Card Consulting Program Lead

Role Details

Mandatory Requirements

• Applicants need 15+ years of experience in consulting, programme management, payments or cards, or financial services transformation.
• Candidates must have delivered complex multi-workstream programmes from strategy through execution and benefit realisation.
• Senior consulting and programme leadership experience must include problem structuring, C-level stakeholder management, governance, risk and dependency management, analytics-led decisions, and execution oversight.
• Knowledge of cards, customer value management, product launch, digital banking, and SAMA regulations is mandatory.
• Arabic and English proficiency is mandatory.

Programme Leadership and Governance

• Lead end-to-end delivery across workstreams, objectives, timelines, budget, quality criteria, and benefit realisation.
• Establish steering committees, working groups, RAID management, escalation, dependency tracking, and executive reporting.
• Build integrated roadmaps and resolve risks, issues, dependencies, and scope changes.

Cards Strategy and Portfolio

• Support cards strategy across consumer, corporate, and SME segments, focusing on spend growth, activation, retention, engagement, profitability, and customer value management.
• Monitor acquisition quality, activation, spend, attrition, profitability, credit performance, digital adoption, and campaign ROI.
• Balance customer value, commercial economics, operational feasibility, and risk while meeting regulatory requirements.

Product, Digital, and Analytics

• Oversee product launches, customer value enhancements, feature upgrades, pricing, loyalty improvements, campaigns, and portfolio interventions.
• Improve customer and operational journeys across onboarding, servicing, disputes, controls, campaigns, monitoring, and post-launch management.
• Lead research, benchmarking, customer needs assessment, business cases, projections, cost-benefit analysis, and opportunity identification.

Execution, Risk, and Stakeholders

• Lead cross-functional teams and external stakeholders, manage change, and support capability building through playbooks, routines, training, and knowledge transfer.
• Identify risks and maintain mitigation actions across delivery, operations, compliance, finance, technology, and customers.
• Oversee testing, readiness, go-live, stabilisation, and performance improvement, while advising senior client and Mastercard stakeholders.

Knowledge and Experience

• Relevant experience should combine consulting, payments or cards, financial services transformation, and senior programme delivery.
• Strong cards expertise should cover portfolio management, customer value management, product launch, loyalty, digital servicing, analytics, and performance optimisation.
• A bachelor's degree is required; a master's degree and PMP, PRINCE2, Agile, Scrum, or equivalent certification are preferred.