Director, Controls

Our Purpose

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.

Title and Summary

Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses realize their greatest potential.

Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.

Overview

The Director, Controls will lead the development, operation and continuous improvement of the First Line Controls capability across Real-Time Payments International (RTPI), ensuring a robust, effective and sustainable control environment aligned with the Operational Risk & Controls (ORC) framework.

Role

This role is accountable for strengthening controls governance, testing, monitoring and issue management, providing clear insight into control effectiveness and ensuring material control weaknesses are identified, understood and sustainably addressed.

Working closely with Risk, Product, Engineering, Architecture and Operations, the Director will champion Control by Design and drive greater use of data, automation and AI to deliver more efficient, continuous and forward-looking assurance.

Key Responsibilities

• Controls Strategy & Governance: Lead and continuously improve the Controls capability, ensuring alignment with the ORC framework, effective reporting, appropriate escalation and sustainable remediation of control deficiencies.
• Control Lifecycle Management: Oversee the end-to-end control lifecycle, including control design, ownership, operation, testing, monitoring, reporting and remediation.
• Control Testing & Insight: Lead a risk-based control testing programme that provides clear insight into control effectiveness, material weaknesses and emerging themes.
• Control by Design: Partner with Product, Engineering and Architecture to embed effective, proportionate and testable controls into technology, products and processes from the outset.
• Automation & Continuous Monitoring: Drive greater use of data, engineering telemetry, automation and AI to support continuous, exception-based and forward-looking control testing.
• Issues & Remediation: Ensure control deficiencies are clearly articulated, appropriately tracked and remediated in a sustainable and timely manner.
• Business Partnership: Build strong relationships across Product, Engineering, Operations, Risk and Assurance teams, providing practical advice and constructive challenge to senior stakeholders.
• People Leadership: Lead and develop a high-performing Controls team, building capability, accountability and a culture of continuous improvement.

All About You

Essential experience and capabilities:

• Significant experience in controls, risk management and the three lines of defence model, ideally within technology, payments or financial services.
• Strong knowledge of the end-to-end control lifecycle and how it integrates with operational risk frameworks, governance and management reporting.
• Experience in developing, implementing and improving control capabilities within complex organisations.
• Experience partnering with Product, Engineering, Architecture and Operations to embed Control by Design.
• Experience using data, technology and automation to improve control testing, evidence collection and continuous controls monitoring.
• Strong understanding of technology and modern engineering environments and associated control considerations.
• Demonstrated leadership, stakeholder management, communication and influencing skills across senior product, engineering, operations and risk stakeholders.
• Strong analytical judgement with the ability to translate complex risks, controls and issues into practical, clear management insight.

Desirable experience:

• Experience with GRC platforms, continuous controls monitoring and advanced control testing automation, including AI or AI agents.
• Experience working within multinational organisations, real-time payments or critical payment infrastructure.

Corporate Security Responsibility

Every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security. All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information and networks come with inherent risk to the organisation; therefore, the successful candidate for this position must:

• Abide by Mastercard's security policies and practices;
• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;
• Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and

• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard's guidelines.

Corporate Security Responsibility

All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and, therefore, it is expected that every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security and must:

• Abide by Mastercard’s security policies and practices;

• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;

• Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and

• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard’s guidelines.