Director, Senior Economist

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

• The Mastercard Economics Institute (MEI) is an economics lab that powering scale at Mastercard by owning economic thought leadership in support of Mastercard’s efforts to build a more inclusive and sustainable digital economy
• The Economics Institute was launched in 2020 to analyze economic trends through the lens of the consumer to deliver tailored and actionable insights on economic issues for customers, partners and policymakers
• The Institute is composed of a team of economists and data scientists that utilize & synthesize the anonymized and aggregated data from the Mastercard network together with public data to bring powerful insights to life, in the form of 1:1 presentations, global thought leadership, media participation, and commercial work through the company’s product suites

About the Role

We are looking for an economist to derive economic insights for Sub-Saharan Africa with a focus on South Africa and support research across the broader EEMEA region. This individual will report to the Chief EEMEA Economist of the Mastercard Economics Institute and have the following responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain macroeconomic views for Sub-Saharan Africa
• Support the Chief EEMEA Economist with the broader outlook on the economy in EEMEA region
• Write regular outlooks and blog-style research notes utilizing unique economic data
• Support creation of briefing documents for Mastercard leadership teams and regional advisory boards
• Create content and present insights as a representative of Mastercard in customer forums, industry events and consulting read-outs, positioning us as an industry leader with highly differentiated capabilities
• Work with the data scientists and consulting teams to explore alternative data sets and forecasting to push the boundaries in more traditional economics
• Help drive the story creation for interactive and tailored presentations

All About You

• Formally trained economist with a MA+ economics degree (or related field) and 10+ years work experience
• Private sector experience covering the economy in Sub-Saharan Africa and contributing to broader views in the EEMEA region
• Strong collaborator across teams within the institute and broader Mastercard
• Evidence of both orthodox and experimental approaches in economic thinking and application with an entrepreneurial mindset
• Manage complex projects and timelines effectively

• Familiarity with coding in SQL, R, Python, Tableau and other analytical tools

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.