Director, Applied AI Product Enablement & Commercialisation, AP SME

Job 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 Director, Applied AI Product Enablement & Commercialisation, AP SME Mastercard’s Commercial & New Payment Flows (CNPF) SME team helps financial institutions, fintechs and business partners bring innovative payment solutions to small and medium-sized businesses. Working closely with issuers, fintechs, partners and merchants, the team drives commercialization, market adoption and ecosystem growth across a portfolio of commercial payment solutions, including virtual cards, spend controls, expense management and supplier payment optimisation capabilities. Through close collaboration with customers and stakeholders across the region, the team helps accelerate the digitisation of B2B payments and unlock new growth opportunities for the SME segment. We are seeking a Director, Applied AI Product Enablement & Commercialisation to help shape and scale the next generation of AI-powered solutions for small and medium-sized businesses across Asia Pacific. This role will lead the commercialisation and regional deployment of emerging AI products, beginning with Mastercard's Virtual C-Suite initiative, including the Virtual CFO experience. Sitting at the intersection of Applied AI, product strategy, customer engagement and go-to-market execution, you will act as the regional bridge between customer needs, market requirements and global product teams. Success in this role requires a unique combination of strong AI product expertise, strategic thinking and commercial acumen, with the ability to translate complex AI capabilities into compelling business outcomes for customers and partners. Role • Lead the commercialisation and regional deployment of AI-powered solutions designed to help SMEs operate more effectively and make better business decisions. • Serve as the Asia Pacific subject matter expert for Applied AI solutions, helping define how AI capabilities address customer challenges across diverse markets. • Partner closely with global product, engineering and AI teams to translate regional customer needs into technical requirements, product enhancements and roadmap priorities. • Evaluate emerging AI technologies, LLM-based applications, agentic AI systems and market trends to identify opportunities for new SME use cases and solutions. • Work directly with customers, partners, sales teams and internal stakeholders to articulate the value of AI-powered products and drive market adoption. • Develop and execute go-to-market and commercialisation strategies that support successful product launches and scalable customer adoption. • Lead pilots, proof-of-concepts and market enablement initiatives, gathering customer feedback and translating insights into product improvements. • Support complex customer conversations by explaining AI concepts, capabilities, limitations and business value in a way that is engaging and easy to understand. • Collaborate across product management, sales, services, partnerships and regional leadership teams to ensure successful execution and alignment. • Track product adoption, customer outcomes and market feedback to continuously refine positioning, commercial strategy and product priorities. All About You • Proven experience working with AI-powered products, Generative AI solutions, machine learning applications, intelligent automation or other emerging technologies in a product, strategy or commercial role. • Strong understanding of modern AI concepts, including LLMs, agentic AI systems, reasoning frameworks, orchestration tools and AI-enabled customer experiences. • Demonstrated ability to bridge technical and business audiences, translating complex technology concepts into compelling customer value propositions. • Experience bringing innovative technology products to market, including commercialisation, product adoption, go-to-market execution or product strategy responsibilities. • Ability to work effectively with technical teams, product managers, engineers and data scientists while also influencing business stakeholders and customers. • Strong customer-facing experience, including executive presentations, strategic discussions and solution-based selling or enablement. • Experience identifying market opportunities, defining use cases and shaping product direction through customer and market insights. • Proven ability to navigate ambiguity, build new capabilities and drive outcomes in rapidly evolving environments. • Experience within payments, fintech, banking, SaaS, cloud technology or digital platform businesses is highly desirable. • Passion for emerging technologies and a genuine interest in helping businesses unlock value through AI-driven innovation. 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.