Director, Rules Governance and Transformation

Visa Rules are mandatory operating standards and enforcement requirements that govern how participants in the Visa payment ecosystem conduct business. They define rights, responsibilities, prohibitions, and consequences to protect the integrity, security, and reliability of the network. The Visa Rules Self‑Assessment (VRSA) framework is an important initiative that provides a standardized approach for assessing Visa Rules to ensure they remain fit for purpose, aligned with Visa's strategy, and supported by effective compliance and enforcement mechanisms. It enables Visa to proactively identify opportunities to strengthen governance, simplify requirements, address compliance gaps, and improve the overall effectiveness of the Rules framework.

This leadership role is accountable for the strategic direction, governance, operational effectiveness, and continuous evolution of Visa Rules Self-Assessment (VRSA), ensuring that Visa Rules remain fit for purpose and aligned with Visa's business, risk, compliance, and ecosystem objectives. This role provides enterprise-wide leadership to strengthen Visa Rules governance, drive operational excellence, improve consistency of decision-making, and enable scalable transformation through process, data, automation, and emerging technologies. The role will also be responsible for building a scalable future-state operating model and automation readiness across Ecosystem Program Transformation & Automation (EPTA) and Payment Ecosystem Risk & Controls (PERC) initiatives.

This role is critical to ensure:

Visa Rules requirements remain clear, enforceable, and aligned with strategic objectives.

Governance, risk, operations, and technology remain effectively aligned across an increasingly complex ecosystem.

Automation and AI-enabled capabilities are deployed responsibly and transitioned successfully into business-as-usual operations.

This role includes people leadership responsibilities, overseeing and developing a small, high‑impact team and guiding delivery in support of Visa’s strategic and operational objectives.

Key Responsibilities

In partnership with Senior Director, define strategy, target outcomes and roadmap for Visa Rules Self-Assessment (VRSA). Drive socialization, alignment and end‑to‑end execution, including executive readouts and addressing questions.

Act as a liaison between senior stakeholders, rule owners, PERC and EPTA leadership and manage trade-offs and escalations.

Support and evolve Visa Rules inquiries ensuring efficient and high-quality responses as well as defined escalation paths for resolution of complex inquiries.

Develop and present executive communication with clear, concise insights on VRSA outcomes and trends, process improvement impacts and readiness of automation and AI initiatives.

Drive continuous process improvement and operational excellence for VRSA, Rules Inquiries and adjacent EPTA workflows. Examples include playbooks, process artefacts, process flows, RACI, etc.

Support automation and AI initiative enablement, acting as a senior operational partner to EPTA and Technology teams. Drive alignment on governance and control expectations, support change management and adoption, enable the transition of solutions into BAU.

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

Qualifications

10 years of work experience with a bachelor’s degree; or 8 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD)

Demonstrated experience leading and developing high-performing teams, including performance management and coaching

Strong interpersonal skills and proven abilities in negotiating and influencing internal and external clients

Strong written and verbal communications skills, ability to convey complex topics in an audience-centric way

Strong analytical aptitude and experience leveraging data, analytics, and performance metrics to drive business decisions, operational improvements, and transformation initiatives.

Experience leading business transformation, operating model improvement, or technology-enabled change initiatives managing complex stakeholder environments, and drive alignment across multiple functions or regions.

Proven ability to lead complex, cross‑functional initiatives, balancing competing priorities across regions and stakeholders

Experience gathering business requirements and translating needs into successful deliverables

Ability to effectively work under pressure and adhering to tight deadlines

Great time management skills, ability to set priorities and manage expectations, and work both as part of a team and independently

Visa experience or in-depth knowledge of the payment solutions industry is highly desired – including but not limited to Card Payments, ACH or Push Payments and knowledge of the Visa Rules highly desired

Experience with AI tools is a great plus

Personal Characteristics

Possesses a growth mindset and is eager to take on new challenges

Strong ownership, accountability, and resilience while navigating ambiguity and competing priorities, comfortable adapting to change and different environments

Focus towards action and overcoming barriers and finding solutions

Good judgment – ability to operate independently and knowing when / how much to involve leadership

Decisive with ability to balance big picture and details in decision making

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.