San Francisco Innovation Center Director, Employee & Fintech Ecosystem Engagement

  • Full-time
  • Job Family Group: Product Development

Company Description

Everyone at Visa works with one goal in mind – making sure that Visa is the best way to pay and be paid, for everyone everywhere. This is our global vision and the common purpose that unites the entire Visa team. As a global payments technology company, tech is at the heart of what we do: Our VisaNet network processes over 13,000 transactions per second for people and businesses around the world, enabling them to use digital currency instead of cash and checks. Visa is one of the top 50 Most Admired Brands in the world. It is recognized as a leading employer and can be found on the lists of: The World’s Most Innovative Companies, The World’s Most Respected Companies, The World’s Most Ethical Companies, America’s Best Employers and The World’s Most Valuable Brands, to name a few. Visa is fueled by our team of talented employees who continuously raise the bar on delivering the convenience and security of digital currency to people all over the world. Join our team and find out how Visa is everywhere you want to be.

Job Description

As the steward of the global payments ecosystem, Visa leads the industry by investing heavily in innovation and the emerging technologies that accelerate secure digital payments for global commerce.  Our San Francisco Innovation Center is Visa’s flagship, state-of-the-art facility that acts as the applied evangelist for Visa’s innovation agenda and industry leadership to global stakeholders.  Hosting hundreds of clients and partners annually, the San Francisco Innovation Center is a full-stack team of digital native talent who are passionate about enabling Visa’s most ambitious clients to explore and commercialize the highest impact emerging payments experiences and capabilities.  The team actively works across financial institutions, merchants, technology partners, and government officials, to share Visa’s insights and to collaborate on new payment solutions that lead the industry.

The Director of Employee & Fintech Ecosystem Engagement at the San Francisco Innovation Center is a highly visible and wide-ranging role that regularly engages with fintech startups, innovation experts, thought leaders, client executives, and the Visa executive team.  This unique role is the job of a lifetime for an intellectually curious, dynamic, and self-motivated candidate. 

 The position is based in downtown San Francisco at Visa’s worldwide headquarters office in One Market Plaza.

Role Objective & Requirements

The primary objective of the role is to actively curate Visa’s position in the Bay Area Fintech ecosystem as a foundational institution of thought leadership and commerce innovation through a comprehensive internal and external program of events and activities.

Establish Visa as a key pillar of the Bay Area fintech ecosystem with external stakeholders:

  • Elevate Visa’s ethos and significance within the fintech community by launching a Visa Innovation Center-hosted program of expert speakers, hackathons, and fintech salons centered around key focus areas (IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Biometrics, etc.).
  • Work closely with Visa’s Communications and Marketing teams to leverage the Visa fintech program to actively promote Visa as an innovator and fintech-friendly thought-leader.
  • Curate applied working relationships with key fintech start-ups, venture investors, entrepreneurs, industry analysts, and academic thought leaders.
  • Establish ongoing relationships with external fintech accelerators and other innovation centers (e.g., Westfield Labs, Capital One Labs, The Garage, Tech Stars)
  • Coordinate with Visa’s Venture Investing team to be a source of lead flow, identifying potential investment opportunities and current trends in the space.
  • Execute a small number of highly visible external events and partnerships to showcase key Visa future payment initiatives (e.g. the partnership with FEED project, Future of Payments technology pop-up).
  • Drive fintech ecosystem engagement program best practices across Visa’s global network of innovation centers.

Engage Visa’s employees in our innovation and digital transformation journey:

  • Open up the San Francisco Innovation Center for active engagement with the greater Visa organization, making it a resource for applied learning for Visa employees, creating transparency on our innovation journey so that all employees have enthusiasm and accountability as innovators.
  • Work with the Innovation Center Product VPs to position the SF Innovation team as thought leaders of new product development and future technologies by hosting demo days and sharing the new products and services being developed by the Innovation Center team.
  • Coordinate with Visa’s Design leaders to curate events that elevate design at Visa and serve as tacit recruiting tools for top Bay Area design talent (e.g., AIGA SF Mentor program, SF Design Week, etc.).

Serve the broader Innovation Center agenda on special projects and as-needed

  • Serve as an Innovation Center expert on various ad-hoc special projects, such as the upcoming Innovation Center renovation.
  • Support the Innovation Center Leadership team and the I&SP PMO on key special projects throughout the year.
  • In general, serve as a key face and voice for Visa’s Innovation Center and Visa’s innovation agenda.

Qualifications

  • College degree with a minimum of 5+ years professional experience in a client service role
  • Knowledge of Visa, its strategy, and its operating culture highly preferred as this role may sometimes need to “herd cats” to execute the Program, and will need to be able to know who to go to in order to get ad-hoc initiatives executed in short order
  • Minimum of 2+ years of experience working in a major Innovation Center or Labs environment
  • Multiple languages highly preferred as the Innovation Center serves Visa’s global client base
  • High attention to detail with comprehensive program management experience
  • Self-motivated to take on new challenges and create new programs.  Comfortable moving forward in ambiguity with a can-do attitude
  • Gets energy from interacting with a diverse set of people, experiencing new things, and learning about different models, methods, and ideas.
  • Enthusiasm and willingness to simply jump-in to projects when needed by the team
  • Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills.

Additional Information

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

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