Director, Commercial, UAE

Role Overview

Director, Commercial, UAE at Mastercard, based in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE Market team is seeking a Director to manage the commercialization of new products across new and existing customers within the UAE and advance share growth strategy through innovation, commercial leadership, and disciplined execution.

Company Overview

Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry that connects consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments, and businesses worldwide, enabling secure, convenient, and accessible electronic payments across 200+ countries and territories.

Role Purpose

Lead commercial strategy and sales execution for Mastercard products and services in the UAE market. Drive customer-focused growth by identifying opportunities, developing strategic account plans, and delivering sustainable revenue outcomes through innovation and trusted partnerships with internal and external stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Sales and Revenue

• Deliver sales and net revenue targets for Mastercard products and services across new and existing business in the UAE market.
• Manage sales and business development for the UAE market, identifying and progressing opportunities from inception through go live and beyond.
• Develop and create sales plans covering business development, marketing, product management, and customer engagement.

Customer Strategy and Opportunity Identification

• Identify customer opportunities through evaluation of customer strategies and white spaces, leveraging insights to build bespoke sales plans driving adoption across a diverse mix of customers.
• Work with internal and external customers to remove obstacles and deliver sales and operational outcomes.
• Partner with global, regional, and local teams to identify segment and product opportunities and develop propositions that maximize market penetration.
• Conduct market research and opportunity assessments to evaluate new concepts and determine viability of products aligned with global, regional, and market strategies.

Strategic Account Management

• Develop and execute strategic account plans in partnership with account leads to deliver product outcomes including launch, customization, and commercialization.
• Identify opportunities to optimize across the customer lifecycle in line with Mastercard's strategic objectives.
• Negotiate, execute, and manage customer agreements while coordinating resources and information across global and cross-functional teams.

Commercial Strategy and Pricing

• Develop and manage a sales program in collaboration with account teams, customer solutions teams, and product verticals.
• Have strong knowledge of card economics and negotiate with internal and external customers and partners to deliver strategic outcomes for Mastercard.
• Recommend commercially sound strategies covering pricing, market entry, profit planning, and expense management.
• Evaluate complex business opportunities, develop pricing strategies, and lead deal negotiations with consideration for account-specific factors and competitive landscape.

Reporting and Governance

• Prepare and deliver executive-level updates to track sales and inter-dependent workstreams.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Guide product development, identifying and implementing relevant features and benefits in partnership with customer solutions, services, and product teams and other internal stakeholders.
• Build a customer marketing pipeline that strengthens portfolio performance, including acquisition and usage.
• Coordinate high-quality responses to complex requests for proposal within demanding timelines and across multiple markets and stakeholders.

Information Security

• Abide by Mastercard's security policies and practices.
• Ensure confidentiality and integrity of information being accessed.
• Report any suspected information security violation or breach.
• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard's guidelines.

Qualifications & Experience

• Solid payments industry experience, ideally in both business development and product management within an issuer environment.
• Strong knowledge of payment economics.
• Sound knowledge of retail electronic payments and cards from an issuing or network perspective.
• Banking or payments experience preferred.
• Demonstrated experience delivering fast sales outcomes across a mix of client types, including large and small financial institutions.
• Strong project management experience and proven track record of delivering sales and product outcomes in partnership with others.

Skills & Competencies

• Self-driven, organized, and proactive approach with strong focus on execution.
• Entrepreneurial mindset and strong commercial judgment.
• Strong influencing, negotiation, relationship management, communication, and presentation skills.
• Ability to work comfortably with technology and integrate knowledge across sales, product, marketing, operations, and risk.
• Ability to collaborate effectively within a small team and leverage colleagues' expertise.
• Customer-focused and highly motivated approach.
• Intellectually curious and analytical mindset.
• Ability to build trusted internal and external partnerships.