Company: Mastercard
Location: Portugal
Career Level: Mid-Senior Level
Industries: Banking, Insurance, Financial Services
Description
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
Account Manager – Strategic Merchant Partnerships (Payments / OTA) ABOUT MASTERCARDMastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses realize their greatest potential.
Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.
Role: Account Manager – Strategic Merchant Partnerships (Payments / OTA)
Team: Market Development – Merchants & Acceptance
Experience: 5–10 years
Industry: Payments, Digital Commerce, Travel (OTA)
Client: A large global OTA account
About the role
We are looking for an Account Manager to support one of Mastercard's most strategic global merchant partnerships— a large Online Travel Agency (OTA) account. You'll work closely with crossfunctional teams across global, regional, and local teams to strengthen the partnership, drive growth, and deliver value through Mastercard's solutions.
This role requires strong project coordination and project management skills, alongside solid experience in the payments ecosystem.
You will become part of the Merchants & Acceptance team within Market Development Europe, supporting the Vice President of Global Account Management in overseeing this major OTA account.
What You'll Do
Strategic Relationship Management
• Act as one of the key points of contact for the client, ensuring ongoing strategic alignment and high levels of satisfaction.
• Build and maintain strong, trust-based relationships across the client organization, including senior and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Serve as a connector between the client and internal teams, ensuring client needs, priorities, and timelines are clearly understood and managed.
Business Development & Growth
• Identify, coordinate, and execute strategic opportunities to expand the partnership and drive adoption of Mastercard products and services.
• Support and, where appropriate, lead the development of client proposals, including RFP responses, business cases, commercial structures, and contract discussions.
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams (e.g., finance, legal, product, technology) to deliver tailored and scalable solutions.
Project Management & Coordination
• Coordinate multiple concurrent initiatives across global, regional, and local teams, ensuring clear ownership, milestones, and delivery timelines.
• Support end-to-end project execution, from scoping and planning through implementation and post-delivery review.
• Track progress against agreed plans, proactively identify risks or dependencies, and work with stakeholders to resolve issues.
• Facilitate regular project and status updates, ensuring transparency, alignment, and effective decision-making.
• Contribute to continuous improvement of delivery processes, tools, and ways of working.
Performance, Delivery & Partnership Optimization
• Monitor key performance indicators (e.g., revenue, volumes, delivery milestones) and contribute to strategies that drive sustainable growth.
• Manage and communicate day-to-day operations (including QBRs), priorities, and progress across teams to ensure timely delivery.
• Gather and act on client and internal feedback to continuously improve partnership performance and delivery quality.
Internal Collaboration & Enablement
• Provide guidance and structure to internal stakeholders to help maximize partnership value and ensure consistent execution across workstreams.
• Support knowledge sharing and alignment across regional and global teams.
ALL ABOUT YOU
Experience & Expertise
• 5–10 years of relevant experience in account management, client partnership management, project management, or project coordination within complex organizations.
• Experience working with large enterprise clients, ideally within travel, e-commerce, marketplaces, or digital platforms.
• Solid understanding and experience with the payments ecosystem, including issuing, acquiring, and acceptance (experience with commercial and/or virtual cards is a strong plus).
• Proven ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously in matrixed, cross-functional environments.
• Experience contributing to or leading structured projects, from planning through execution and delivery.
Skills & Competencies
• Strong communication skills (verbal, written, and presentation), with the ability to engage credibly with diverse and senior stakeholders.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and comfortable managing multiple priorities, dependencies, and timelines.
• Proactive, self-motivated, and comfortable taking ownership while working collaboratively.
• Analytical mindset with sound commercial judgment; experience supporting negotiations and contract management.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly PowerPoint and Excel.
• Fluent English speaker (native not essential); additional languages are a plus.
Mindset & Approach
• Inclusive & Collaborative: Values diverse perspectives and works effectively with people from different backgrounds, cultures, and functions.
• Customer-Centric: Curious about client needs and industries, with a focus on delivering meaningful, long-term value.
• Problem Solver: Practical and solution-oriented, able to navigate complexity and ambiguity.
• Growth-Oriented: Motivated to learn, develop, and adapt in a dynamic, evolving environment.
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.
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