Senior Director, Marketing – Southern & Eastern Africa

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 Position Summary: In alignment with Visa’s strategic transformation of Sub-Saharan Africa, this role will lead the Marketing agenda for Southern & Eastern Africa (SEA). The position is accountable for shaping and executing the SEA marketing strategy, ensuring it is tightly aligned to commercial priorities, client needs, brand ambitions, and market opportunities across the sub-region. As the senior Marketing leader for SEA, the role will partner closely with the SEA Group Country Manager (GCM), SEA leadership team, Regional CMO, CEMEA Marketing Services leadership, and cross-functional partners to translate regional priorities into market-relevant strategies that deliver measurable business impact. The role requires strong commercial judgment, strategic marketing leadership, and the ability to operate with influence across a complex matrix. It will lead integrated marketing initiatives that strengthen Visa’s brand, accelerate client engagement, support revenue growth, and enable expansion across priority SEA markets. This leader will report to the SVP of Marketing for CEMEA, with matrixed accountability to the SEA GCM. He/she will oversee local Visa marketing teams and agency partnerships, ensuring marketing investments are focused on the highest-value opportunities and deliver clear outcomes across revenue generation, transactions, payment volume, market share growth, PCE penetration, and merchant acceptance across physical and digital commerce. Role Purpose Lead the development and execution of high-impact marketing strategies across SEA that strengthen Visa’s brand, accelerate business growth, deepen client engagement, and support priority platforms including Premium, Cross-border, and Debit. Maximize the return on marketing investment by delivering distinctive creative work, disciplined execution, and robust measurement against agreed business and marketing KPIs, including MROI. Build trusted relationships with senior internal and external stakeholders, including the SEA GCM, SEA leadership team, Clients, Sales, Product, Acceptance, Visa Consulting & Analytics, Hub and Global Marketing teams, and agency partners. Key Responsibilities: Strategic marketing leadership: Develop and execute the SEA marketing strategy, ensuring clear alignment with commercial priorities, market opportunities, client needs, and Visa’s regional and global brand agenda. Business impact and growth: Prioritize marketing initiatives that drive revenue, transactions, payment volume, market share, PCE penetration, and merchant acceptance across SEA. Client and market activation: Lead integrated marketing and communication plans that support client priorities, product platforms, cross-border growth, sponsorship activation, and market development. Marketing effectiveness: Establish clear performance measures for all major initiatives, assess marketing and business effectiveness, and ensure continued investment is directed to campaigns with demonstrable impact. Market insight and competitive intelligence: Use research, market data, cardholder behavior, payment trends, and competitor activity to identify growth opportunities, sharpen marketing plans, and inform future business direction. Brand stewardship: Act as the Visa brand guardian across SEA, ensuring all communications and activations comply with regional and global brand strategies, standards, and guidelines. Investment discipline: Manage SEA marketing budgets, ensure rigorous prioritization of investment, and oversee budget allocation, reporting, and compliance with Visa policies and procedures. Partnership and execution excellence: Negotiate and manage external partnerships and contracts as required, ensuring delivery quality, commercial value, and brand alignment. Agency and Partner Leadership: Lead and manage agency relationships across SEA, ensuring partners deliver high-quality creative, media, and executional work aligned to agreed plans, timelines, budgets, and brand standards. Oversee the campaign briefing process, ensuring agencies are equipped with clear strategic direction and deliver work that reflects Visa’s brand, values, and commercial objectives. Evaluate agency performance, work product, and contractual delivery to ensure continued effectiveness, value, and accountability. Provide strategic marketing counsel to clients, including issuers and merchants, helping them achieve business objectives through Visa’s marketing expertise, capabilities, and value-added services. Lead the Marketing Services P&L for SEA, including revenue and margin delivery, and oversee key client engagements in coordination with the CEMEA Marketing Services VP. Develop and implement client co-marketing strategies and plans that deliver measurable value for Visa and its clients. Secure client commitment to participate in Visa-led marketing activities, including marketing-in-kind solutions, sponsorship activations, and value-added services. Activate global and local sponsorship platforms across SEA to amplify marketing investments, strengthen brand visibility, and support business priorities. Leadership and Operating Discipline: Lead, coach, and develop the SEA marketing team, building capability, accountability, and a high-performance culture. Build strong relationships with senior stakeholders at country, regional, hub, and global levels to ensure alignment, influence decisions, and accelerate execution. Operate with strong governance and discipline across budget management, investment prioritization, reporting, and compliance. Reporting Relationships and Key Interactions: This role reports to the SVP of Marketing for CEMEA, with matrixed accountability to the SEA GCM. The leader will work closely with senior stakeholders across Visa, including regional and global Marketing, Sales, Product, Acceptance, Marketing Services, Visa Consulting & Analytics and key external clients such as issuers and merchants. This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in office will be confirmed by your hiring manager. Qualifications Basic Qualifications: Tertiary education required; MBA or equivalent postgraduate qualification preferred. 15+ years’ senior marketing experience, ideally with broader commercial or general management exposure, gained in blue-chip FMCG, banking, financial services, payments, technology, or related industries. Demonstrated experience leading regional or multi-market marketing agendas across complex channels, client segments, and business priorities. Proven track record in agency leadership, integrated campaign development, brand management, marketing effectiveness, and commercial growth delivery. Strong business acumen, including experience managing budgets, investment prioritization, and P&L-related outcomes. Preferred Qualifications: Strategic marketing leadership and execution discipline. Strong commercial orientation and ability to connect marketing activity to measurable business outcomes. Executive presence, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders across a matrixed organization. Strong analytical capability and comfort using data, research, and performance metrics to shape decisions. Deep understanding of modern marketing channels, including digital, social, sponsorship, client marketing, and integrated campaigns. Strong creative judgment and ability to translate insight into compelling ideas and market-relevant activation. Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, including executive briefings and senior-level presentations. Inclusive, culturally aware leadership style with the ability to operate effectively across diverse markets. Strong relationship management, negotiation, and partnership skills. Agility, resilience, and sound judgment in a fast-changing, complex environment. 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.