Senior Counsel

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

Senior Counsel, Regulatory, Digital Assets and BlockchainOverview:

MasterCard’s Global Regulatory team is responsible for providing regulatory counsel for new products and initiatives, and liaising with key regulators and law enforcement officials for the purpose of preventing or minimizing the impact of adverse regulations on the company’s profitability and growth potential. Regulatory is looking for a Senior Counsel to support the dynamic and exciting area of crypto, digital assets and blockchain. This newly created, high-visibility position will play an integral role to enabling the company's innovation in new digital payments technology by advising on the development of digital asset, stablecoin, and other blockchain-powered payment products, services and capabilities.

The ideal candidate must thrive in a fast-paced environment and have demonstrated expertise and experience counseling business teams throughout the product development lifecycle on emerging regulations around the use of digital assets in the financial and payments services space. The successful candidate should excel in providing actionable, practical advice amidst evolving regulatory standards, and be well-versed in the technology, collaborating and managing expectations across multiple stakeholder groups, engaging regulators, and advising on regulatory obligations, risks and opportunities. The position reports to the VP, Senior Managing Counsel, Regulatory.

Role:
The Senior Counsel, Regulatory – Digital Assets & Blockchain will be responsible for:
• Providing regulatory advice to the Digital Asset & Blockchain business on the design and configuration of emerging products and solutions that involve digital asset and blockchain technology;
• Advising on existing and emerging rules, standards and trends in the regulation of digital assets and stablecoin payments;
• Supporting strategic corporate initiatives, including advising senior leadership on the regulatory implications in launching crypto products and services;
• Monitoring and tracking regulatory developments globally around digital assets, including developing an internal regulatory tracker of crypto regulations across the globe that are relevant for Mastercard
• Working cross-functionally to identify, analyze and assess regulatory risks (while maximizing commercial opportunities) related to the introduction of crypto and blockchain-related products and services;
• Collaborating with region-specific Regulatory attorneys in providing global regulatory views on digital asset and blockchain-based products and services;
• Partnering with Regulatory Compliance to support the implementation, monitoring and validation of appropriate controls and processes to support adherence with Mastercard’s regulatory obligations;
• Working closely with the Government Affairs and Policy teams to advance Mastercard’s digital asset strategy, particularly by analyzing the relevance, impact and opportunities of emerging regulatory proposals in this space;
• Engaging with regulators, central banks and other stakeholder groups as necessary to advance Mastercard’s products and services and overall digital asset strategy;
• Providing thought-leadership and regulatory updates to internal and external stakeholders on the evolving regulatory landscape of digital assets.

All About You
• Qualified lawyer
• Previous work experience practicing in financial services, payments or similar field, ideally focused on digital assets, blockchain and innovative financial services technologies; familiarity with payment networks a plus;
• Demonstrated experience advising on and synthesizing a broad variety of overlapping and sometimes conflicting regulations applicable to digital assets and providing practical, commercially-minded advice to product developers and business stakeholders;
• Demonstrated experience advising on the application of various regulatory frameworks, licensing and compliance obligations throughout the product development lifecycle and successfully helping teams refine their product design and go-to-market approach to minimize regulatory impact and enable commercial opportunities;
• Expertise and/or familiarity with laws and regulations around digital assets and crypto, including, but not limited to the EU Markets in Crypto-Asset Regulation, Anti-Money Laundering Directive and Transfer of Funds Regulation, U.S. money transmission laws, federal banking regulations, Bank Secrecy Act, and federal securities/commodities regulations, Singapore Payment Services Act;
• Experience advising on complex projects involving the issuance and custody of stablecoins, use of digital assets and other tokenized forms of value in payments, smart contract platforms, cross-border crypto transactions and remittances, crypto donations, crypto rewards platforms, NFTs, crypto lending products, etc;
• Must be a self-starter willing to roll up sleeves to solve complex regulatory issues to enable business objectives and strategy;
• Ability to identify emerging risks and industry trends relevant to Mastercard’s business
• Demonstrated ability to effectively and proactively provide sound legal advice, exercise good business judgment, and work well with senior management and cross-functional stakeholders;
• Creative thinker with strong problem-solving skills;
• Proven ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment and anticipate the needs of business stakeholders;
• Must demonstrate excellent written and oral communication skills;
• Proven success in navigating multi-national organizations and operating effectively within a diverse multicultural organization.

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.