About Us
Visa is a world leader in payments technology, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories, dedicated to uplifting everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.
At Visa, you'll have the opportunity to create impact at scale — tackling meaningful challenges, growing your skills and seeing your contributions impact lives around the world.
Join Visa and do work that matters – to you, to your community, and to the world. Progress starts with you.
Job Description
The Senior Manager – Portfolio Optimization is a delivery leader within VCA Implementation Services (VIS), responsible for leading multiple, complex client engagements focused on improving issuer portfolio performance across the full customer lifecycle.
This role combines strategic problem‑solving with hands‑on execution leadership, overseeing embedded delivery teams and partnering with clients to translate portfolio optimization strategy into sustained business impact. The role requires strong client leadership, portfolio analytics expertise, and the ability to manage multi‑workstream initiatives.
Key Responsibilities:
Client Engagement & Delivery Leadership:
Lead multiple concurrent portfolio optimization engagements across issuers, covering acquisition, activation, engagement, retention, reactivation, and cross‑sell use cases.
Own end‑to‑end engagement delivery, including problem definition, scope and workplan development, milestone tracking, risk management, and governance cadence.
Act as a trusted advisor to client senior leadership and executives, presenting insights, recommendations, progress updates, and impact read‑outs.
Ensure consistent delivery quality, timelines, and outcomes across engagements operating in onsite, offshore, near‑shore, and hybrid models.
Portfolio Optimization & Execution:
Lead portfolio diagnostics to identify value pools and performance gaps across issuer portfolios, leveraging customer lifecycle, spend behavior, risk, and engagement analytics.
Translate insights into actionable initiatives, including lifecycle programs, campaign strategies, product levers, pricing optimization, and execution roadmaps.
Partner closely with analytics, data science, marketing, risk, and technology teams to operationalize insights into live campaigns, decision rules, and execution engines.
Drive test‑and‑learn and experimentation (e.g., A/B testing) to optimize campaign effectiveness and continuously refine portfolio strategies.
Track, measure, and report impact, ensuring initiatives deliver measurable, sustained improvements in activation, spend, retention, authorization performance, and profitability.
Business Impact & Issuer Economics Ownership:
Own outcome tracking for key portfolio KPIs including activation uplift, spend growth, attrition reduction, premiumization, and profitability.
Apply deep understanding of issuer economics, including P&L drivers, interchange, pricing, risk‑reward trade‑offs, and lifecycle profitability.
Establish clear baselines, success metrics, and post‑implementation measurement to ensure value realization and accountability.
Portfolio Governance & Scalable Frameworks:
Own and continuously enhance portfolio optimization governance frameworks, including KPI definitions, scorecards, dashboards, review cadence, and escalation mechanisms.
Establish a single source of truth for engagement performance and portfolio impact across clients and markets.
Drive disciplined execution and accountability across multi‑workstream initiatives and cross‑functional teams.
Team & Resource Management:
Lead and manage multidisciplinary teams comprising Visa FTEs and contractors across analytics, consulting, and execution capabilities.
Provide day‑to‑day coaching, performance oversight, and development support for engagement leads and team members.
Support staffing, onboarding, and rapid integration of resources into client environments and governance models.
Commercial Support & Practice Development:
Support engagement scoping, effort estimation, and commercial discussions in partnership with sales and regional leadership.
Contribute to the scaling of Portfolio Optimization within VIS by developing reusable methodologies, playbooks, and delivery accelerators.
Act as a thought leader on portfolio optimization trends, emerging levers (e.g., AI‑led personalization, lifecycle automation), and best practices across VCA and Visa.
Share insights, case studies, and lessons learned to strengthen the broader consulting and services community.
This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your hiring manager.
Qualifications
12+ years of professional experience in management consulting, financial services, payments, cards, or portfolio analytics, with 10+ years of relevant experience and an advanced degree (MBA or Master’s preferred).
Strong understanding of issuer portfolio management, customer lifecycle optimization, and financial performance drivers.
Demonstrated experience leading complex, multi‑workstream client engagements with senior and executive stakeholders.
Proven ability to manage and inspire teams across geographies and delivery models.
Hands‑on experience in card portfolio optimization, lifecycle marketing, campaign design, risk optimization, pricing, or authorization performance.
Strong executive communication, stakeholder management, and structured problem‑solving skills.
Ability to blend strategic thinking with operational execution in fast‑paced, client‑facing environments.
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.
