Senior Counsel

at  MasterCard

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 and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. We cultivate a
culture of inclusion
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.
Title and Summary
Senior Counsel
Who is Mastercard?
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses realize their greatest potential.
Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.
Mastercard Transaction Services (“MTS”) is a ring-fenced division within Mastercard, focused on the support required to faciliate Mastercard’s licensed (and regulated) businesses and products globally (including but not limited to cross-border money transfers, digital currency and others).
Overview
The Mastercard Transaction Services legal team is looking for a Senior Legal Counsel to act as the primary governance support for its licensed Europe and UK entities, but also to help build out and maintain robust governance processes globally for MTS, across 7 other licensed entities and a number of additional non-licensed operational entities (ensuring ongoing compliance with local laws). Working closely with the local MTS EU management team and MTS UK entity manager, as well as the MTS regulatory and compliance teams (and broader stakeholders such as Finance), the role will be focused on ensuring and maintaining ongoing governance requirements for MTS (including but not limited to Board and officer requirements), building and supporting relevant committees, and supporting on other ongoing legal entity management legal topics. As MTS looks to extend its internal support to other Mastercard regulated products, the role will further focus on the assessments of new products, the identification of new (associated) governance requirements, and the adaption of existing processes and arrangements, in order to support those new products.
Role

Reporting to the Senior Managing Counsel, Mastercard Transaction Services (based in London), the selected candidate will form a key part of the core MTS legal team, including a Senior Counsel in New York, a Senior Counsel in India and a Legal manager in Mexico. The role will further collaborate closely with the dedicated MTS Assistant Company Secretary, and may from time to time be asked to help support the co-ordination and management of the MTS EU and MTS UK Boards, together with the Boards of our other licensed entities globally. The role will include, amongst other things:

• Providing day-to-day legal and governance support to the local MTS EU management team, the MTS UK legal entity manager, the MTS EU and MTS UK Boards, and other key stakeholders supporting both entities.
• Helping co-ordinate (and oversee) ongoing governance support for the approximately 30 other MTS legal entities, representative offices and branches globally (including the other licensed entities), working with Citco, our external services provider, to ensure full ongoing compliance and helping implement effective processes and create efficiencies.
• Supporting on the assessment and design of new product inititaives, which plan to leverage the MTS division (which may include the design of new contract structures, and the adaption, identification and implementation of new controls to ensure effective ongoing governance).
• Providing back-up support if required to our MTS Assistant Company Secretary, to help with the co-ordination and management of our MTS Boards globally.
• Building robust processes to help support the ongoing maintenance of the MTS Boards, officers and committees (for example helping manage director and key officer changes)
• Providing legal and governance support for the regular audits and regulatory examinations which occur across our MTS entities (taking a lead for MTS EU and MTS UK, but supporting if needed with other entities as well).
• Supporting (and overseeing) the ongoing legal entity restructuring for the MTS division (closures, renames and mergers) for legacy legal entities inherited by the MTS division through previous (and potentially future) acquisitions.
• Supporting from time to time on commercial and contract legal/ negotiation requirements, as they may arise for MTS (including MTS Supplier and inter-company agreements), and supporting on their alignment and compliance with the MTS global outsourcing framework.
• Helping support from time to time the MTS Compliance and Treasury teams (as well as other stakeholders), on governance documentation requests.
• Bringing strategic thought leadership to the MTS legal team with respect to the adaption and effective management of existing governance processes and procedures, as MTS looks to expand to support other regulated businesses within Mastercard (working with the Regulatory team to identify new requirements, and then implementing, to ensure that MTS continues to operate in a fully compliant way)
• Providing adhoc legal advice to the MTS business and senior stakeholders, as required from time to time (including third party disputes at an MTS entity level).
• Managing external Counsel as required globally (as well as other external service providers such as Citco), to ensure ongoing compliance with local laws.
• Managing and advising senior business stakeholders as appropriate, as well as other key stakeholders (functional and business) across the broader Mastercard organisation.

All About You

• Qualified corporate and/or commercial lawyer, with strong experience working on corporate governance topics (preferably across muliple global entities)
• Strong experience working on corporate governance topics for regulated/ licensed entities and products, highly desirable.
• An understanding of regulatory requirements for regulated payments businesses/ products (including but not limited to cross-border remittances, and emerging payments such as crypto or open banking), desirable.
• Able to work independently as well as collaboratively, spot issues, prioritize, and multi-task effectively in a fast-paced environment.
• Some prior Board management experience, desirable.
• Keen business insight/ focus and strong communication skills to interact confidently and effectively with internal clients, Mastercard customers, and colleagues.
• Strong drafting and negotiating skills with the ability to understand and simplify complex concepts, issues, technologies, and deal structures.
• Solutions-orientated, stress-resistant and able to work flexibly (often against tight deadlines), with a “can-do” attitude.
• Experience in navigating a multi-national organization and operating effectively within a diverse multicultural organization.

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.

Reporting to the Senior Managing Counsel, Mastercard Transaction Services (based in London), the selected candidate will form a key part of the core MTS legal team, including a Senior Counsel in New York, a Senior Counsel in India and a Legal manager in Mexico. The role will further collaborate closely with the dedicated MTS Assistant Company Secretary, and may from time to time be asked to help support the co-ordination and management of the MTS EU and MTS UK Boards, together with the Boards of our other licensed entities globally. The role will include, amongst other things:

• Providing day-to-day legal and governance support to the local MTS EU management team, the MTS UK legal entity manager, the MTS EU and MTS UK Boards, and other key stakeholders supporting both entities.
• Helping co-ordinate (and oversee) ongoing governance support for the approximately 30 other MTS legal entities, representative offices and branches globally (including the other licensed entities), working with Citco, our external services provider, to ensure full ongoing compliance and helping implement effective processes and create efficiencies.
• Supporting on the assessment and design of new product inititaives, which plan to leverage the MTS division (which may include the design of new contract structures, and the adaption, identification and implementation of new controls to ensure effective ongoing governance).
• Providing back-up support if required to our MTS Assistant Company Secretary, to help with the co-ordination and management of our MTS Boards globally.
• Building robust processes to help support the ongoing maintenance of the MTS Boards, officers and committees (for example helping manage director and key officer changes)
• Providing legal and governance support for the regular audits and regulatory examinations which occur across our MTS entities (taking a lead for MTS EU and MTS UK, but supporting if needed with other entities as well).
• Supporting (and overseeing) the ongoing legal entity restructuring for the MTS division (closures, renames and mergers) for legacy legal entities inherited by the MTS division through previous (and potentially future) acquisitions.
• Supporting from time to time on commercial and contract legal/ negotiation requirements, as they may arise for MTS (including MTS Supplier and inter-company agreements), and supporting on their alignment and compliance with the MTS global outsourcing framework.
• Helping support from time to time the MTS Compliance and Treasury teams (as well as other stakeholders), on governance documentation requests.
• Bringing strategic thought leadership to the MTS legal team with respect to the adaption and effective management of existing governance processes and procedures, as MTS looks to expand to support other regulated businesses within Mastercard (working with the Regulatory team to identify new requirements, and then implementing, to ensure that MTS continues to operate in a fully compliant way)
• Providing adhoc legal advice to the MTS business and senior stakeholders, as required from time to time (including third party disputes at an MTS entity level).
• Managing external Counsel as required globally (as well as other external service providers such as Citco), to ensure ongoing compliance with local laws.
• Managing and advising senior business stakeholders as appropriate, as well as other key stakeholders (functional and business) across the broader Mastercard organisation

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