Director, Skills Strategy & Execution

Visa; City of Westminster; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

A global payments technology leader is seeking a Director of Skills Strategy and Execution to architect and operationalize a skills-based talent model. This pivotal role involves designing frameworks for effective talent deployment aligned with strategic business goals. Required skills include hands-on experience with Workday Skills, strong strategic thinking, and proven leadership in skills transformation initiatives. This hybrid position emphasizes collaboration across teams to drive results and support the organization's growth towards the Visa 2030 strategy.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in skills transformation leadership roles.
• Hands-on experience implementing Workday Skills.
• Strong understanding of skills trends and strategies.

Responsibilities

• Lead the enterprise skills strategy and roadmap.
• Design and execute skills programs aligned with business priorities.
• Advise leaders on integrating skills into workforce planning.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Collaboration

Problem-solving

Communication Skills

Interpersonal skills

Adaptability

Education

Experience in a skills SME or talent transformation leadership

Tools

Workday Skills

Degreed

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Director of Skills Strategy and Execution to lead an enterprise Skills Center of Excellence. Reporting to the Vice President of Organization Design and part of our wider Global Talent team, this leader will architect and operationalize a company shift to a skills-based talent model, in support of our Visa 2030 strategy. The Director will play a key role in shaping our organization’s future, by designing the frameworks, governance, and organizational mechanisms needed to deploy the right talent to the right work at the right time, and accelerating Visa’s productivity, agility, and employee career journeys. The successful candidate will be responsible for driving overall strategy, and partnering with a wide range of People Team business and technology stakeholders to design skills solutions that suit Visa’s growth and needs. We are looking for passion, strategic thinking, and strong collaborators, as well as subject‑matter expertise in designing and implementing skills‑based approaches, and strong Workday Skills experience to facilitate configuration, governance, and implementation of an integrated skills technology platform. Looking further ahead, the role will drive the embedding of skills into employee usage and mobility, business leader intelligence and resourcing, core talent processes, and strategic workforce planning, to drive the maximum impact and outcomes for our business, and our people.

Enterprise Strategy, Architecture and Execution

• Serve as the primary enterprise architect and thought partner for designing and delivering the company’s end to end skills strategy.
• Advise senior leaders on integrating a skills lens into workforce planning, talent acquisition, upskilling, mobility, and career development.
• Serve as project owner for the enterprise skills roadmap, including data governance, deployment timelines, skills ontologies, and user experience.
• Champion the transition to skills centric practices across the organization, collaborating with and influencing leaders, HR teams, and functional stakeholders to seamlessly embed skills capabilities and tools across the full employee lifecycle, from hiring to performance to development, globally and regionally.
• Design and execute enterprise skills programs, taxonomies, and capability frameworks aligned to strategic business priorities, partnering with wider teams to drive adoption and alignment to enterprise goals.
• Lead cross‑functional teams and working groups to deliver skills‑related initiatives, identifying risks early and driving issue resolution.
• Maintain expertise in external skills technologies, AI and ML driven skills intelligence, and future of work trends, and translate insights into actionable recommendations.
• Foster a culture of experimentation and iteration, ensuring programs continuously evolve based on business needs and user feedback.

Technology Design & Enablement

• Serve as the enterprise SME for Workday Skills, guiding configuration, governance, skills inference models, mapping, and data integrity.
• Partner with People Systems and People Technology to optimize interoperability between Workday, Degreed, and adjacent talent systems.
• Coordinate strategy and integration for Degreed SkillsPlus, ensuring the platform drives meaningful skills insights, personalization, and curated development experiences.
• Build governance models, taxonomies, and update processes to ensure high quality, reliable enterprise skills data.
• Use platform analytics and insights to inform workforce planning, mobility recommendations, and targeted upskilling pathways to dynamically match talent to priority work, improving speed to skill and organizational productivity.
• Foster a culture of experimentation and iteration, ensuring programs continuously evolve based on business needs and user feedback.

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

Are you a designer, builder, and change agent? Are you passionate about creating a high‑performance growth culture? Are you motivated by a diverse and inclusive environment that unleashes the potential in everyone, everywhere?

Qualifications

• Proven, progressive experience in a skills SME or talent transformation leadership role.
• Strong understanding of skills trends, strategies, methods, and tools, and experience optimizing systems, processes, and workflows.
• Hands on expertise implementing and governing Workday Skills in a complex, global environment.
• Proven track record of successfully implementing large‑scale skills change initiatives, with strong project management skills and demonstrated ability to lead complex cross‑functional initiatives across a range of stakeholders.
• Strong decision making, problem solving, and communication and influencing skills, including the ability to partner with senior and executive leaders.
• Strong long‑term strategic thinking, problem‑solving, and decision‑making abilities.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity, manage multiple enterprise level workstreams, and lead cross functional teams.
• Experience in job architecture, including design and implementation.
• Excellent interpersonal and collaboration skills to operate effectively in a highly matrixed environment, with ’test and learn’ and continuous improvement mindset that embraces creativity, agility, and comfort operating in fast changing environments.

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.