My Mastercard Journey
My experiences at Mastercard have been diverse, spanning a variety of teams. Each role has reinforced the importance of tailoring and adapting our offerings to meet the expectations of our customers and innovating as part of constantly changing payments ecosystem.
2012 Interns Enjoying a Summer Priceless Experience at Yankees stadium
It all started with an internship….
While at Fairfield, I had the opportunity to intern on the Co-brand Business Development team at Mastercard. During that time I focused on enhancing the “Why Mastercard” story and researching the needs of the affluent consumer segment. These projects allowed me to meet with various stakeholders across the business - product, innovation, finance, marketing, sales, customer delivery - and determine how Mastercard was differentiated in the co-brand space.
I also spent time meeting with as many people as I possibly could to learn about what else Mastercard was working on. I was immediately inspired by our vision beyond payments - that the focus wasn’t just profits, but creating a world beyond cash. It was through these conversations that I knew I wanted to work at Mastercard full-time.
Mastercard was doing something special and I wanted to be part of it!
Time to Go-to-Market!
Proud to be one THe first three COllege Hires in North America. Pictured: Jennifer Lowe, Yuriy Loukachev & EMily FInk
I joined Mastercard full-time in August of 2013, as part of the Customer Delivery and Solution Sales Go-to-Market Sales Strategy team (quite possible the longest team name ever!) It was here that I found my passion for turning data into insights - what is the data telling you? Why is that important? Why should you and your customers care? Our team focused on empowering account managers to have data-driven conversations with customers by updating the current Portfolio Review template and creating custom peer set benchmarks. Reducing these reviews from 80 pages of raw data, charts and graphs to a more succinct flow that focused on customer pain points, relevant insights and data points enabled account managers to have more meaningful conversations with their customers. Change isn’t always easy - but partnering with the account managers to understand both their needs and their customers’ needs streamlined the process.
I also spent time working on the go-to-market sales strategy for the Multi-Currency Cash Passport - a product that allows consumers to load multiple currencies into one “wallet” and easily switch between currencies. I partnered with the product team to develop a deep understanding of the products capabilities and identified key potential consumers by overlaying external and internal consumer travel data and issuer branch locations. Partnering with additional stakeholders (account managers, finance, marketing and product) allowed me to pull in additional details and develop a comprehensive strategy that was leveraged across the team.
“Jen hit the ground running and never looked back when she joined Mastercard in her first full time job. Jen’s a self-starter with endless creativity, motivation, strategic thinking and team commitment. I had no doubt then and none now that she will contribute tangible results in all that she takes on.”
Office of the President
Prioritize the priorities. When asked what it’s like to work in the Office of the President for North America, I always respond that it’s extremely rewarding, but everything is a priority - you learn quickly how to prioritize the priorities. I was fortunate to see two Presidents and Chiefs of Staff during my time in the Office. This gave me great insight into different leadership styles and the evolving North American strategy. My responsibilities were extensive and I was able to reach across the business by:
Coordinating executive customer visits to the U.S. - highlight by hearing insights from executives of the largest bank in Australia and a smaller bank in Kazakhstan.
Supporting local Board Meetings for the executive committee, the board of directors and key customers. Pro-tip: always pray for good weather but have a backup plan when hosting a cocktail reception on a rooftop!
Managing the ongoing philanthropic initiatives, Town Halls and customer engagement opportunities. This included responsibility for customer engagement with our annual SMART Conference (400+ external customers in 2017) and sponsorship assets across key strategic activations like The Grammys, The Arnold Palmer Invitational and The World Series.
Partnering with our Anti-Corruption Compliance lead on key strategies, trainings and processes.
The takeaway? Change is constant, adapt quickly and keep looking forward!
“Jennifer is a creative-thinker who has a roll-up-the sleeves and get to work attitude. She is a highly resourceful and thoughtful relationship-builder who uses her business skills to anticipate, mitigate and act quickly to address problems with solutions. She was a delight to work with, a true partner, who helped make the Office of the President more effective, efficient and impactful to the business and it’s partners.”
Back to Co-brand!
After spending close to three years in the Office of the President I knew making the move to the Co-brand Business Development team would give me what I was looking for: an opportunity to gain deeper customer facing experience a chance to learn end-to-end RFP management. Since joining the team, I’ve worked directly on deals that represent programs that are new to market, flips/conversions and renewals and span across digital giants, start-ups, retail, travel and airlines, e-commerce and fin-techs.
Since I joined, I’ve partnered on over 20 co-brand deals, winning 10 since the fall of 2017, which represents $100M in revenue across the deal terms. RFP Management has exposed to me cross-collaboration with digital, finance, product, legal, merchant and issuer teams. I was also responsible for managing all aspects of the 2018 Co-brand Partner conference, which included more than 70 customers, across 40 unique merchants, representing over $240B in GDV per year. The perfect mix of customer panels, product demonstrations, digital integrations and Priceless integrations led to the most successful conference to date!
This past summer I also gained direct managerial experience with our summer intern, having responsibility for interviewing, training and on-going management throughout the summer. This experience exposed me to a new type of leadership - being responsible for the development of a direct-report. I spent time ensuring I was providing a mix of projects that would provide co-brand related experience and value to the larger team, but also provided professional development and growth opportunities.
“To me, a team is made up of people who all have each other’s backs, drive to the same goal, do whatever it takes to get there AND has fun while doing it. Jen embodies the ideal... I feel incredibly fortunate to have Jen on our team and will be at a loss as to how to replace her when the time comes. I know that Jen will one day run the company and will have gotten there by having earned the respect of all of those who have had the opportunity to work with her.”