Senior Director, LAC Government Affairs, Head of Policy Strategy & Operations

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Senior Director, LAC Government Affairs, Head of Policy Strategy & Operations

senior · Consulting

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

Visa operates in an increasingly complex and fast-evolving regulatory and geopolitical environment, where strategic clarity, coordination, and execution speed are critical to achieving business objectives.

The Senior Director – LAC Government Affairs - Head of Policy Strategy & Operations for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a full-time role based in Miami and reports directly to the SVP of Government Affairs for LAC. This leader will play a critical role in advancing Visa’s public policy priorities across the region while ensuring the operational excellence of the Government Affairs (GA) function. This dual role combines policy strategy design and implementation with Business Strategy and Operations responsibilities, supporting our dynamic, high-impact team to deliver measurable outcomes and business value.

This leader will partner closely with regional and global Government Affairs leaders, Legal, Product, Technology, Strategy, Operations, and Business Functions to align policy positions with Visa’s strategic priorities and enable effective regional execution.

Some travel may be required in the role in its engagement with Government Affairs and other team members at Visa.

This leader will be responsible for building and running the operating backbone of the LAC Government Affairs function, ensuring that regional priorities, market needs, global alignment, budget and workforce planning, strategic initiatives, reporting, and collaboration mechanisms are coordinated through a high-performing hub model.

The successful candidate will bring deep policy expertise, strategic insight, and strong leadership to translate complex regulatory and political themes into clear regional priorities and actionable plans that advance Visa’s business and reputational objectives.

Headline objectives for Policy Strategy are:

• Lead the end-to-end process of developing, refining, and executing Visa’s LAC policy strategy, ensuring alignment with global policy and corporate goals and business priorities.

• In coordination with regional and global leads, act as the principal architect of regional policy design, identifying key themes, trends, and opportunities across digital payments, financial inclusion, data governance, cybersecurity, and emerging financial technologies.

• Ensure alignment between strategic policy priorities and the operating infrastructure needed to deliver them.

• Anticipate and assess regulatory and political developments that could impact Visa’s business model, then design proactive and evidence-based policy responses.

• Orchestrate relationship management with regional LAC focused development banks, NGOs, industry associations, and research centers.

• Partner with global policy centers of excellence to ensure consistency and coordination on key global issues such as AI, cybersecurity, international organizations, acceptance, open banking, digital currencies, instant payments.

• Work closely with the LAC Government Affairs leads in markets and subregions to translate strategic priorities into country-specific policy roadmaps and advocacy plans.

• Develop and maintain a regional policy intelligence framework—including horizon scanning, stakeholder mapping, and risk monitoring—to inform both defensive and forward-looking engagement.

• Provide strategic guidance to senior executives, business partners, and cross-functional teams on emerging policy opportunities, policy-risk mitigation, and public-sector collaboration.

• Serve as a thought leader representing Visa’s policy perspectives internally and externally—contributing to industry dialogues, white papers, or internal reports that shape public debate and support evidence-based policymaking.

• Build and maintain strong relationships with other corporate functions (Legal, Communications, Strategy, and Product) to ensure policy design is integrated into business planning and market execution.

• Promote a culture that maintains the highest degree of collaboration, integrity, inclusion and accountability.

Business Strategy & Operations

• Lead the strategic and operational planning processes for the LAC Government Affairs function, including budget management, headcount planning, performance tracking, and resource optimization.

• Serve as liaison between regional GA teams and global operations partners to ensure consistency in performance management, reporting, and governance.

• Coordinate budget and workforce planning from both a central and market point of view.

• Ensure resource deployment is aligned to strategic priorities, market needs, and organizational goals.

• Drive continuous improvement initiatives, enhancing the function’s collaboration, communication, and process efficiency.

• Support talent development initiatives within the team, ensuring effective onboarding, capability building, and succession planning.

• Oversee and continually improve day-to-day operating models for the team.

• Proactively identify opportunities for process improvement and automation.

• Strengthen planning routines, reporting timelines, decision forums, meeting agendas, and team coordination mechanisms.

• Support global operational activities including offsites, regional team coordination, and team meetings.

• Encourage high standards in execution, planning discipline, communication, and analytical rigor.

• Build a team that is process-oriented, adaptable, and capable of supporting both strategic and operational demands

• Drive adoption of new technologies, processes, and ways of working within Government Affairs.

Visa requires at least 3 days in office, expectations of these days will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager. 

Qualifications

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

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 
• 12+ years of relevant experience in public policy, government affairs, or related fields, with exposure to payments, financial services, technology, or highly regulated sectors.
• Experience in the payments industry is essential, and strong digital services and/or technology interest is a plus.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and persuade at the C-suite level and with senior policy makers and regulators.
• Proven ability to think strategically, proactively and creatively, and to deliver results in a fast-paced and dynamic environment.
• Ability to act independently and flexibly within a multi-disciplinary matrixed team.
• A track record in authoring and contributing to high-impact publications is a plus
• Proven ability to formulate strategy, apply critical thinking, and operationalize strategy.
• A relevant degree in Politics, Economics or Law is desirable, but not essential.
• Fluency in English and Spanish required; Portuguese is a plus.

Information for US Applicants

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