Director, Innovation, Asia Pacific

Job description

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 Team Summary (Director, Innovation, Asia Pacific): Visa’s Asia Pacific Innovation team drives the development of new product opportunities across payments, commerce, and emerging technology. The team works across Product, Design, Technology Partnerships, Strategy, and regional markets to identify high-value client problems, shape new concepts, test them quickly, and move the strongest ideas toward pilot and scale. This role will help build Visa’s product innovation engine in Asia Pacific. We are looking for someone who can bring start-up pace, product discipline, and corporate pragmatism to turn early signals into tangible business outcomes. The role is based in Singapore and reports to the Senior Director, Head of Innovation, Asia Pacific. What the Director, Innovation will do: Lead 0-1 product innovation work from problem definition through concept, prototype, validation, pilot, and handoff. Run fast, focused innovation sprints with clear outputs, owners, timelines, and decision points. Work with cross-functional teams across Product, Design, Technology, Strategy, Partnerships, and markets to shape and test new opportunities. Translate client needs, market shifts, and emerging technologies into commercially relevant product concepts. Build high quality structured communication packs including product narratives, pitch materials, demo flows, and pilot plans that clients and internal stakeholders can act on. Keep teams focused on speed, quality, and business value, not activity for activity’s sake. Support senior stakeholder discussions with clear thinking, strong materials, and practical recommendations. Leverage learnings to drive Visa AP Thought Leadership agenda and develop relevant materials Why this role matters: Visa needs to move fast from insight to validated product opportunity. This role will help build the muscle to identify the right problems, test ideas quickly, and advance the strongest concepts into commercially relevant pilots. The goal is simple: fewer vague ideas, more focused bets, and clearer paths to business impact. Visa requires at least 3 days in office, expectations of these days will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager. Qualifications What we are looking for: 12+ years of experience in product innovation, venture building, corporate innovation, strategy, fintech, payments, digital commerce, or technology-led growth. Proven 0-1 experience building, launching, or scaling new products, propositions, ventures, or business models. Strong experience running innovation sprints, discovery, prototyping, MVP development, validation, pilots, and stage-gate decisions. Experience in a start-up, scale-up, venture studio, corporate venture builder, or product build environment. Experience working in or with large corporations, with the judgment to move fast while managing complexity. Strong commercial instinct, with the ability to separate interesting ideas from ideas that can create real business value. Excellent problem-solving skills and comfort working with ambiguity. Strong product storytelling skills, including the ability to turn complex capabilities into simple client-facing narratives. Ability to work across senior leaders, product teams, designers, engineers, market teams, and external partners. Hands-on, pragmatic, and fast-paced. Comfortable whiteboarding, testing, rewriting, aligning stakeholders, and unblocking work. Experience and strong evidence of interest in payments, fintech, platforms, AI, digital commerce, wallets, data, or emerging technology specifically agentic commerce and stablecoins is strongly preferred. The ideal candidate: You are a builder, not just a strategist. You know how to take a messy problem, shape it into a clear opportunity, test it quickly, and push it toward a real business outcome. You love going down new product/problem/theme rabbit holes. You bring founder obsession, product judgment, and the maturity to operate inside a large global company. You are structured, fast and collaborative. You make things move. 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.