Senior Director, Social and Content Insights & Analytics

In this role, you will serve as a senior leader responsible for shaping Visa’s global social measurement strategy. This strategy includes an always‑on social ecosystem designed to elevate Visa’s presence across social platforms and deepen engagement with priority communities You will define how we identify and target priority segments and cohorts, establish frameworks for real‑time optimization, and create the signaling model that enables teams to surface and scale ideas with the highest cultural momentum. Your work will ensure Visa continuously identifies what is “bubbling up” in conversation—specifically, ideas that can travel further because they are surfacing in social conversations, behaviors, and patterns—enabling the brand to act quickly, engage authentically, and amplify content with the greatest potential to travel globally.

While the focus and day-to-day activities will all be dedicated to the Content Development and Distribution team, this role will report to the SVP of Insights & Analytics Marketing Analytics. This to ensure the proper career progression, mastery on the marketing analytics area, as well as connection to other data, analytics, research, and insights specialty areas.

This role will lead the relationship with the social data measurement experts that are working with Visa at the agency side, and sometime also at the social channel. This partnership should lead to architect new uses of data and measurement to increase engagement.

As part of the key deliverables, it is important to define the learnings and guidelines on how to make content for all Visa’s social platforms that is highly shareable and engaging, and those guidelines should also serve to define a consistent approach to content creation with internal and external partners that support brand and business objectives.

To excel in this role, one must possess deep expertise in both analytics and social media, complemented by strong business acumen. Success hinges on the ability to turn complex data into actionable insights and communicate them effectively especially to audiences without technical backgrounds. This requires a “multilingual” skillset, fluently navigating the worlds of business, media, and analytics. In essence, the position acts as a vital translation layer, bridging technical analysis and strategic decision-making to address business challenges and unlock new growth opportunities.

This position is part of a central team dedicated to empowering and collaborating with both global and regional teams, fostering an environment where shared success is paramount. Given that most activations are executed locally, effective placement and measurement rely on strong cooperation among global, regional, and local content and analytics teams, enabling clear communication and unified results.

Ultimately, the ideal candidate should be a proactive self-starter with a strong sense of curiosity and creativity, bringing expert-level expertise in market research, analysis, and generating insights. This position will take the lead in driving learning through execution experimentation, which can be approached in diverse and innovative ways, including leveraging our proprietary VisaNet first-party data.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the measurement framework that will support the year-round content engine & calendar. This will include multiple initiatives and brand storytelling through social & creator-led content with a mix of internal, platform, and campaign specific content.
• Recommend the tools and analytics to connect social’s impact on brand outcomes.
• Lead the experimentation engine for Visa. In-market learning on execution experiments with clear agreements on expansion criteria. Recommend experiment design, bring the right experts to the table, ensuring the Data Science supporting team and/or analytical shop is properly guided, and ensure an actionable outcome as well as the best possible leverage of Visa’s suite of behavioral and data analytics resources.
• Define the right strategic audience for the socially led initiatives and work with all the available resources to create appealing sub-cohort groups that are part of this broad positioning. This to allow creating more impactful and relevant messaging. Harmonize the learnings between all different ways to create and action toward a specific cohort to make sure learnings travel across agencies and initiatives.
• Partner with other Marketing analytics areas to better allocate resources and to define experiments between the different platforms and channels.
• Partner with the Marketing data practice team to have the tech platforms available to drive the analytics and understanding.
• Define the value of driving creators as brand ambassadors for Visa as a complement to our content approach.
• Develop new data & analytics agency partners to ensure Visa’s has a constant content and community presence across channels and platforms.
• Demonstrate the courage to advocate for testing innovative new approaches even when challenged by legacy ways of working. Demonstrate exemplary research expertise and innovation, including recommending alternative data sources and methods where appropriate
• Inspire and guide holistic and integrated channel strategies, with deep knowledge on the testing tools per channel, and how they will build up as part of the overall learning plan.
• Partner to measure and execute social content connected to global campaigns, including real-time sponsorship activation during and at events like the Olympics and FIFA World Cup.
• Support the analytics and impact behind our organic, paid and combination of the two.
• Feed learnings into the insights engine to activate timely cultural and social trends in-line with the brands objectives. Drive social innovation to inspire new ideas among the marketing team.
• Help lead Visa’s entry into emerging social channels, moving at the speed of social. This while feeding the learning into the cycle while synthesizing findings and recommendations.

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

Basic Qualifications:

• 12 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 10 years of work experience with an Advanced degree (e.g. Masters/MBA /JD/MD), or a minimum of 5 years of work experience with a PhD
• Experience managing insights and analytical functions that had responsibilities over paid, earned and owned media.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 15 or more years of experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, or MD), PhD with 9+ years of experience
• Deep expertise in media analytics roles on the agency, social channels, listening and/or brand side managing digital and social targeting and measurement
• Highly proficient in the application of channel specific tools for targeting (e.g. Meta A/B testing, etc.) as well as brand lift offerings. Need proficiency in different channels analytical tools, including Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube, X, LinkedIn and others
• Preference for degree in marketing, market research, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and/or in a quantitative field like Economics/Econometrics, Statistics, Operations Research, Computer Science, or Engineering.
• Experience driving the learning and measurement plan integrated to amplify and learn from marketing campaigns, particularly in the digital space and channels.
• Demonstrated success using research to drive insights and strategic implications that lead to business decisions. Demonstrated ability to communicate technically-complex topics in a simple understandable way and be able to influence decisions.
• An influential and seasoned creative leader with experience engaging and collaborating across complex global teams and local markets to deliver best-in-class content.
• Bring fresh creative ideas to increase engagement in established and emerging social platforms
• You have a bias for action, not bureaucracy, and are able to act nimbly and quickly while rallying cross-functional teams and senior execs behind a shared vision.
• Demonstrated ability on business analytics “soft-skills”, including: business intuition, analytical/critical thinking (e.g., find analytical solutions to abstract business issues, and inquisitiveness (e.g., Look beyond the surface to discover solutions within the data).
• Ability to transition easily from a technical research perspective to practical business considerations. Ability to influence teams and business to get to tangible results.
• Must have proven ability to drive results with a high degree of personal initiative and leadership in a fast-paced, dynamic environment with limited resources.
• A thought-leader, change agent, and champion of developing new ways of working.
• Must have strong leadership experience with a desire to mentor and grow teams.

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 240,000.00 to 375,000.00 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.