Vice President, Data Scientist (Open Finance)
About The Position
Mastercard is seeking an experienced and visionary Vice President of Data Science – Open Finance to lead the development and delivery of advanced data science and AI capabilities that power its Open Finance business. This people leader will be responsible for building and scaling a world-class Data Science organization focused on transforming financial data into actionable insights, predictions, and decisioning capabilities. The role will span foundational data intelligence and high-value applications including transaction categorization, entity extraction, income and revenue classification, fraud detection, credit risk, propensity modeling, and other AI-powered financial insights. The VP will work closely with their immediate team and senior leaders across Product, Engineering, Sales, Privacy, and other business functions to identify high-value opportunities, translate business problems into data science solutions, and deliver capabilities that create measurable customer and commercial value. The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in modern data science and AI with strong product acumen and a track record of scaling teams and production-grade machine learning solutions.
Requirements
- Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, Data Science, or a related quantitative discipline; advanced degree preferred or equivalent work experience.
- Previous experience in data science, machine learning, AI, analytics, or a related field, with significant leadership experience.
- Proven experience leading and scaling large, high-performing Data Science or AI organizations.
- Deep understanding of modern machine learning and AI techniques and their application to real-world business problems.
- History taking machine learning models from research and experimentation through production, commercialization, and ongoing optimization.
- Strong understanding of modern data and AI platforms, MLOps, cloud technologies, and production machine learning environments.
- Strategic and pragmatic: able to balance long-term AI innovation with near-term execution.
Nice To Haves
- Background in financial services, fintech, payments, Open Banking/Open Finance, lending, fraud, or risk preferred.
Responsibilities
- Define and execute the Data Science strategy for Open Finance in alignment with overall business and product objectives.
- Identify opportunities where advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI can create differentiated products, improve decisioning, reduce risk, and drive growth.
- Establish a scalable roadmap spanning foundational intelligence capabilities and application-specific models and solutions.
- Evaluate and adopt the latest advances in machine learning, generative AI, foundation models, LLMs, deep learning, NLP, and other emerging technologies where they can create meaningful business value.
- Ensure models are accurate, scalable, explainable where required, resilient, and continuously improved based on performance and changing market conditions.
- Lead the development and continuous improvement of production-grade models and AI capabilities, including: Transaction categorization, Entity extraction, resolution, and enrichment, Income and Revenue classification, Fraud detection and risk scoring, Credit risk and credit decisioning, Spend propensity and customer insights, Personalization and predictive analytics, New AI-powered capabilities that leverage Open Finance and other proprietary data assets.
- Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Sales, Risk, Marketing, and business leaders to understand customer needs and translate them into scalable data science solutions.
- Work directly with Sales and customers to understand market requirements, demonstrate the value of AI-powered capabilities, and support strategic opportunities.
- Collaborate with Engineering to establish scalable production architectures, MLOps practices, model deployment, monitoring, and operational excellence.
- Serve as a senior thought leader and trusted advisor to executives and key stakeholders on the application of AI and data science to Open Finance.
- Build, lead, and develop a high-performing global Data Science organization.
- Establish the appropriate organizational structure, technical standards, operating model, and career development framework for the team.
- Attract, retain, and develop world-class data science and AI talent.
- Foster a culture of innovation, experimentation, scientific rigor, collaboration, and accountability for business outcomes.
- Establish strong partnerships between Data Science, Product, and Engineering, with clear ownership and shared objectives.
- Establish rigorous standards for model development, validation, monitoring, explainability, and performance.
- Ensure solutions meet applicable regulatory, privacy, security, fairness, and responsible AI requirements.
- Partner with Risk, Legal, Compliance, and other control functions to ensure appropriate governance for AI and machine learning solutions.
Benefits
- insurance (including medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, disability, life insurance)
- flexible spending account and health savings account
- 16 weeks of new parent leave
- up to 20 days of bereavement leave
- 80 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time
- 25 days of vacation time
- 5 personal days
- 10 annual paid U.S. observed holidays
- 401k with a best-in-class company match
- deferred compensation for eligible roles
- fitness reimbursement or on-site fitness facilities
- eligibility for tuition reimbursement
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Executive
