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
Overview
Mastercard's global Commercial and New Payment Flows legal team is looking for a Senior Counsel to provide comprehensive, end-to-end legal support for our Mastercard money movement products, including Mastercard Send. These products are designed to enable fast, secure, and seamless domestic and cross-border payments, helping individuals and businesses move funds efficiently across different use cases. The Senior counsel will be a primary private support for a suite of Mastercard Transaction Services legal entities.
Role:
The Senior Counsel will play a key role in supporting Mastercard's money transfer solutions, from a privacy, AI and data protection perspective. This includes advising on the development of cutting-edge technologies, monitoring emerging legislative developments, and ensuring compliance with global privacy and data-related laws.
The ideal candidate will be skilled at balancing strategic and tactical thinking, offering creative legal solutions that align with business objectives while maintaining compliance. They should be well-versed in digital payments and evolving technologies, and capable of applying Privacy by Design principles across products and processes.
This role involves close collaboration with product and business legal teams to support innovation in domestic and cross-border payment solutions, while ensuring the implementation and maintenance of a robust privacy and data protection program.
The position will be based in London (or Waterloo), and will report to the Senior Managing Counsel, Privacy, AI and Data Responsibility located in Belgium.
Core Responsibilities• Lead privacy risk management for Mastercard Transaction Services, including the facilitation of regular governance meetings with senior stakeholders to identify, escalate, and resolve key privacy risks. • Serve as the primary privacy advisor for Move (Mastercard Send and Cross-Border Services), supporting business inquiries, product development, and market expansion initiatives. • Oversee and coordinate responses to government data access requests, ensuring compliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements. • Act as the escalation point for Requests for Information (RFIs) and Customer Due Diligence (CDD) inquiries. • Provide day-to-day privacy support to business teams, including guidance on product-related matters and operational queries. • Enable the development of innovative Mastercard's money transfer solutions, products and services by embedding Privacy by Design into the product lifecycle, conducting privacy impact assessments and other risk evaluations in accordance with Mastercard's privacy, AI governance, and data protection frameworks. • Collaborate with business counsel including drafting and reviewing data processing agreements and participating in negotiations with customers, partners, and vendors. • Contribute to Mastercard's legal scans and monitor global regulatory developments in privacy and data protection, offering strategic guidance to internal stakeholders on potential business impacts. • Manage external counsel engagement on privacy matters, including oversight of legal fees and deliverables. • Supervise and mentor a junior lawyer, serving as a point of escalation for complex legal issues and employee-related matters. • Drive privacy awareness across business units and legal teams through targeted training and strategic initiatives.
All About You• Qualified lawyer with solid academic and training background.• Additional certifications in privacy (e.g., IAPP) are highly valued.• Solid expertise in privacy and data protection laws, with a proven track record of practical application-ideally including in-house legal experience.• Background in financial services, banking, or payments is strongly preferred. • Experience with privacy management platforms such as OneTrust is considered an asset. • Proactive and solution-oriented approach to problem-solving with a history of translating complex legal requirements into clear, actionable guidance.• Solid knowledge of global data protection legal frameworks (e.g. GDPR, CCPA).• Strong risk-based judgment, capable of identifying key legal and operational concerns while crafting compliant, commercially viable solutions.• Exceptional oral and written communication skills, including demonstrated experience distilling complex legal and technical issues into clear, concise messaging to a wide variety of audiences including executive leadership.• Solid grasp of digital technologies and their intersection with privacy and data governance.• Highly organized and analytical, with excellent time management and attention to detail. • Strong interpersonal skills, with a collaborative mindset and proven ability to build and maintain effective relationships across teams.• Ability to lead, influence, and inspire high-performing professionals toward achieving strategic objectives.
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.