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
Payroll Process Transformation ManagerWho is Mastercard?We work 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. We cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences enable us to be a better team – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better business results.
Who is GBSC?
The Global Business Solutions Center (GBSC) is a powerhouse of innovation and strategic partnership inside of Mastercard that combines operational excellence with a vision for what’s next. More than a service provider; it is a collaborative force that delivers impactful outcomes. Anchored in strong, reliable operations, the GBSC brings to life bold ideas that empower teams across Finance, Legal, People & Capability, Sales, Marketing, and Product.
About the Role
This is a highly visible role that will partner with key global Payroll leadership to lead the continuous improvement strategy and execution of global payroll processes to ensure standardization, compliance, timeliness, and digital readiness across the globe. The Payroll Process Design & Optimization Lead Manager will perform as a strong contributor to the overall success of the global payroll team by prioritizing and actioning key strategic priority changes throughout the Payroll Lifecycle.
What You Will Do
Strategy
Function as a process design lead and trusted advisor for payroll related changes, system enhancements, country implementations, and operating model evolution—translating business needs into tangible results.
Assess and manage impact on payroll considering policy changes, technological advancements, amongst other factors.
Manage Payroll Transformation portfolio, including intake, prioritization, transformation roadmap, and work sequencing.
Partner with Payroll leadership to support global payroll process design and optimization efforts.
Leverage payroll process performance metrics to identify trends, prioritize future optimization opportunities, and track improvement over time.
Support Payroll leadership by defining a structured global, yet nuanced approach to local requirements identifying process variation, bringing data and fact-based recommendations to leadership on where standardization, simplification, or deviation is appropriate.
Operations
Enable and support the development, alignment, and use of payroll process flows and documentation by partnering with Payroll and related teams to ensure artifacts are clear, practical, and reflective of agreed‑upon operating models; support consistent understanding and execution across regions while accounting for local legal, regulatory, and business requirements.
Partner with Product & Engineering to simplify, automate, and optimize payroll processes and data flows, ensuring process designs support system capabilities across Workday Payroll, time and attendance, benefits, integrations, and in-country vendors.
Support enhancement testing by providing relevant use cases and executing user-testing to validate that optimized process designs are viable, system‑enabled, and fit-for-purpose.
Support strong vendor and cross functional process governance by partnering with P&C, Tax, Risk & Compliance, and payroll providers to drive service quality, regulatory adherence, data privacy and security, and continuous improvement.
What Will Set You Apart
• 7+ years of experience in global payroll operations, payroll process design, or shared services environments.
• Demonstrated experience designing, standardizing, and governing end-to-end processes within complex, matrixed, global organizations—ideally within a Global Business Services, Consulting, or transformation led model.
• Strong working knowledge of payroll platforms and ecosystems, including process enablement for automation, workflow tools, and emerging AI enabled capabilities.
• Proven understanding of audit requirements, SOX controls, regulatory reviews, and risk management frameworks, with the ability to translate control expectations into practical process design.
• Advanced analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to balance precision, scalability, and employee experience in high risk, highly regulated environments.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to influence without direct authority across regions, functions, and senior leadership.
• Enterprise first mindset with clear accountability for process integrity, quality, and continuous improvement, paired with a calm, structured, and pragmatic decision-making approach.
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.