Visa is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating more than 215 billion payments transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across 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.

When you join Visa, you join a culture of purpose and belonging – where your growth is priority, your identity is embraced, and the work you do matters. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere. Your work will have a direct impact on billions of people around the world – helping unlock financial access to enable the future of money movement.

Join Visa: A Network Working for Everyone.

Group Overview

Part of the Global Solutions Organisation, Visa Innovation & Design is a global client facing organization that sets Visa’s public innovation agenda, supports our clients accelerate their innovation agendas and transform their consumer digital experiences, while also promoting hands-on incubation and rapid prototyping to demonstrate the art of the possible for clients and partners. Innovation & Design runs innovation centers in various regional offices, this function focuses on Visa’s CEMEA region.

The Visa Innovation & Design group in CEMEA hosts and co-creates with a wide range of clients including Banks/Financial Institutions, Merchants, MNOs, Technology Providers, and the Fintech and Startup community. Operating out of the Dubai Innovation Center and Nairobi Innovation Studio, the team acts as the “front of shop” for Visa innovation engagements. It advocates Visa’s innovation vision and priorities, understand clients and partners’ needs and supports them in their innovation journey. 

Position Summary

Visa is looking for a talented Innovation Engagements & Design, Snr Manager to join our Innovation & Design team. Join a dynamic group that conceives and designs new concepts and plays a pivotal role in collaborations with Visa partners, working with emerging technologies such as biometric payments and emerging digital payments & acceptance methods.

You will be part of product development projects that include scoping, ideation, iteration and testing. Projects are derived based on forces shaping how consumers earn, spend, and save. This role will also contribute to driving much of Visa’s global new product roadmap through applied exploration and development.

You'll apply user-centered design principles and work closely with stakeholders to conceive and design best-in-class, useable and engaging product interfaces. You'll be involved in the early stages of research and ideation and will collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams through the iteration and development process. You are an accomplished UX designer who is fluent with digital experiences across platforms. 

Creating great UI is an important part of this role. This means creating both rapid UI prototypes as well as pixel perfect outcomes. This requires you to have a passion for building UI and you have a deep understanding and appreciation of how a delightful visual can drive user behavior and affect digital interactions.

You will also be leading co-creation sprints and other shorter cycle engagements. In many engagements, you will serve as a lead agile facilitator and sprint manager, helping diverse teams come together and deliver outcomes. You will also be required to lead in-market immersions to gain user insights.

A natural collaborator, you'll bringing together client partners, other designers, technologists, product stakeholders and subject matter experts and inspire, support & lead solutioning discussions.

All of our team members are natural collaborators, strategic thinkers and conceptual problem solvers who make every design decision an informed one. Each team member is trusted to independently manage their time and work, and make bold decisions using their best judgement. We value proven skills and thrive on positive, transparent teamwork, bringing together clients, partners, designers, technologists, product stakeholders and subject matter experts while inspiring and leading solutioning discussions.

This job is in Visa's Innovation Studio in Nairobi, where we partner with Visa clients from across Sub Saharan Africa to create ground-breaking payments products and experiences and solve unique client problems.

Responsibilities, 

• Lead engagements, end-to-end (from scoping, to research and client delivery in Center/Market/virtual), including, billable Value-in-kind (VIK) engagements 
• Lead and support key SetPlays, product explorations, and thought leadership pieces
• Serve as a facilitator and sprint manager for smaller engagements and parts of co-creations, helping diverse teams come together and deliver outsize outcomes.
• As needed, run Discovery sessions on a variety of topics
• Run Innovation Exiepriences and help build experiential assets in the center, e.g. content narratives, customized tours and demos. Support the development and deployment of physical and digital experiences in the Innovation Studio.
• Support the I&D Experiences team in ensuring the Innovation Centers & Studios are always cutting edge and at the forefront in showcasing latest payment experiences.
• Manage Innovation Center materials (technical resources, tools), generate and customize tools (physical and digital templates, wireframes, visual designs, style guides, pattern libraries, inspiration materials, etc.).
• Support Innovation Center operations in areas such as reporting of engagements & client activity
• Lead in-market immersions to gain user insights

  Define research (e.g., format, scope, candidate, interview guides, survey content, etc.) 

  Manage research agencies in market as required

• Design mobile, desktop and device specific experiences that are delightful and engaging
• Produce wireframes, visual designs, style guides and pattern libraries
• Create working UI prototypes that communicate the next generation commerce experiences (InVision or other similar product knowledge is a plus).
• Be comfortable and able to flex between rapid prototyping and building pixel perfect outcomes. E.g. on one project, produce rapid UI prototypes in record time for iteration with clients, in another project, take final outputs to the highest standards of UX and UI design.
• Build a world-class User Experience solution that supports the needs of the Visa digital solutions team and products
• Present design concepts to Senior Leadership and external partners
• Gather and incorporate requirements and feedback from multiple stakeholders
• Understand and advocate for the consumer's experience 
• Foster a deep and rewarding collaboration with the Product Managers, Engineers, Marketers, and our customers. Highly collaborative working is critical for success in the role

This is a hybrid position. Hybrid employees can alternate time between both remote and office. Employees in hybrid roles are expected to work from the office two days a week, Tuesdays and Wednesdays with a general guidepost of being in the office 50% of the time based on business needs.                                   

Essential Functions

• Experience in consumer payment, e-commerce and acceptance is preferred
• Proficiency designing and developing prototypes using Balsamiq, Invision or other industry tools
• Proficiency designing high-fidelity mockups using Figma, Sketch or other industry tools
• Subject Matter Expertise in interaction design
• Experience conducting usability tests (including with users with disabilities) a plus
• Experience working with SCRUM in an Agile environment a plus
• Subject Matter Expertise in Accessibility (508/WCAG) a plus
• Experience is constructing and conducting analytical, qualitative & quantitative research
• Demonstrated experience in running sprints that involve needs discovery, design, services design and solution development
• Management consulting and agency experience would be a big plus
• Group facilitation and teaching (design thinking) skills a plus
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, including thorough and methodical attention to detail
• Fully fluent in English and able to understand and be easily understood in English
• Ability to communicate concepts and recommendations confidently to a variety of audiences
• Ability to self-manage time and work independently or as part of a team
• An online portfolio that demonstrates outstanding product and ecosystem thinking