Director, Agentic Commerce & Services Program, Mastercard Start Path

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, Agentic Commerce & Services Program, Mastercard Start Path Agentic commerce and agentic activity in the enterprise is no longer the future; it’s here and happening. Partnership with the fast-developing and rich startup ecosystem is core to Mastercard’s approach in building a secure and scalable agentic future. Through the Start Path Agentic Commerce & Services Program, we are accelerating secure agentic experiences and solutions for customers and businesses by partnering with agentic startups globally to drive cutting-edge innovation and adoption at scale. Start Path is Mastercard’s suite of award-winning global startup engagement programs that have worked with 500+ companies in 60 countries to drive best-in-class commercial deals, investments, and partnerships. Through the Start Path Agentic Commerce & Services Program, companies will be able to access bespoke opportunities to collaborate on new products and services that are tailored for agentic environments and on delivering cutting-edge capabilities designed for agentic experiences at scale. The ideal candidate for this role will have a passion for startups and emerging technology, be motivated by a fast-paced environment and be a skilled cross-functional navigator & strategic thinker able to drive commercial impact and product innovation. Role: The Start Path Agentic Commerce & Services Director will thesis-build on the fast-developing agentic ecosystem in order to help define opportunity spaces in the agentic economy for Mastercard; work directly with Mastercard product & partnerships teams to prioritize high impact agentic use cases, source and select best-in-class agentic startups for the program; identify collaboration opportunities for onboarded startups with Mastercard teams and customers in order to drive strategic and commercial value. Key Responsibilities: - Deliver the vision, mission, and execution of Start Path Agentic Commerce & Services Program, including: - Sourcing high-potential and strategic startups, - Driving partnerships and engagements with selected startups for commercial and strategic outcomes - Collaborating closely with product teams on developing partnership strategy. - Track and analyze fast-emerging market trends in the agentic start-up space, doing market landscaping, startup due diligence and bringing back key strategic insights. - Drive innovative commercial engagements with agentic startups across multiple use cases and parts of the agentic stack. - Advocate and evangelize the agentic commerce & services strategy with internal and external stakeholders, including senior leadership at Mastercard, startups, venture capital firms, industry organizations and more. - Liaise with Product teams across Mastercard on their product roadmaps and strategies to find opportunity for startup partnership - Anticipate significant domestic and regional fintech trends while developing and modifying strategies to manage these trends. All About You: - Proven track-record working with startups - well-versed in the AI, startup engagement and venture capital ecosystem - Strong experience in cross-functional collaboration – driving alignment across product and commercial teams to drive outcomes - Strong strategic prowess enabling swift distillation of fast-developing trends & analysis of the competitive landscape - Strong project management experience - highly organized, meticulous attention to detail & experience ex ... (truncated, view full listing at source)