Manager, Global SME Market Expansion in London

The SME Global Market Expansion team is a newly established unit within Mastercard’s Global SME organization. It focuses on unlocking incremental SME payment flows in underpenetrated geographies by identifying high‑potential markets and driving initiatives to expand card usage, acceptance, and share of wallet among small and medium‑sized businesses (SMEs). The Manager, SME Global Market Expansion will play a critical role in setting and executing strategies to accelerate the shift from cash, checks, and wire payments to card‑based solutions. This role combines strategy, analytics, and hands‑on execution, with clear accountability for commercial outcomes including Gross Dollar Volume (GDV), Net Revenue (NR), and pipeline creation.

Role

• Define and execute the SME card conversion strategy across prioritized markets, with a focus on displacing cash, checks, and wires.
• Own and deliver against commercial targets, including GDV growth, Net Revenue (NR), and qualified pipeline generation.
• Identify target SME segments, industries, and use cases with the highest card displacement potential.
• Diagnose key blockers to growth and design actionable solutions.
• Lead end‑to‑end execution of growth initiatives: from ideation and business case development to pilot, measurement, and scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategy Development & Commercial Ownership
• Own market expansion strategies with clear accountability for GDV, NR, and pipeline impact.
• Build and maintain robust business cases linking initiatives to measurable financial outcomes.
• Prioritize initiatives based on expected ROI, scalability, and market impact.
• Execution & Scaling
• Translate strategy into actionable pilots and test‑and‑learn programs.
• Define clear KPIs and success metrics.
• Rigorously track performance, extract insights, and scale what works across markets.
• Drive execution discipline, ensuring initiatives move quickly from concept to impact.
• Market & Customer Insights
• Leverage data, research, and feedback to understand payment behaviors and switching barriers.
• Track competitive dynamics, fintech innovation, and alternative payment trends shaping SME behavior in selected regions.
• Opportunity Identification
• Identify high‑value use cases and spend categories for market expansion.
• Define target segments and verticals with the highest growth potential.
• Cross‑functional Collaboration
• Partner with Finance, Marketing, Regional, and Market teams to shape and execute initiatives.
• Align stakeholders around strategic priorities and drive coordinated execution.
• Partnership Development
• Identify and evaluate strategic partners to accelerate adoption.
• Support partnership strategies that unlock channel distribution or use cases.
• Value Proposition & Initiative Design
• Translate insights into differentiated value propositions for SMEs.
• Design and prioritize initiatives that drive measurable increases in expansion markets.

All About You

• Experience in strategy consulting, corporate strategy, operations, sales, or commercial roles within payments or financial services industry.
• Experience in global or highly matrixed organizations is strongly preferred.
• SME‑obsessed: Deep understanding of SME needs, behaviors, and pain points.
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills, with the ability to link insights to commercial outcomes.
• Proven ability to own and deliver against financial targets (GDV, revenue, pipeline).
• Strong execution mindset: experience running pilots, defining KPIs, and scaling successful initiatives.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills, with experience influencing senior stakeholders.
• Strong presentation skills, with the ability to distill complex ideas into clear, actionable narratives.
• Ownership mindset: Acts like an owner—accountable, proactive, and results‑driven.
• Bias for action and urgency: Moves quickly from insight to execution and maintains momentum.
• Ability to thrive in cross‑functional, global environments.

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree required.
• MBA or advanced degree preferred.

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;
• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard’s guidelines.