Manager, Localization & Transformation, Mastercard Strategic Growth

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 Manager, Localization & Transformation, Mastercard Strategic Growth About the Team The global payments landscape is undergoing rapid and structural change, driven by geopolitical fragmentation, regulatory activism, and the rise of sovereign digital infrastructure. Governments are playing an increasingly active role in shaping domestic payments ecosystems, redefining competitive dynamics and creating both risk and opportunity for global networks like Mastercard. The Localization & Transformation team exists in response to this environment. We drive Mastercard’s enterprise-wide commitment to showing up locally and winning domestically (“Domestic Relevance”), ensuring our strategies, solutions, and narratives are credible, competitive, and effective in local markets and with governments. Within this, the Signals & Localization Readiness team sits at the forefront of anticipating change. The team identifies emerging signals across payments, geopolitics, and technology, translates them into business implications, and enables Mastercard to proactively position for advantage. Role This is a high-visibility Manager role at the intersection of analytics, market intelligence, and strategic storytelling. The role is fundamentally about making sense of a complex, fast-evolving external environment, and shaping how Mastercard understands and responds to it. You will own core strategic products that inform leadership thinking and decision-making. The role offers a unique opportunity to shape how Mastercard anticipates change, positions itself in markets, and communicates its point of view on the evolving future of payments. Success requires the ability to move fluidly between data, narrative, and judgment: spotting patterns early, structuring ambiguity, and articulating clear implications for the business. This role requires a high degree of ownership across both strategic thinking and execution: taking pride in producing high-quality outputs at every level of detail. Key Responsibilities Own Strategic Intelligence Resources • Own and maintain the team's core intelligence resources, ensuring they remain accurate, current, and aligned to evolving market, policy, and industry developments. • Oversee the ongoing curation, quality assurance, and enhancement of key datasets that underpin the team's thought leadership, research, and strategic insights. • Identify emerging trends, gaps, and opportunities within these resources and translate findings into actionable intelligence for stakeholders. • Partner with colleagues across MA to leverage these resources in reports, publications, presentations, and strategic initiatives. Produce Thought Leadership & Written Insights • Support ongoing signals monitoring by tracking external developments across markets, policy, and competitors • Author high-quality newsletters and insight pieces on the future of payments, geopolitics, and localization trends • Translate complex concepts into clear, structured, and compelling narratives • Help shape Mastercard’s internal perspective on market, regulatory, and ecosystem shifts Own KPI Dashboards & Reporting • Design, build, and maintain dashboards tracking localization and business performance metrics • Generate insights, ensuring data accuracy, consistency, and clarity for executive audiences Support Strategy & Execution • Contribute to strategy development, executive presentations, and playbooks • Partner with cross-functional and regional teams to drive initiatives forward Enable Team Effectiveness & Communications • Support team communications, knowledge management, and content platforms • Improve processes and ways of working with an entrepreneurial mindset All About You Quantitative + Storytelling Strength • Excel fluency required • Able to translate data into clear, insightful narratives • Familiarity with Mastercard internal platforms and databases an advantage Compelling Writer • Proven ability to produce crisp, structured, high-quality written content (e.g., newsletters, reports, briefings) • Strong editorial judgment and attention to detail Analytical & Curious • Intellectually curious with the ability to connect business, payments innovation, and global/regulatory dynamics Entrepreneurial & Hands-On • Self-starter who can build from scratch, iterate quickly, and “get hands dirty” • Strong execution mindset in ambiguous environments Collaborative & Organized • Team-oriented with a strong sense of shared ownership; willing to lean in to ensure team success • High attention to detail and pride in producing accurate, polished work • Comfortable balancing strategic thinking with hands-on execution Global Mindset • Experience working across markets strongly preferred • English fluency required; additional languages a plus 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.