Visa Direct Ecosystem Development Director

Job Description

The Visa Direct Ecosystem Development Director will lead the Visa Direct ecosystem enablement function for Visa Direct across all endpoints, focusing on issuer acceptance, operational readiness, compliance, and ecosystem performance for key domestic and cross‑border money‑movement use cases.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in the card‑issuing business, issuer processing systems, and back‑office operations across credit, debit, and prepaid products, Strong understanding of digital money movement ecosystems including card, push to wallet, and push to account flows. This leader will support clients in enabling Visa Direct transactions across all endpoints—card, push‑to‑wallet, and account—and ensure strong acceptance, readiness, and consistency across use cases such as domestic and cross‑border remittances, account funding, disbursements, and payouts.

The director must be a structured, analytical thinker with excellent communication skills, curiosity, and a passion for understanding how payment capabilities are built, deployed, and optimized. The candidate should also be skilled at identifying synergies, interdependencies, and shared operational capabilities across card, wallet, and account endpoints to drive more unified ecosystem performance.

Key Responsibilities:

Issuer Ecosystem Enablement

• Strategic Ownership & Ecosystem Leadership: Define, own, and execute the Region‑wide ecosystem enablement and acceptance strategy for Visa Direct, across domestic and cross‑border flows.  Shape multi‑year growth plans and OKRs covering enablement, acceptance, performance, and revenue outcomes
• Lead issuer ecosystem enablement across the full Visa Direct endpoint portfolio, including card, push‑to‑wallet, and account-based flows.
• Work with regional and in‑market teams, Account Executives, and Client Service Management to support issuers/other clients readiness and acceptance for Visa Direct capabilities.
• Partner with issuers and their technology providers to support implementation and operational activation of Visa Direct “receive into card” and other endpoint‑specific capabilities.
• Identify synergies, shared enablers, and integration opportunities across card, wallet, and account endpoints to strengthen ecosystem performance and streamline issuer adoption.
• Serve as a Visa Direct product SME, guiding issuers through requirements to achieve high acceptance rates and consistent performance across endpoints.
• Support activation of cross‑border payment corridors in the account network by ensuring market readiness, regulatory compliance, and smooth technical integration

Ecosystem Standards, Performance & Compliance

• Drive issuers/other clients adherence to rules, network standards, technical specifications, and compliance mandates in partnership with Legal, Finance, Client Support, Risk, Compliance, AML, and Product teams.
• Develop and execute performance‑improvement initiatives to elevate issuer acceptance quality and operational consistency across all endpoints.
• Oversee post‑launch monitoring and performance optimization to ensure seamless ongoing acceptance across the Visa Direct ecosystem.
• Monitor product enhancements, rule updates, and ecosystem changes, act as the regional focal point for assessing issuer impact and ensuring readiness.

Cross‑Functional Leadership & Client Advocacy

• Work with global and regional product teams to ensure ecosystem players readiness for new capabilities and releases.
• Collaborate closely with ecosystem, risk, and client‑services teams to deliver consistent, scalable, high‑quality execution of Visa Direct programs.

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

Qualifications

• Minimum 12 years of experience in card issuing, issuer processing, and back-office operations across credit, debit, and prepaid.
• Strong understanding of card and/or account portfolio performance drivers, including P&Ls, risk, authorization strategies, and relevant regulation, Banking industry, Fincrime and Crypto, Good working knowledge of key payment schemes
• Strong understanding of digital money movement ecosystems including card, push to wallet, and push to account flows.
• Proven ability to identify operational, technical, and standards based synergies across multiple endpoints and translate them into actionable issuer guidance.
• Strong technical understanding of payment messaging standards (e.g. ISO 20022) and API‑based integrations, including how systems, processors, and partners connect across the payments ecosystem.
• Excellent communication, structured thinking, and analytical problem solving skills.
• Experience partnering with legal, compliance, risk, and product teams on rules based and regulatory requirements.
• Client focused mindset with the ability to guide senior issuer stakeholders through complex operational and readiness steps.
• Ability to manage multiple workstreams within a global matrix environment.
• 8-10 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or 6+ years of work experience with a PhD

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.