Director, Payments Strategy & Execution (Consulting Background)

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

Our Purpose

We work to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data, networks and partnerships, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. We cultivate a culture of inclusion (https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/vision/who-we-are/diversity-inclusion.html) for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences enable us to be a better team - one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better business results.

The Services Team

The Services team is the professional services arm of Mastercard, providing cutting-edge services that address key issues facing our customers. Focused on thinking big and scaling fast, this team is responsible for end-to-end solutions for a diverse customer base. We combine traditional management consulting with our rich data assets and in-house technology / security platforms, to provide powerful strategic insights and execution capabilities. Centered on data-driven technologies, these services include consulting, loyalty and marketing programs, security products, business experimentation, and data-driven information and risk management services.

The Asia Pacific, Market-wide Initiatives Team

The market-wide initiatives team focuses on advancing our payment ecosystem’s development priorities at the country/regional level, by identifying pain-points that cut across multiple clients in a geography, designing market-wide services solutions in close collaboration with the Product organization.

The position will be expected to lead strategy and analysis that supports the wider organization. This will encompass many programs remit (mandates, Funds, Optional programs), including:

• Opportunity identification / origination at the market / regional level
• Key analysis to support proposal development
• Value quantification analysis for in-flight & pipeline programs
• Socialization with key stakeholders, integrate feedback, iterate proposal structure and secure approvals
• End-to-end execution and successful launch of strategic programs and initiatives

You will have the opportunity to own specific programs, prepare relevant documentation for strategic internal client engagements across a range of topics, countries and types of products. Working with data, you will generate key hypotheses and structure workstreams covering market problems. Overseeing ongoing business opportunities that are in-flight, program opportunity pipeline and closures, you will also create creative and useful analyses to address pain point, synthesize analyses into clear, sound recommendations, and create effective, impactful storylines.

You will be part of Services team (erstwhile Advisors segment), partnering with product, A&CS, legal, finance, controllership, account managers, customer success etc. to design the right thematic product bundles for the markets. Market wide initiatives and events will be done in partnership with other teams of Advisors.

Core competencies

• Strong foundation in consulting - structured problem-solving, hypothesis-driven analysis, and crafting executive-ready narratives.
• Deep expertise in analytics and data-driven decision-making - highly skilled in financial modeling and translating complex data into actionable insights.
• Proven stakeholder management capabilities - experienced in influencing, challenging, and aligning senior leaders across diverse functions.
• Exceptional communication skills - articulate and persuasive in both written and verbal formats; able to convey value propositions, foster alignment, and inspire confidence among internal and external stakeholders.
• Self-motivated and proactive - thrives in dynamic, fast-paced environments with a high degree of autonomy.
• Comfortable with ambiguity - adaptable and innovative in navigating complex challenges and evolving priorities.

Qualifications

• Top tier management consulting firm experience, preferably in payments or retail banking
• Proven track record of leading complex, cross functional initiatives and driving measurable business outcomes
• Experience working with senior leadership (C-Suite/ regional/ functional heads and influencing key decisions
• MBA or relevant Graduate degree required

• Strong Analytics and financial modelling capabilities (Excel) and proficiency in structuring content into compelling narratives (PowerPoint)

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.