Vice President, Head of Controls

Our Purpose: Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. 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 realise their greatest potential.

Main Purpose of role: This is a permanent role to lead a Controls function for Vocalink Limited, a company that enables the payments of 90% of salaries, 70% of utility bills, most ATM transactions and every cheque cleared in the UK. The successful candidate will become part of a high functioning team, dedicated to delivering a robust, secure and resilient service to 60+ million citizens every day with a transactional volume of 11 billion/year and total annual transactional value in excess of GBP 6 Trillion. The appointee will be responsible for the Vocalink Limited Controls function across the key pillars of Controls Governance, Controls Management, Controls Testing, Assurance, and Issues Management.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Leadership: Provide strategic leadership and direction across the organisation on the build of a robust and effective control environment.
• Relationship & Stakeholder Management: Engage with key stakeholders on key aspects related to the control environment and building/managing these relationships.
• Constructive Challenge: Provide both constructive challenge and advice to Executives and the wider business, and act as a ‘trusted partner’ to 1LOD Functions.
• Communicating & Influencing: Deliver clear and effective communication, with proven success in influencing senior stakeholders to achieve required control outcomes and risk mitigation.
• Change Agent: Act as a catalyst and thought leader to drive required controls capabilities, rigour, and culture across the organisation.
• Decision-Making & Problem Solving: Possess a strong aptitude in decision-making, problem solving, and applying judgement to complex topics.
• Team Leadership: Lead a diverse team to achieve common goals, creating a shared vision.

Knowledge, Skills and Expertise:

Essential:

• Experience in Risk Management, Controls Management and Assurance, preferably in a regulated firm.
• Seasoned practitioner of controls management with deep experience across the end-to-end control's lifecycle and key components of the Controls Office.
• Proven experience of building a Controls Office (preferred), Control Functions (e.g. Internal Audit, Compliance, etc.) from ground up – ‘Build & Run’ rather than just ‘Run’.
• Proven organisational and leadership abilities in leading large teams and driving large scale change.
• Successfully delivered, embedded, and operated a Controls Office capability (or equivalent) within the context of a regulated firm (e.g. Bank, CNI, etc.).
• Experienced across the key pillars of the Controls Office – Controls Governance, Controls Management, Controls Testing, Assurance, and Issues Management.
• Relevant experience of working in a complex (preferably multi-national) stakeholder environment that includes complex customers and regulators.
• Ability to articulate themselves clearly and concisely to a broad range of senior and junior stakeholders, acting as a bridge as well as guide for the implementation of new capabilities.
• Effective communication skills – both written and oral - to deal with large diverse customer base (internal and external).
• Ability to motivate, inspire and lead people effectively.

Desirable:

• Experience within Critical National Infrastructure responsible organisations.
• Experience of working with other regulatory bodies (non-UK).
• Experience of working within a matrix organisation.

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.