Visa products and services that help Issuers and other financial institutions manage and grow their payment card portfolios. These solutions cover areas such as fraud prevention, loyalty capabilities, data analytics platforms, issuer processing, and network services. By leveraging the power of VisaNet for secure, reliable payment processing along with our loyalty and other Issuing solutions, we enable our clients to deliver exceptional value to their customers. This integrated approach ensures that our clients can meet growth needs and regulatory requirements while fostering innovation in the overall payments ecosystem.

The Senior Director of Sales, Issuing Solutions for Japan Market will be accountable for driving top line revenue growth and overall market adoption of Issuer-centric products across the region to support Visa’s aggressive growth targets for VAS. To be specific:

Exceed aggressive sales targets for Visa Issuing Solutions Japan

• Work cross functionally to develop and deliver annual and 3Y revenue & profitability plans
• Achieve objectives and outlook by leading sales alignment with global and regional Issuing product and solutioning teams and other Visa functions
• Proactively help AEs / Sales Generalists to identify opportunities to leverage existing Issuing products and solutions
• Drive teams to create a high value pipeline for new business and upsells
• Lead teams through the sales cycle from prospecting through close
• Enable sales acceleration and prioritization of activities with high potential client targets, use cases, industry segments, etc.
• Lead regular pipeline review and problem-solving sessions with salespeople and help problem solve when client plans are stalled

Lead the sales team to achieve results

• Manage a team of sales and business development managers, oversee other functional activities as needed
• Ensure high performance, team cohesiveness, and individual seller development
• Deploy resources for optimal growth across the wide set of opportunities
• Establish consistent, effective processes that incorporate the use of proven sales methodologies
• Build team’s product knowledge across all related Product domains so they can demonstrate product/service capabilities to customers
• Align client goals and timelines, executive engagement, and the effective delivery of value propositions
• Inspect progress and adjust activities as needed to achieve results

• Drive implementation of sales initiatives, report sales activity levels, close monitoring of forecast and pipeline
• Ensure roll out and adoption of sales best practices

Work with cross-functional partners to ensure we have what we need to be successful with clients

• Manage close working partnerships with Visa stakeholders in each market/region – GCMs, AEs, Heads of Product, Risk, Corporate Relations, Legal, Interchange, etc.
• Collaborate closely with market and regional Product to ensure the product requirements are clearly understood and delivered
• Partner closely with regional Sales enablement functions – including GTM & Commercialization and Sales Operations – to adhere to best practices in making Visa Products easy to buy and easy to sell
• Partner with local Sales Engineering teams to inform detailed development and delivery of customer-centric Issuing solutions
• Work with Legal to ensure client contracts drive to successful outcomes for both Visa and our clients
• Work with Client Delivery and Client Services to handoff the sale to implementation and ensure well-run projects
• Facilitate the capture and communication of client feedback on product and VAS to inform product evolution.

Why is this important to Visa:

The Senior Director, VAS Issuing Sales Lead Japan Market plays a critical role in driving Visa's top-line revenue growth and market adoption of Issuer-centric products in Japan. This position is essential for achieving Visa’s aggressive growth targets for VAS by ensuring the delivery of exceptional value to clients, fostering innovation in the payments ecosystem, and maintaining strong strategic relationships with key stakeholders. This role supports Visa's mission to connect the world through secure, reliable, and innovative payment solutions.

This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your hiring manager.

Qualifications

What do you need:

• 15 or more years of relevant experience in driving sales with business clients
• Strong fluency in Japanese language (reading, writing, speaking and listening)
• Business level in English
• Deep understanding of Issuing dynamics and needs within the broader payments ecosystem. Prior knowledge of Issuing Solutions from Visa and in the wider financial services industry is preferred but not mandatory.
• Proven sales leadership experience, preferably in the financial services or technology industry and/or in B2B.
• Proven track record of exceeding aggressive sales targets and driving significant revenue growth.
• Demonstrated ability to manage and work with large, cross-functional (e.g. product, sales, strategy, marketing) matrixed and cross-regional environments.
• Experience of working in a global matrix organization with the ability to navigate complex structures and empower decision-making locally.
• Ability to work independently within a complex and often ambiguous environment, to drive rigorous, fact-based recommendations to stakeholders
• Strong strategic planning and business development skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with demonstrated intellectual and analytical rigor addressing a wide variety of opportunities and threats
• Familiarity with legal contract negotiations and project management.
• Exceptional communication skills, interpersonal skills and the proven ability to influence and communicate effectively across regional and functional lines

Additional Information

Visa is an EEO Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status. Visa will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with EEOC guidelines and applicable local law.