Director, Performance Management & Sales Incentive Planning

About this role

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

The Director, CMS Performance Management & Sales Incentive Planning will lead the CMS ( Commercial and Money Movement Solutions) Performance Management Center of Excellence for seller performance. This role connects CMS business strategy to clear seller objectives , fair performance measures, and effective incentive programs across regions and business units.  

The leader will evaluate whether quotas, territories, measures, and incentive structures are driving the intended commercial outcomes , then turn data and business judgment into practical recommendations .  

Success requires strong people leadership, disciplined program management, clear executive communication, and the ability to bring cross-functional partners together around shared priorities, governance, and decisions .

Key Responsibilities:  

Performance Strategy & Incentive Governance  

• Define and evolve the CMS framework for measuring and managing seller performance across business units and regions.  

• Translate CMS growth priorities into seller objectives , performance measures, accountability mechanisms, and incentive principles.  

• Assess whether current plans, measures, and governance are driving the right seller behaviors and business outcomes.  

• Recommend practical changes that improve commercial effectiveness, transparency, and execution quality.    

Target, Quota & Performance Frameworks  

• Connect enterprise and business-unit objectives to regional, team, and individual seller targets.  

• Define quota- and target-setting principles, methodologies, decision criteria, and operating cadences.  

• Ensure business plans, seller assignments, territories, quotas, incentive measures, and scorecards operate as one connected performance framework .  

• Guide scenario modeling and trade-off analysis to support decisions on targets, coverage, measures, and plan changes.    

Executive Insights & Communication  

• Create executive-level narratives, business reviews, and decision materials that explain performance, risks, options, and recommended actions.  

• Translate complex data and program details into clear messages for senior CMS leaders and cross-functional partners.  

• Use attainment, quota, territory, pipeline, client, and business outcome data to build a forward-looking view of performance.  

• Clarify what leaders need to decide, what will change, and how success will be measured.    

People & Program Leadership  

• Lead, coach, and develop a team spanning performance management, quota frameworks, territory frameworks, executive communication , regional partnership, and incentive planning.  

• Unify subject matter experts into one coordinated global program with shared priorities, clear ownership, and consistent ways of working.  

• Manage roadmap, milestones, dependencies, risks, decision points, and leadership updates across planning and execution cycles.  

• Build the team’s strategic thinking, communication, analytical judgment, and operating discipline alongside sales incentive expertise .    

Cross-Functional Leadership & Execution  

• Partner with Sales, Finance, HR, Total Rewards, Sales Compensation Operations, business-unit leaders, regional leaders, and Commercial Operations.  

• Lead through influence across a matrixed organization and resolve differences in priorities, interpretation, or execution.  

• Partner with Sales Compensation Operations and other cross-functional teams to ensure approved strategies and plans are implemented as intended, with clear accountability and effective issue resolution.  

• Champion simplification, automation, AI adoption, and scalable decision support that improve speed, quality, transparency, and leadership decisions .    

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

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:  

• 10 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or at least 8 years of work experience with an Advanced Degree ( e.g. Masters/ MBA/JD/MD) or at least 3 years of work experience with a PhD    

Preferred Qualifications:  

• 12+ years of experience in sales compensation, performance management, sales strategy, commercial operations, business planning, finance, consulting, or a related field.   

• Experience shaping sales incentive strategy, performance frameworks, quota or target-setting, coverage models, or sales-process transformation.   

• Proven people leader with experience managing experienced managers and subject matter experts, driving performance, developing talent, and building high-performing teams.   

• Strong program leadership, with experience managing complex work across strategic planning cycles, governance forums, and cross-functional workstreams.   

• Ability to use data to diagnose issues, assess business impact, develop recommendations, and communicate clearly with senior leaders.   

• Proven ability to lead through influence across sales, finance, HR, operations, and other cross-functional partners.   

• Experience supporting global or multi-region sales organizations in a matrixed environment.   

• Experience in payments or another business model with complex revenue, client, product, and seller relationships.   

• Experience shaping sales incentive strategy, quota and territory frameworks, governance, and plan-effectiveness analysis w

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