Director, Project Manager

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, Project Manager

Overview
Mastercard is seeking a Director of Project Management to lead delivery execution for a high-priority, strategic program within our AI & Data organization. This role is responsible for driving the development of next-generation modeling capabilities built on our global transaction data. This role is responsible for ensuring that the end-to-end lifecycle—from large-scale data ingestion to downstream product integration—is executed predictably and transparently.

The Director will partner closely with AI researchers, data engineers, and product leadership to translate ambitious technical objectives into executable delivery plans. This is a hands-on leadership role requiring a balance of technical depth and program management expertise to navigate the unique challenges of building large-scale intelligence systems in a highly regulated environment.

Role
In this role, you will be accountable for the delivery health and execution of a flagship AI program.

Program Lifecycle Ownership: Lead the end-to-end delivery of advanced modeling initiatives, from initial data curation and infrastructure scaling to model validation and deployment.

Execution Rigor: Establish and maintain program-level planning, including roadmaps, milestones, and cross-functional dependencies across the AI & Data org.

Technical Partnership: Act as the primary bridge between technical teams and business stakeholders, ensuring research milestones are aligned with commercial and operational timelines.

Risk & Resource Management: Proactively identify and mitigate risks inherent in complex data science projects, such as compute constraints, data quality issues, and evolving technical requirements.

Governance & Ethics: Ensure all program activities adhere to Mastercard’s rigorous standards for AI governance, data privacy, and ethical modeling practices.

Executive Communication: Provide clear, high-signal reporting on program health, resource utilization, and delivery milestones for senior leadership.

Continuous Improvement: Optimize delivery frameworks to support "speed to insight" while maintaining the reliability required for financial-grade systems.

All About You
Advanced AI/Data Experience: Proven experience leading large, complex programs in the AI, Machine Learning, or Big Data space.

Transactional Data Fluency: Comfort working with massive, high-velocity datasets and understanding the complexities of financial-grade data environments.

Technical Acumen: Ability to engage credibly with Data Scientists and Engineers on topics like model training at scale, data pipelines, and API integration.

Strategic Execution: Expert-level knowledge of program management methodologies (Agile, Hybrid, etc.) tailored for the non-linear nature of AI research and development.

Diplomacy & Influence: Skilled at driving alignment across diverse stakeholders (Engineering, Legal, Product, and Security) without direct authority.

Resilience: Comfortable operating in a high-stakes, fast-paced environment with evolving technical targets.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in a technical or business field; experience with PMP, SAFe, or equivalent frameworks 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, and

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