Director, SME Partner Activation & Commercialization, Latin American & Caribbean (LAC)

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, SME Partner Activation & Commercialization, Latin American & Caribbean (LAC)
Director, SME Partner Activation & Commercialization, Latin American & Caribbean (LAC)
Overview
Across LAC, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) represent more than 90% of businesses and are often underserved by traditional financial institutions. This role requires identifying innovative routes to market through distributors, platforms, fintechs, software providers, marketplaces, and trade ecosystems that already serve SMEs at scale. Success will depend on navigating a diverse regional landscape, influencing stakeholders across multiple markets, and translating local market dynamics into scalable regional growth opportunities. Given the diversity of the region, the role requires balancing market-specific needs with scalable solutions that can be replicated across countries and verticals.
Role
Our SME team is looking for a Director, Partner Activation & Commercialization in LAC to accelerate the commercialization and activation of strategic partnerships and distribution deals across the region. This role sits at the intersection of strategy, sales, product, marketing, and account management, ensuring that signed agreements translate into measurable business outcomes, including customer acquisition, activation, spend, revenue, and long-term growth.
The ideal candidate combines strategic thinking with strong execution capabilities, thriving in cross-functional environments and driving accountability across multiple stakeholders to bring complex programs to market quickly and effectively.
Key Responsibilities
Activation Strategy & Commercialization• Develop and execute go-to-market and activation strategies for newly signed partnerships and strategic initiatives.• Design scalable activation frameworks that accelerate customer acquisition, engagement, and revenue generation.• Identify activation levers, growth opportunities, and commercial optimization strategies to maximize business impact.• Define launch roadmaps, success metrics, and activation milestones.
Revenue & Volume Growth• Own activation KPIs, including customer acquisition, activation rates, spend volume, revenue, and portfolio growth.• Continuously monitor program performance and implement actions to improve results.• Identify barriers to adoption and develop mitigation plans to accelerate growth.• Build business cases and growth projections to support investment decisions.
Cross-Functional Leadership• Coordinate across Sales, Product, Marketing, Operations, Customer Success, and external partners to ensure successful execution.• Drive alignment on priorities, timelines, responsibilities, and performance objectives.• Establish governance structures and operating rhythms to track progress and remove roadblocks.
Performance Management & Analytics• Develop dashboards and reporting frameworks to monitor activation performance.• Analyze customer behavior, funnel performance, and program economics.• Translate data into actionable recommendations that improve activation and commercial outcomes.• Present performance updates and strategic recommendations to senior leadership.
Best Practice Development• Capture learnings and develop repeatable playbooks and activation blueprints.• Identify successful use cases and scale them across markets, partners, and verticals.• Drive continuous improvement in go-to-market execution and activation effectiveness.
All About You• 8+ years of experience in Go-to-Market, Commercialization, Business Development, Growth, Sales Strategy, Product Marketing, or Activation roles.• Proven track record launching and scaling products, partnerships, or commercial programs.• Strong strategic thinking combined with hands-on execution capabilities.• Experience managing cross-functional stakeholders without direct authority.• Strong analytical and financial acumen with experience tracking business performance.• Excellent executive communication and presentation skills.• Experience in payments, fintech, financial services, SaaS, or technology preferred.• Demonstrated experience working across multiple Latin American and Caribbean markets, with an understanding of the region's SME landscape, commercial ecosystems, and market-specific dynamics.• Be self-motivated, a quick learner, and able to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.• Comfortable operating in environments with ambiguity and creating structure, business cases, and execution plans where established playbooks may not yet exist.• Able to navigate working in a high growth, global organisation.• Hold a Bachelor's degree. • Proficiency in Portuguese and English is required; Spanish is desirable.
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.