Visa | Jobs | Senior Director, Head of Data Science, INSA | BigDataKB.com | 05-02-22

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.

Team Summary:

Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA) is Visa’s consulting division, serving Visa’s clients (including card issuers, acquirers and merchants) and solving their strategic problems focused on improving performance and profitability. Drawing on our expertise in strategy consulting, payments, data analytics, marketing, operational and macroeconomics, VCA drives high impact and tangible financial results. The incumbent will lead the VCA Data Science geographic team cluster of India and South Asia (INSA) markets and will be responsible for Data Science backed consulting engagements with Visa’s clients in the INSA cluster. The team is involved in a comprehensive range of consulting services and solutions to our clients, that address unique challenges in areas such as strategic growth, profitability, risk management, digital strategy and data-driven portfolio management decisions.

If you like to use fact-based, data-driven solutions to solve for business problems that deliver value and enable Visa’s clients to win more business, you should apply.

What a Data Science Head (INSA) does at Visa:

The Data Science Head, INSA is a key member of the Visa Analytics and Consulting (VCA) team. In this role, you will be responsible for leading a high performing team of data scientists and be accountable for the design, development and implementation of analytics driven strategies and solutions for key Visa clients. You will collaborate with VCA, Business, and Technology teams across the organization to implement solutions to drive business performance.

In this role, you are expected to:

People Leadership

• Lead a team of data scientists to support data science projects for the geo, including project oversight, coaching and professional development

Commercial Acumen/Business Development

• Work with internal/external clients to understand their strategic business questions and lead project scoping/design to answer those questions by leveraging Visa’s data
• Responsible to deliver revenue targets for the cluster across VCA growth catalyst such as strategic benchmarking, data collaboration and data science managed service vertical
• Develop and own relationships with key senior data science / data analytics leaders with clients

Data Science Proficiency and Solution Leadership

• Leverage big data and cutting-edge data mining techniques, provide thought leadership in analytic techniques and business applications to unlock the value of Visa’s unique data set
• Utilize Hadoop, and related query engines, such as Hive and Impala, to perform advanced data mining.
• Ability to inspire highest level of quality/rigor/thought leadership in reports & data analysis
• Research industry metrics and business context and bring this context to bear in analysis
• Enhancing existing analytic techniques by promoting new methodology and best practices in analytics field
• Oversee deployment and implementation of analytics solutions, and track business value impact
• Develop strategies and recommendations on testing and monitoring analytical model performance in the business context

Project Execution

• Direct the execution of medium to large analytic projects based on business requirements and desired business outcomes.
• Guide team in development of actionable solutions and creation of deliverables that effectively communicate the findings and recommendations
• Defining detailed scope and methodology, creating and executing on the framework with appropriate data science techniques
• Extract actionable business insights from the data and build deliverables that clearly communicate the findings and recommendations
• Actively seek out opportunities to innovate by using non-traditional data and new modeling techniques
• Ensuring all project documentation is up to date and maintain the highest levels of quality in deliverables

This role reports to the Head of Data Science Asia Pacific, matrixed to the Consulting Lead in the INSA cluster. This position can either be based in India Visa office.

Why this is important to Visa:

With a rapid change in the payment landscape, new regulations around Open banking and Open data and the emergence of new Fintech players – the payment ecosystem is rapidly evolving. Our clients are looking to Visa as the payment experts to help them navigate through the opportunities and challenges that these changes pose. Visa with its global reach and rich transaction data set is ideally positioned to assist our FI clients, merchant & FinTech partners solve their strategic business problems and drive growth.

As a payment consulting arm of Visa, VCA is growing a team of highly specialized experts that can provide best in class payment expertise to the client. We are a global organization leveraging global expertise and best practice with local knowledge and understanding of our client partners. This enables us to deepen our partnership with our clients and bring value to their business.

Projects you will be a part of:

As part of the team you will get opportunity to work on strategically important projects for clients.

• As an example, you might be working with an issuer client to assess opportunities across cardholder lifecycle, conduct gap assessment and determine strategy or provide best practice recommendation to the Bank.
• You will also be involved in client pitches, to bring strategic thinking in bringing together a compelling proposition to help Visa win clients and deepen partnerships.
• You will build models and data solutions and ensure clients find value to take action such as running marketing campaigns to drive payment card activation and usage, changing policies or processes, launching new products, opening new channels, among other things.
• You will provide thought leadership and analytics advisory service to our clients in the face of changing regulation and market landscape impacting business revenue streams

Projects you will be a part of:

As part of the team you will get opportunity to work on strategically important projects for clients.

• As an example, you might be working with an issuer client to assess opportunities across cardholder lifecycle, conduct gap assessment and determine strategy or provide best practice recommendation to the Bank.
• You will also be involved in client pitches, to bring strategic thinking in bringing together a compelling proposition to help Visa win clients and deepen partnerships.
• You will build models and data solutions and ensure clients find value to take action such as running marketing campaigns to drive payment card activation and usage, changing policies or processes, launching new products, opening new channels, among other things.
• You will provide thought leadership and analytics advisory service to our clients in the face of changing regulation and market landscape impacting business revenue streams

What you will need:

We are looking to hire candidates that have already accumulated a variety of experience, you will be curious about the payments industry, results-driven and client-centric. As a candidate you should have both technical and business acumen:

• Proficiency in some of the following statistical techniques: Neural Networks, Gradient Boosting, Linear & Logistic Regression, Decision Trees, Random Forests, Markov Chains, Support Vector Machines, Clustering, Principal Component Analysis, Factor analysis, etc
• Hands on experience with one or more data analytics/programming tools such as SQL/Python/Hive/ SAS/R, and a working knowledge of Hadoop ecosystem
• Deep knowledge of the India & South Asia market, and experience in supporting major banking and financial institution clients across Issuing, Acquiring and Merchants businesses
• Experience in several key issuer business areas, such as portfolio management, marketing, product management, operations, risk management, for both credit and debit cards
• Demonstrated experience in planning, organizing, and managing multiple analytic projects with diverse cross-functional stakeholders
• Demonstrated ability to innovate solutions to solve business problems
• Strong internal team and external client stakeholder management with a collaborative, diplomatic, and flexible style; able to work effectively in a matrixed organization
• Excellent presentation skills, including strong oral and written capabilities
• Self-motivated, results-oriented individual with the ability to progress multiple priorities concurrently
• Solutions-focused mindset

What will also help:

• Minimum 12 years of analytical expertise in applying statistical solutions to business problems
• Post graduate degree (Masters or Ph.D.) in Quantitative field such as Statistics, Mathematics, Operational Research, Computer Science, Economics, or engineering or equivalent experience
• Experience in analytics for retail banking, card issuing or consulting to retail banks
• Understanding of Payments and Banking Industry including Consumer Credit, Consumer debit, Small Business, Commercial, Co-Brand and Merchant
• In-market experience and/or knowledge of local language and culture as well as regulation and industry trends
• Story-boarding and data story-telling including strong PowerPoint and Excel skills
• Willingness to travel 30%+

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.