Strategic Consulting Manager

Visa is a world leader in payments and technology, with over 259 billion payments transactions flowing safely between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and government entities in 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 while driven by a common purpose – to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

Make an impact with a purpose-driven industry leader. Join us today and experience Life at Visa.

Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA) is known for its multi-disciplinary teams, payments expertise and its unique VisaNet data-driven insights.  We support Visa's ecosystem of partners by advising them on payments strategy, proposition design, digital solutions and portfolio optimisation.  Our clients include banks, retailers, fintechs, airlines and government agencies. 

The VCA Australia, NZ and Pacific Islands team sits within the Asia Pacific advisory practice and has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland.

The Manager role reflects the increasing demand for VCA in Australia, NZ and the Pacific Islands. Based in Sydney, the Manager will report to Portfolio Optimisation Practice Lead in VCA AuNZPI Consulting team, support projects across consulting service areas as well as driving practice development activities.

This role is ideal for experienced consultants or those who have experience working in product teams within retail banks, who want to apply their strategic problem-solving skills in the fast-evolving payments industry.

What we are looking for:

Our people are intellectually curious, collegial and capable of building trusted relationships with clients.

We look for depth and breadth of experience rather than relying on age or job titles as proxies, and hire for judgment and integrity.  You will be curious about the payments industry, and keen to work alongside a multi-disciplinary team. You will be comfortable managing a consulting engagement project end-to-end, under the guidance of Senior Managers, Directors, or Senior Directors, depending on the size of the engagement.

We are looking for:

• Problem solvers: Candidates should be able to quickly understand new issues and apply a structured, intellectually rigorous, and analytically sound approach to solving problems.
• Compelling advisers: Candidates should have robust communication skills, including strong oral and written capabilities and the ability to build trust with clients.
• Team players: Strong team orientation, collaborative, diplomatic, and flexible, able to work effectively in a matrixed organisation.
• Resourceful self-starters: Motivated, results-oriented candidates with the ability to progress multiple projects concurrently.  We are looking for candidates with a bias towards actions rather than passengers.
• Dedicated professionals: Strong detail orientation, ensuring the highest level of quality/rigor in our recommendations to clients under time pressure.

What a Strategic Consulting Manager does at Visa:

You will work on consulting engagements for Visa's clients (typically banks) in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.  Our multi-disciplinary teams provide advice, problem solving skills, data insights and specialist expertise to drive growth and profitability in our clients' payments businesses. Typical engagements can include:

• Strategies to improve customer engagement and retention
• Acquisition strategies for targeted customer segments
• Enhancing digital customer experience
• Profitability optimisation assessment
• Credit risk optimisation initiatives and analysis

You will be responsible for significant components of client engagements, and in some cases end-to-end delivery of client engagements. Typically, this will involve the Manager interacting with the client team, gathering and managing project inputs, analysing data to form conclusions and recommendations, developing and presenting compelling project reports and working with clients on executing recommendations. The full range of responsibilities are detailed below.

Responsibilities:

• Prepare client proposals and project plans, identifying dependencies, roles and responsibilities, scope and outcomes / deliverables.
• Prepare project materials including interview guides, data requirements, concepts and frameworks.
• Undertake client interviews, collecting and analysing inputs such as client information, data, processes, policies, competitive and environmental information.
• Create compelling PowerPoint presentations to illustrate findings, ideas, recommendations within consulting engagements and more broadly.
• Manage junior team members such as Associates, Analysts and Interns.
• Ensure project engagements remain on track, utilising governance frameworks and mitigating / resolving complex problems that emerge during engagements.
• Identify solutions and recommendations that address client objectives and result in performance improvement.
• Support Portfolio Optimisation consulting practice development. Continuously build knowledge, drive new initiatives and support thought leadership pieces.
• Collaborate with local client relationship managers/other functional teams to gain insights and support client engagement and execution.

Note: The official title for this role at Visa is Client Consulting Manager. However, we are using the title Strategic Consulting Manager in this outreach to better align with the experience and expectations of candidates from top-tier consulting firms.

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

The ideal candidate will likely have:

• 5+ years of relevant experience in consulting or banking product strategy.
• Experience in payments or financial services.
• Experience in consumer and business (debit and credit) banking.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, demonstrated through a consistent application of intellectual and analytical rigor.
• Strong team orientation, collaborative, flexible, able to work effectively in a matrixed organization and enjoys learning through new challenges.
• Superior detail orientation, ensuring the highest level of quality/rigor in reports and data analysis.
• Experience in and passion for the power of analytics to yield insights and a proven ability to build models in Microsoft Excel to support business cases.
• Strong undergraduate academic accomplishment.
• Exposure to customer experience design (using human centered design / design thinking).

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.