Vice President of Controller in London

The Vice President, Controller - Core Payments reports to the SVP, Assistant Corporate Controller, and serves as the senior controllership leader responsible for the integrity, governance, audit readiness, and financial reporting environment for the business unit, with particular focus on blockchain and digital payments.

This role operates as a strategic partner to global and regional finance teams, Treasury, Corporate Controllership, business leadership, and the Global Business Shared Service Organization (GBSC), providing authoritative accounting judgment and driving consistent execution across a complex global operating environment.

The position will help establish and mature a best-in-class controllership function for a highly complex, strategically important, and recently acquired Mastercard business, including oversight of relevant legal entity, statutory, regulatory, treasury, and governance considerations.

Key responsibilities include:

• Serve as the senior controllership advisor to business and finance leadership, providing accounting judgment on complex transactions, business models, digital asset and stablecoin-related activities, revenue recognition, balance sheet classification, and evolving regulatory matters.
• Drive consistent application of accounting policies, controls, and reporting practices across global and regional teams, including coordination with Corporate Controllership, Technical Accounting, Regional Controllers, GBSC, Tax, Legal, Treasury, and business partners.
• Own senior-level engagement with external auditors and support statutory, internal, regulatory, and other required audits, including audit documentation, issue resolution, and alignment across relevant controllership and GBSC teams.
• Oversee compliance, governance, and financial integrity for relevant business activities and legal entities, including SOX, Internal Audit, ORM, statutory reporting, local audit requirements, and escalation of potential exposures to senior leadership.
• Define and execute the compliance integration roadmap for the acquired business, including identification of applicable regulatory, statutory, SOX, data/privacy, third-party, and financial reporting obligations; assessment of current-state gaps; alignment to Mastercard policy requirements; and development of remediation plans.
• Establish robust compliance reporting for the integration period, including risk and issue tracking, milestone reporting, evidence retention, control-gap status, audit finding resolution, and clear visibility to senior leadership on items that could impact financial reporting, regulatory compliance, or integration readiness.
• Ensure the acquired company maintains audit-ready documentation throughout integration, including process narratives, control evidence, reconciliations, management review support, policy exception approvals, local statutory and regulatory filing support, and formal attestations required before system migration or reporting process transition.
• Ensure compliant legacy processes are maintained until transition, including identification of changes to business activities or regulatory obligations, support for timely data and evidence requests, participation in control walkthroughs and remediation efforts, and confirmation of readiness for policy, process, system, and organizational handoffs.
• Maintain a legal-entity-level statutory compliance register for the digital payments business, including jurisdictional filing deadlines, audit requirements, financial statement preparation obligations, licensing or regulatory reporting triggers, and local reporting requirements.
• Oversee statutory compliance activities specific to digital payments, stablecoins, crypto assets, settlement, safeguarding, and money movement, including coordination with Legal, Compliance, Treasury, Tax, and Corporate Controllership teams to assess requirements driven by regulated activity, regulatory capital or liquidity obligations, and country-specific financial reporting expectations.
• Own the assessment, documentation, and recurring review of divergent accounting conclusions across US GAAP, IFRS, and applicable local GAAP frameworks, including revenue recognition, gross versus net presentation, digital asset classification and measurement, customer safeguarding obligations, settlement balances, foreign currency, intercompany, tax, and statutory bridge adjustments required to support consolidated and local financial reporting.
• Establish controlled US GAAP-to-local GAAP bridge processes for relevant legal entities, including clear ownership of adjustment preparation and review, linkage to statutory ledgers, reconciliation of intercompany and settlement positions to statutory financial statements, review of material manual journal entries, and retention of support sufficient for external audit, statutory audit, and regulatory inspection.
• Drive periodic reviews to confirm statutory reporting readiness, emerging GAAP or regulatory changes, bridge adjustment complexity, audit dependencies, and remediation status across the acquired company’s digital payments footprint.
• Lead monthly, quarterly, and ad hoc management reporting, including variance analysis, technical position support, executive presentations, and recurring or ad hoc updates to senior management and applicable governance forums.

Qualifications:

• Direct experience with crypto assets and/or fiat-backed stablecoins, including fair value measurement, classification, and disclosure.
• CPA, CA, or equivalent certification required; bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or related discipline required; advanced degree preferred.
• Proven ability to strengthen governance, assess and design effective financial controls, resolve high-risk issues, and drive sustainable remediation in a matrixed organization.
• Demonstrated executive presence, communication skills, and leadership judgment, with the ability to simplify complex issues and provide clear recommendations to senior stakeholders.
• Strategic, process-minded change agent with experience leading cross-functional workstreams, continuous improvement, automation, and transformation initiatives.
• Significant senior controllership, technical accounting, audit, or financial reporting leadership experience in a complex global public-company environment, with strong command of US GAAP and/or IFRS.
• The successful candidate will be a strategic, senior-level controller with deep technical accounting expertise, strong leadership judgment, and the ability to operate effectively in a complex, evolving, and highly regulated global environment.
• Established credibility as a trusted advisor to senior finance, business, controllership, technical accounting, and audit stakeholders on complex, judgmental, and evolving accounting matters.
• Experience with digital assets, fintech, payments, treasury, settlement, liquidity, statutory reporting, regulatory compliance, or legal entity controllership preferred.
• Proven people leader who can coach, develop, prioritize, and build capability across accounting or controllership teams.