Director, Partner Sourcing & Management – Global SME Partnerships

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

Director, Partner Sourcing & Management – Global SME Partnerships

Role Summary
Mastercard’s Global Partnerships team is scaling a global ecosystem of partners to deliver differentiated, value-added solutions via our network of banking and financial institutions, to their business cardholders.
We are seeking a Director, Partner Sourcing & Management to execute the regional partner strategy, managing key internal stakeholders, delivering new partnership agreements, owning a portfolio of strategic relationships and driving measurable commercial outcomes in partnership with the regional sales & product teams.
In addition to executing agreements with ecosystem partners, the role will be required to work across regional product & sales to embed partner solutions into Mastercard’s value proposition: which will include regional go-to-market planning, identification of target customer portfolios, and the scaling solutions within business cardholder portfolios,.
The role requires strong leadership across a matrixed organisation, combining strategic thinking, commercial ownership, and cross-functional influence to deliver sustained revenue growth.
This role has two distinct areas of responsibility:
1. Partner sourcing, contract negotiation and partner agreement execution and
2. Ongoing partner management and scaling within customer portfolios.
Initially, as the team’s responsibility grows, the role will have combined responsibility across these two areas, with an expectation that as the remit of the team grows, the role will focus on one specialty over time.
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Key Responsibilities
1. Build and manage a portfolio of strategic partners, including:
o Understanding and refining regional requirements
o Staying close to the external market – understanding technology trends benefiting Small Businesses and building relationships with these businesses
o Leading partner selection and prioritisation processes
o Negotiating commercial terms with identified partners
o Execute partnership agreements with selected partners with a focus on structuring deals for long-term scale and repeatability
o Lead a cross-functional team across product, technology, legal, finance and other relevant teams to onboard partners in a timely and effective manner

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2) Go-to-Market Planning
o Alongside regional colleagues, define the appropriate distribution and pricing approach to achieve scale
o Build robust processes to facilitate effective demand generation & lead qualification (via regional teams)
o Put resourcing models in place to ensure that leads are supported with the relevant expert resources through the sales process to optimise conversion
o Ensure that implementation activities/frameworks are put in place with customers to increase speed to market and drive penetration into the end customer base, including working with Services colleagues to establish the most effective implementation and scaling models

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3) Partner Management & Go-to-Market Execution
• Manage partner relationships, ensuring that partners fulfil their obligations within the contract including support of shorter-term operational processes and the delivery of longer-term roadmap activities to enhance partnership capability
• Work alongside regional product & sales teams to execute against go-to-market activities. Ensure that resources are put in place to support key stages of the sales process to deliver success
• Actively manage the sales pipeline to ensure that opportunities are progressed within targeted timescales and that internal stakeholders and partners receive clear communication and are held accountable where necessary
• Manage any exceptions within the pipeline that require tailored solutions to address customer requirements
• Create a feedback loop to capture feedback from customer meetings & inform adjustments in go-to-market approach and joint partner roadmap
• Define and track key internal & external metrics to ensure that the partnership delivers against commercial expectations

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4) Regional Stakeholder Management
• Manage key stakeholders within regional product and sales organisations and regional leadership
• Ensure that partnerships fit alongside/within regional go-to-market approaches such as Product Line Strategy (PLS) & that any necessary adjustments are accommodated
• Promote the benefits that the partner portfolio can deliver to customers within the region & proactively identify any new opportunities
• Ensure partner performance is communicated to regional stakeholders & that opportunities, perceived challenges, barriers etc are understood and proactively addressed

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5) Team Culture & Capability Building
• Support development of the broader partner team capability
• Input to best practices definition across:
o Partner evaluation
o Deal structuring
o GTM execution
• Help build scalable approaches to:
o Partner onboarding
o Commercialisation
o Performance management
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Experience & Capabilities
• Strong experience in:
o Fintech partnerships, product distribution, or platform ecosystems
o Structuring and negotiating complex commercial agreements
• Proven ability to:
o Understand scaling of commercial outcomes, not just deal execution
o Operate in a global, matrixed organisation
• Deep understanding of:
o Issuer / bank distribution models
o Product ecosystems
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Leadership & Soft Skills
• Exceptional communicator and relationship builder, comfortable engaging C suite fintech founders and bank executives.
• Strong commercial instincts with the ability to balance partner value with Mastercard strategic priorities.
• High ownership mindset; thrives in ambiguity and can drive initiatives from concept to execution.
• Collaborative operator who activates cross functional teams across Product, Legal, Marketing, Sales, and Operations.
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Success Metrics
• Number and quality of signed fintech reseller/solution agreements
• Issuer adoption and activation as leading indicators of Mastercard volume and revenue contribution
• Partner satisfaction and multi year relationship growth
• Feedback from regional stakeholders

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.