Program 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.

Join Visa University and play a key role in ensuring employees at Visa are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to excel in their roles.  You will be responsible for driving operational excellence and program management/project management practices for our strategic Tech learning programs. You will oversee the successful iterative launching of new and updated learning experiences for employees across various modalities including live in person and virtual learning experiences, learner interfaces, community driven learning and events, and learning solutions scaled in partnership with the Tech organization and other functions. You will advance agile practice by employing them within your programs and across the team.  In this role, you will thrive in a fast changing, complex, sometimes ambiguous, collaborative and proactive environment.

Visa University is a team of experts in our respective disciplines, but more importantly, we strive to harness our collective expertise in the most effective way for the benefit of learners. We combine rigor, data and subject matter expertise with intuition and common sense of what will be most effective for the business. We accelerate realized business value by iterating through deliverables, collecting feedback and learning as we constantly improve our operational excellence, increasing value to the business.

Key Responsibilities 

In partnership with VU Performance Consultants/Product Owners and with guidance from the PMO Senior Manager, you will:

Drive business outcomes through operational excellence:

• You will Program manage/project manage multiple projects and serve as the lead on execution of learning program build and deployment plans
• You will create and execute iterative Agile project & program plans including build plans, launch plans, comms plans, lifecycle management plans and other related structures to quickly iterate deliverables that bring increasing business value.
• You will create and manage backlogs under the direction of the performance consultant lead on your projects and programs.
• You will act as the execution expert on Agile project teams, providing consulting as you partner with the performance consultant on execution planning, including recommendations on backlog management, project milestones & deliverables, estimation, task prioritization, dependencies and risks, and roadmap timelines.
• Once the deliverables, owners, dates, dependencies and risk mitigation plans are in place, you will own the execution of those deliverables, working with various people across groups both within Visa University and across the business.
• You will be responsible for maintaining the project plan and roadmap, and will own updating the performance consultant lead, PMO Leadership and the wider team on progress against execution timelines.
• You will proactively anticipate and mitigate challenges within your programs before they arise, through solid planning and incorporating lessons learned from other use cases.
• You will advise early and often when support is needed from the Performance Consultant lead or others to keep programs moving on time and on or under budget to the required quality standards.
• You will serve as the primary point of contact for operational issues with key team members which may include external vendors and groups internal and external to Visa University.
• You will collaborate with PM colleagues to continually grow the PMO agile toolbox with best practices, templates, checklists, tools, etc that come out of Tech project/program execution experience.

Accelerate execution of Visa U’s 3E (Experience, Exposure and Education) strategy:

• As requirements dictate, you will assume responsibility for execution components of 3E strategy including acting as a Community Manager and managing scaled execution components like pipeline management of Subject Matter Expert or Ambassador delivery pools.
• As required, you may be called upon to drive event planning and management of 3E solutions including but not limited to learning days, learning months, hackathons and other live in person and/or digital experiences that happen over time.

This is a hybrid position. Hybrid employees can alternate time between both remote and office. Employees in hybrid roles are expected to work from the office 2-3 set days a week (determined by leadership/site), with a general guidepost of being in the office 50% or more of the time based on business needs.

Basic Qualifications

• 4 years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 2 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g., Masters, MBA, JD, MD)
•  Highly structured thinker with excellent planning, project management, coordination, execution consulting and organization skills to lead execution from inception to end of life, improving the quality of execution across iterations and projects
• Experience working with Agile processes, tools, artifacts and ceremonies.
• Experience working in learning and development roles
• Solid verbal and written communication skills
• High level of skill with pulling and working with data in Excel, as well as designing executive level PowerPoint decks, including telling compelling stories through data
• Experience with, or willingness to learn, various project management tools and Agile management tools/platforms. e.g., Jira, etc.
• The ability to work with ambiguity and quickly adapt to changing requirements and contexts.
• Ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously in a fast-paced, fast changing environment
• Data-driven with analytics experience

Preferred Qualifications

• 7-10 years of work experience and a Bachelor’s Degree or 6 years of work experience with an Advanced Degree
• Extensive experience with planning, implementing and operationalizing training programs for global audiences at all levels
• Experience with vendor management, statements of work, and vendor onboarding
• Demonstrated learning agility with a variety of content areas and modalities: While you will rely on your experience, you will also need to master new content areas/ways of doing things quickly
• Agile/Project Management certifications (CSM, PMI-ACP, PMP, or other Agile PM certifications for Scrum, Kanban, etc.)

Leadership Attributes

• You are service-oriented and keep the learner experience front-and-center in everything you do
• You are both a thinker and a doer and can constantly switch between the two
• You are accountable and take ownership of the projects and tasks you commit to - you are proactive, have great follow through, a sense of urgency and never have to be chased down
• You are detail-oriented and enjoy ensuring everything is in order and executed flawlessly, both when you do things yourself as well as when you accomplish them through others
• You are skilled at influencing across organizational levels, especially influencing without formal authority
• You are highly collaborative and adept at building productive working relationships
• You are resilient, agile, and flexible – you perceive false starts, changing priorities and constructive feedback as opportunities, not setbacks
• You are proactive and can anticipate issues before they arise
• You have a global mindset and embrace the need to operate with cultural norms and in time zones other than your own
• You are action-oriented and adept at dealing with ambiguity.

Work Hours: Varies upon the needs of the department.

Travel Requirements: This position requires travel 5-10% of the time.

Mental/Physical Requirements: This position will be performed in an office setting.  The position will require the incumbent to sit and stand at a desk, communicate in person and by telephone, frequently operate standard office equipment, such as telephones and computers.

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.

Visa will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable local law, including the requirements of Article 49 of the San Francisco Police Code.

U.S. APPLICANTS ONLY: The estimated salary range for a new hire into this position is 105,900.00 to 153,550.00 USD per year, which may include potential sales incentive payments (if applicable). Salary may vary depending on job-related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, and location. In addition, this position may be eligible for bonus and equity. Visa has a comprehensive benefits package for which this position may be eligible that includes Medical, Dental, Vision, 401 (k), FSA/HSA, Life Insurance, Paid Time Off, and Wellness Program.