Director, Business Development

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, Business Development

The Director, Business Development, is responsible for overseeing the portfolio of Financial Institutions, Fintech, and platform partners within the payments sector. This role emphasizes solution design, digital development, business case creation, customer negotiations, and implementation.

Furthermore, the development of customer relationships, the regional business development strategy, as well as long-term customer development are key elements of the role. The role is connected to the Western Europe division, reporting to the Portuguese Country Manager.

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage account P&L by defining strategy, establishing goals, and executing plans in close collaboration with Western Europe for market management.

• Lead solution design, sales efforts, and product delivery in a dynamic, competitive environment.

• Support the development and implementation of country-wide go-to-market initiatives, including product positioning, key benefits, and identification of target customers.

• Cultivate trusted relationships with clients, oversee business development pipelines, and manage internal stakeholders to facilitate successful solution design and implementation.

• Collaborate with customers, technical solution architects, and product managers to align product roadmaps with market requirements.

• Proactively manage new partnership pipelines to anticipate/respond to technological trends, ecosystem stakeholder needs, and competitive challenges.

• Develop business cases, end-to-end operational processes, and product roadmaps for concepts under development.

• Manage program constructs in the market, summarize findings, and enable acceptance teams to scale results.

• Consistently develop and execute strategic frameworks.

Qualifications and Requirements:

• Demonstrated experience in fast-paced, technology-driven environments such as Payments, e-commerce, Retail, Financial Services, or Consulting.

• Exhibit curiosity, a proactive mindset, adaptability, creativity, and effective teamwork skills.

• Results-oriented and customer-focused approach, with a proven ability to meet business development targets and nurture client relationships through sales teams.

• Capacity to establish sustainable business relationships across diverse contexts, supported by a track record of successful sales.

• Strong communication abilities and experience operating within a matrix organization.

• Proficiency in understanding and executing operational aspects with attention to detail.

• Solid business acumen, capable of creating solutions that address genuine client needs.

• Strategic thinking and excellent communication at all organizational levels.

• Effective team player with strong interpersonal and cross-cultural competencies.

• Fluency in Portuguese and English (both written and spoken).

• MBA or Bachelor’s degree is advantageous.

• Position based in Lisbon, with required travel.

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.