Vice President, Product Development, Switching as a Service

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 Vice President, Product Development, Switching as a Service Overview and Context As part of the Network Products business unit, the Next Generation Network Team is at the heart of Mastercard’s transformation, driving innovation and modernization to ensure the network remains resilient, flexible, and competitive in a rapidly evolving payments landscape. This team is responsible for building Mastercard’s next-generation unified switch and access capabilities, designed to handle all payment and related data flows across transaction types and payment schemes. Within Next Gen Network, the Network Expansion team is driving Product Development for a new product named “Switching as a Service” (SwaaS), which opens a new business model in which Mastercard leverages its next-generation platform to switch domestic payment schemes according to their rules, interchange, and settlement, hosted and operated by Mastercard. Network Products has signed its first large and strategic SwaaS contract and needs to grow its Product Development team to manage its design, build, and run activities. Role Summary This VP role will lead a team having Product Development accountability for the Core Switching and Data-related services of the SwaaS. The role will ensure delivery of this scope according to the contracted milestones, deliverables, and conditions. Given the large scope and complexity of SwaaS, this individual will partner closely with a large network of actors, such as: other SwaaS Product Development team members managing other parts of the SwaaS, Avanti project management structure, representative from Product and Engineering of each contributing program, Regional lead driving the on-soil relationship with the SwaaS customer and providing product management and GTM role, Customer delivery, Global Customer Care, Security, Network, etc. The individual will also have direct relationship with representatives from the SwaaS customer team to ensure full alignment between their expectations and our solutioning while protecting Mastercard’s interest and goals. This SwaaS project spread across multiple time zones. The role demands a strong product mindset, drive, structure, organization, technical acumen across the scope, and will require a high degree of collaboration across technical, customer-facing, and other stakeholder teams to bring the first SwaaS implementation to home. Key Responsibilities • Lead the Product Development team in charge of the Core Switching and Data-related capabilities of the SwaaS product from intake through elaboration, execution, build, and run. • Within the SwaaS governance, provide regular & detailed reporting, stay ahead in risk management, and ensure that the resources allocated to SwaaS execution are rightly used in partnership with PMO’s and Finance. • Own delivery of the allocated scope and coordinate with Product Management and Engineering teams to meet contracted milestones, deliverables, and conditions. • Ensure the integrity and consistency of SwaaS delivery across vision, capabilities, scalability, performance, speed-to-market, readiness for growth, and reusability. • Build and maintain detailed functional and technical understanding of the delivered platform, including requirements, use cases, architecture, dependencies, interfaces, data flows, runtime operations, support strategies, and maintenance needs. • Drive stakeholder alignment across the SwaaS ecosystem, including Product, Engineering, Franchise, Global Customer Delivery, Privacy, and other contributing teams. • Lead by example with a hands-on approach, demonstrate product management excellence, and share best practices. • Apply logic, reasoning, and sound decision-making to develop solutions with all teams. Clarify concepts and build a shared understanding of what will ultimately be delivered. • Define capabilities that enhance the Next Gen platform, respect the platform strategy and principles, and ensure platform integrity. • Support other SwaaS Product team members to ensure collective success. Replicate knowledge, share workload across initiatives, provide mutual backup, and help the team scale, learn, and expand its scope. • Establish product development discipline in the team, including clear methods, structure, content standards, reliable execution, and high-quality on-time contributions. • Recruit, develop, and retain high-performance team while fostering a culture of execution, accountability, and innovation. • Identify opportunities for leveraging AI to improve speed, efficiency and quality. All About You • Fluent in English • 10+ years of product development or product management experience in complex, geographically distributed environments • Experience managing and developing teams. People leader. • Executive-level stakeholder management and influence in a matrixed organization • Expected to bring a strong execution mindset, sound judgment, and practical problem-solving skills • Strong technical foundation required to understand complex platform capabilities, dependencies, and delivery risks • Prior experience in payments and/or fintech is required; experience with card processing systems, including authorization, clearing, and settlement, is preferred • Proven ability to lead cross-functional alignment across product and engineering teams, including dependency management • Highly organized and able to deal with multiple and competing priorities • Strong problem solver who can navigate complexity, unblock teams, and identify alternative paths to deliver the outcomes • Strong experience with complex technical products and customer integration planning is a plus • Excellent analytical, organizational, and workstream management skills • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to articulate problem statements, frame options and trade-off, and engage internal and external stakeholders clearly. • Customer-facing experience is preferred • Ability to work with ambiguity and manage complex projects in fast-paced environments • Demonstrated ability to work independently and with minimal day-to-day supervision • Ability to build effective relationships with senior leaders, internal teams, and external clients • Flexibility to work with multiple time zones Location: Pune only 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.