Visa is among the largest payment processing companies in the world, handling more than 150 million transactions every day. The San Francisco-based company, established in 1958, has grown to become a global leader in digital payments. In 2023, Visa chalked up revenue of $32.7 billion.
We spoke to Valla Vakili, SVP & Global Head of Insights and Innovation, about Visa’s global network of innovation centers; how his team navigates the ever-evolving landscape of digital payments; Vakili’s approach to new technologies; and more. This interview was part our latest research initiative, The Future of the Innovation Team.
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What is the Global Innovation Network?
The Global Innovation Network at Visa is a series of teams in five regions: North America, Europe, Latin America, Caribbean, Central Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. [These teams] are at the local level, staying close to innovations in payments and partnering very closely with clients and customers in those regions to pilot and test new products and services.
The global nature of [our network] allows us — if we spot something in one region that we think has global applicability — to connect the dots and act quickly. We think payments are local, but great ideas that can scale globally can come from anywhere.
What does value creation mean for your team in terms of 2024 priorities?
It’s always about better serving our customer ecosystem, [which] includes financial institutions, merchants, digital partners, and fintechs. We’re always looking to pilot and bring to market solutions that make this partner ecosystem stronger and better. There’s a combination of regional value creation and collaborating closely with our global product teams to accelerate the path to market for global innovations.
As an example, we recently announced a series of new products at our Visa Payments Forum that may require very different innovations to succeed across markets where the behavior, regulations, and technology are slightly different. We will work closely with those teams to bring things to market more quickly.
One aspect [of value creation] is finding new ways to create value for the region through new products and services. Another is working with the global teams to accelerate the path to market for new global products, not enhancements of existing products, but brand-new [innovations].
How is your team organized and what kind of roles exist?
Within our group, we have similar footprints in different regions that include product managers, designers, researchers, architects, and engineers. The goal is for the teams to be self-sufficient and able to partner with local client and commercialization teams to take something from idea to pilot without needing additional resources. We are not a team that takes things from production and launch; we are very pilot-focused which enables us to see a broader range of new ideas and work on them with speed. [Each region] has a good mix of the disciplines that I mentioned, and we’ve become more hands-on in zero-to-one product management capability. In the last year, we’ve brought on more people with early-stage digital payments experience.
You mentioned the new roles centered around digital payments. Which other new roles have been added in the last year?
We’ve hired new people in the regional innovation teams, bringing a lot of people in with digital product and digital payments experience, this expertise is needed because there’s a lot of growth in digital payments… The real focus for me and the team has been on people with early-stage zero-to-one experience, [as] understanding the full lifecycle from concept to launch [is crucial] to make smart judgment calls.
In the pre-pilot phase, we use lean product innovation framework where we prioritize speed, learning, and de-risking quickly
How do you measure impact? Specifically, what kinds of metrics or KPIs do you use?
A lot of the work that we do in the early-stage new product launch will be around speed, validating customer demand, and identifying the right product market fit using customer first innovation principles. As we move through the cycle, [we assess:] how much risk are we taking out of the proposition? [We experiment:] how much are we learning? [We measure:] how much are we stopping along the way?
Once we reach the pilot stage, we use traditional metrics like engagement, volume, and cross-sell opportunities. In the pre-pilot phase, we use lean product innovation framework where we prioritize speed, learning, and de-risking quickly while maintaining appropriate cost and investment levels.
Besides digital payments, are there other technologies that down the road may be adopted?
Every region and part of the organization is focused on GenAI, particularly with our group. Biometrics is another important area for us, and we work closely with our crypto team… Tokenization is another [key technology]. I, personally, am not a technology-first innovation leader. I’m a problem-backwards innovation leader. If there are large customer problems that require or benefit from a new technology in order to solve them faster, with greater security, more seamlessness, then we prioritize that technology.
Our innovation function must [focus on] customer problems first and then [identify] technologies that enable you to solve some of those problems… We’re not technology [first] in search of problems; we are problems [first] and then identifying the right technologies to solve them.
How are you using AI?
We’re looking at all the different ways that it can be used to improve payments and commerce… [including] personalization of the shopping experience [which is] still very early stage, but exciting.
Then, how do you use it to be better at what you do as a team? We are experimenting a lot with that. In parts of the innovation process, the same kind of work happens at the same stage but in different parts of the world. Using tools to assist with that — to interrogate the same information with different perspectives — is something that I’ve been doing a lot on my own.
I’ve been using some of the tools like a “second brain.” A number of people in our group have used [AI for] product, design, [and] research use cases. I think everybody’s experimenting on their own and then sharing what works. It hasn’t been as consistent a set of outcomes as you see in the engineering use cases.
We place a significant premium on understanding customer behavior, understanding problems and pain points, and being able to share that understanding with our customers.
The value of sense-making in innovation
We place a significant premium on understanding customer behavior, understanding problems and pain points, and being able to share that understanding with our customers. Because we are present everywhere, we see a lot of change… Our team knows what new technologies are improving the payments of commerce experience, how different parts of the world are adapting, what’s working in some places, and what we’re learning from working various companies in the ecosystem. That’s a big aspect of our work across all regions.
I think you’ll find that most innovative functions have a very strong sense-making component to them, trying to understand where things are going. I don’t think that it is about predicting the future so much as it is understanding the direction of travel, and helping the companies that we exist to serve better adapt to that direction of travel.
How do your innovation centers contribute to the sense-making component?
We bring in partners from fintechs, banks, merchants, large tech partners [and] collaborate directly with them on addressing pain points, [as well as] helping pilot new products and services… The ability to work hands-on in real time with clients is one of the benefits of those spaces.
