Vice President – Head of Advisory (Sub-Saharan Africa) at Visa Incorporated

Job Description

The Vice President – Head of Advisory (Sub-Saharan Africa) is a key leadership position in both the CEMEA VCA team and the SSA Team.  The role reports to both the head of CEMEA VCA and to the GCM of SSA. The role involves:

Leading the Sub-Saharan Africa Advisory and working closely with our CEMEA HUB team. The role will lead VCA engagements including but not limited to portfolio management, cards and retail business strategy, digital strategy and risk management, and will involve the use of deep consulting, banking and data science expertise and work closely with the SSA VCA team. 

VCA Practice leadership including building deeper domain expertise across the Sub-Saharan Africa and global VCA teams, standardizing and scaling consulting engagements, and representing VCA capabilities in key client sales discussions. 

Enabling overall VAS growth and specifically overall Advisory Revenue growth, including VCA, Marketing Services, Data Products and Visa University services.

Member of the VCA CEMEA leadership team and of the SSA leadership team

Talent development and coaching, including a demonstrable track record of leadership in an equivalent role, supported by evidence of leadership skills and the development of high potential individuals and teams over several years.  Visa Consulting and Analytics has an outstanding record in encouraging diversity and accelerating career growth within Visa, and this will be a critical factor in the future success of the team. 

We are looking for motivated, analytic individuals with a track record of building a strong consultative team in a complex, multidisciplinary and diverse environment. The incumbent must be able to develop enduring, strategic relationships, both with clients and across the Visa organization. They should have significant previous experience of leading teams in both consulting and card portfolio management, preferably at a senior level in a consulting firm or the equivalent level in a bank or other organization.  They should also have a good level of understanding around the use of data science and the strategic potential of employing advanced data science tools and techniques in the context of Visa and Sub-Saharan Africa specifically.

Specific responsibilities include:

• Leading, managing, mentoring and motivating highly effective teams in a fast paced and demanding environment by utilizing strong interpersonal skills. Being able to align resources and seek buy-in from internal cross functional stakeholders, across all disciplines, will be critical to meeting the needs and objectives of external customers. The ideal candidate must have high process orientation skills.
• Vice President is a central role for VCA in CEMEA region, representing Visa both internally and externally to develop trusted advisor relationships with client senior executives through impactful consulting engagements
• Growing the revenue from consulting services offered to clients from the existing base that contribute to the Global and CEMEA VCA growth strategy
• Supporting the development of the Portfolio Management service line across CEMEA, including sponsorship of VCA data-driven Solutions and acting as Quality Partner to review and provide support for major projects outside the Sub-Saharan Africa region.
• Proactively engaging with clients and Visa client leadership in regular strategic & planning discussions, cultivate and manage a pipeline of work with clients
• Developing frameworks, approaches, solutions and recommendations through the analysis of client data from multiple conflicting sources that effectively and efficiently address the most impactful opportunities and challenges by framing the results in a cohesive strategy and articulating recommendations and insights to executive management
• Influencing peers in other functional areas (e.g., marketing, product, marketing and innovation) and across global regional teams to deliver best in class projects in ways that leverage the breadth and depth of Visa’s resources
• Producing insights and analyses to improve client performance, drive understanding of client issues and provide strategic guidance for client priorities across the payment P&L
• As a card portfolio management expert, utilize consultative and data science driven approach that ensures knowledge sharing, coaching and training across stakeholder functional teams and/or regions across CEMEA to maximize the performance of clients’ Visa portfolio

Qualifications

We are looking for a leader with deep payment and consulting expertise to provide analysis and strategic thinking to shape the services we deliver to clients, lead consulting engagements and develop actionable and scalable insights and solutions.

Key Competencies:

• Substantial problem solving ability with strategic focus on impacting client ROI
• Strong analytical skills, with demonstrated intellectual and analytical rigor.
• Self-motivated, results oriented individual with the ability to handle numerous projects concurrently
• Executive Presence including excellent communication and presentation skills, written and verbal and ability to communicate at all levels within large organizations.
• Demonstrated leadership, managerial and collaboration capabilities.
• Holds self and others accountable for measurable high quality, timely and effective results. Displays a strong commitment to organizational success
• Ability to identify key strategic issues and to generate and deliver creative and innovative solutions to problems and opportunities.
• Deep expertise in portfolio management and understanding of our clients’ business
• Understanding of critical factors in driving profitability and growth for Visa's issuer, acquirer and merchant clients
• Ability to influence and negotiate with senior executives·

Specific requirements:

• Minimum of 15+ years of progressively more responsible business experience in management consulting and/or payment businesses. This should include key leadership roles with direct P&L responsibility for consulting projects.
• Ideal candidate will have significant payments and consulting experience.
• Excellent communication, story-telling and presentation skills.
• Demonstrable leadership skills and evidence of coaching and talent development for high performing teams