Vice President, Legal Compliance, EEMEA

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

Vice President, Legal Compliance, EEMEA

Overview:
The EEMEA Compliance Lead is responsible for leading, strengthening, and sustaining Mastercard’s Anti Corruption and regional compliance program across the Eastern Europe Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) Region. Reporting directly to the Senior Vice President, Anti Corruption and Regional Compliance, this role serves as the primary regional compliance leader and advisor to the business, supporting ethical growth while managing regulatory, reputational, and operational risk.
The role provides strategic guidance and hands on oversight to regional and country leadership, sales, marketing, government sales, and other functions to ensure compliance with anti corruption laws, internal policies, and global standards. The position applies a risk based approach to embed compliance into business operations and decision making and works closely with Global Compliance, Legal, Risk, Finance, P&C, Global Affairs, Marketing, Internal Audit, and other stakeholders.
The successful candidate will operate with a high degree of independence, judgment, and credibility, while remaining closely aligned with global headquarters and enterprise compliance priorities.

Role:
• Lead the EEMEA Anti Corruption compliance program, aligning regional execution with global strategy and applying a risk based approach to business activities.
• Serve as the primary compliance advisor to EEMEA regional leadership, promoting a strong culture of ethics and compliance. Collaborate and lead, as needed, global Anti-Corruption projects.
• Provide practical, timely compliance guidance on Anti Corruption, Code of Conduct, Conflicts of Interest, and related policies to support informed business decision making.
• Provide advice on compliance risks associated with new markets, customers, products, acquisitions, joint ventures, and strategic initiatives, including contract review where required.
• Oversee regional due diligence, approvals, and ongoing monitoring for high risk third parties, government related partners, resellers, suppliers, lobbyists, and external advisors.
• Lead regional oversight of hospitality, sponsorships, charitable contributions, connected candidate reviews, and state owned entity engagements, including escalations and transparency requirements.
• Develop and deliver risk based regional compliance training and targeted communications, including leadership led messaging and conduct office visits, when applicable, to engage with local leadership, document findings and follow up actions.
• Participate in enterprise and regional risk assessments and compliance reviews.
• Prepare and deliver regular compliance reporting to regional leadership and senior management.

All About You:
• Seasoned compliance or legal professional with strong leadership presence and sound judgment.
• Proven ability to influence and partner with senior leaders and cross functional stakeholders.
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills, with the ability to balance risk management and business objectives.
• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills, with the ability to communicate complex issues clearly and credibly.
• Comfortable operating independently in a fast paced, matrixed, multinational environment.
• Experience in compliance within a multinational public company strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience with anti corruption program design, implementation, and oversight, including familiarity with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and UK Bribery Act and local anti-corruption laws.
• Bachelor’s degree required, JD or equivalent Law Degree preferred, MBA or CPA certification desired.

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.