Company: Mastercard
Location: Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
Career Level: Associate
Industries: Banking, Insurance, Financial Services
Description
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
Specialist, Strategic Initiatives & Innovation - Global Portfolio Optimization OverviewThe Global Portfolio Optimization (GPO) team drives portfolio performance by leveraging advanced analytics and best practices to prioritize and accelerate opportunity conversion at scale. By identifying and scaling impactful portfolio strategies, we empower customers to increase activation, usage, spend, and other key performance outcomes.
Our programmatic approach, combined with Mastercard's unmatched data and insights, ensures that value delivery is measurable, repeatable, and continuously evolving. We collaborate with sales, product, marketing, and consulting teams to optimize digital and physical commerce with target customers in key markets.
The Role
We are seeking a Specialist to join the Strategic Initiatives & Innovation team.
This role will primarily support the team lead in executing strategic initiatives and innovation projects, combining analytical tasks with operational and organizational responsibilities.
The ideal candidate will be proactive, detail-oriented, and comfortable managing multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
Key Responsibilities:
Support Strategic Initiatives: Assist in the development and execution of new strategies through data-driven insights and recommendations.
Produce Executive-Level Deliverables: Create clear, polished presentations and materials for internal and client use, tailored for senior and executive audiences.
Internal Communications: Help communicate strategic initiatives across the organization, ensuring clarity and alignment at all levels.
Identify New Solutions & Pilots: Contribute to identifying innovative approaches and pilot programs that elevate portfolio performance, including initiatives related to Pricing and Economics levers.
Streamline Processes: Support efforts to improve workflows, reporting, and overall efficiency.
Collaborate with Stakeholders: Work closely with internal teams, regional stakeholders, and delivery teams to ensure alignment and accelerate prioritized initiatives.
Project Management & Organization: Manage timelines, organize deliverables, and coordinate multiple stakeholders to ensure smooth execution of initiatives.
Operational Support: Handle ground-level tasks such as preparing reports, tracking progress, and maintaining documentation to support the team
Prioritize Development Efforts: Align initiatives with product strategy and revenue acceleration plans.
Assess Impact and Support Action Plans: Assist in sizing business impact and contributing to actionable plans.
Drive Automation and AI Opportunities: Help identify and implement automation and AI solutions in collaboration with multiple Mastercard teams.
Monitor Global Performance: Support identification of issues affecting portfolio performance, spend, and revenue.
About You
This is a dynamic opportunity for a self-starter to collaborate with cross-functional teams and make a direct impact on Mastercard's GPO strategies:
Strong Communication Skills: Excellent oral and written communication, organizational, and presentation abilities; able to synthesize complex data into clear, compelling deliverables for executive audiences.
Analytical & Creative: Demonstrated problem-solving, creativity, and innovation capabilities.
Innovation Mindset: Ability to think beyond the obvious, propose innovative ideas and approaches, and identify opportunities to pilot new solutions that drive performance.
Project Management & Organization: Skilled at managing timelines, coordinating stakeholders, and keeping projects on track.
Client-Focused: Understand client needs and communicate ideas effectively with stakeholders and management.
Attention to Detail: Commitment to quality and precision.
Proactive & Results-Oriented: Operates with urgency and initiative.
Collaborative: Effective team player, able to engage across functions and geographies.
Influential Communicator: Comfortable influencing and aligning stakeholders globally.
Technical Skills: Advanced proficiency in Excel (functions, pivot tables, macros), PowerPoint, and data visualization tools.
Language: Confident communicator in English, both written and spoken.
Experience: Experience in consulting or similar analytical/strategic roles would be a plus.
Why Join Us?
Impact at Scale: Play a key role in shaping strategies that drive global portfolio performance and revenue growth.
Innovation at the Core: Work on cutting-edge initiatives, pilots, and automation/AI opportunities that redefine how we deliver value.
Cross-Functional Exposure: Collaborate with diverse teams across product, sales, marketing, and consulting in a truly global environment.
Career Growth: Develop strategic, analytical, and organizational skills while contributing to high-visibility projects.
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.
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