Vice President, Data Scientist (Open Finance)

Mastercard’s Open Finance organization is expanding its advanced data science and AI capabilities, and this role sits at the center of that growth. As a Vice President, Data Scientist, you will set and drive the strategy for production-grade machine learning and generative AI that turns Open Finance data into financial insights, better decisioning, and risk reduction.

Strategy and execution

• Define and execute the Data Science strategy for Open Finance aligned with 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 that spans foundational intelligence capabilities and application-specific models and solutions.
• Evaluate and adopt advances in machine learning, generative AI, foundation models, LLMs, deep learning, NLP, and other emerging technologies when they support meaningful business value.
• Ensure models are accurate, scalable, explainable where required, resilient, and continuously improved as performance changes and market conditions evolve.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Sales, Risk, Marketing, and business leaders to translate customer needs 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.

Production AI capabilities

• Lead the development and continuous improvement of production-grade models and AI capabilities for transaction categorization.
• Lead the development and continuous improvement of production-grade models and AI capabilities for entity extraction, resolution, and enrichment.
• Lead the development and continuous improvement of production-grade models and AI capabilities for income and revenue classification.
• Lead the development and continuous improvement of production-grade models and AI capabilities for fraud detection and risk scoring.
• Lead the development and continuous improvement of production-grade models and AI capabilities for credit risk and credit decisioning.
• Lead the development and continuous improvement of production-grade models and AI capabilities for spend propensity and customer insights.
• Lead the development and continuous improvement of production-grade models and AI capabilities for personalization and predictive analytics.
• Lead the development of new AI-powered capabilities that leverage Open Finance and other proprietary data assets.

Team leadership and governance

• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing global Data Science organization.
• Establish the 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.
• Set 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.

Security and compliance

• 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.
• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard’s guidelines.

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.
• Experience taking machine learning models from research and experimentation through production, commercialization, and ongoing optimization.
• Background in financial services, fintech, payments, Open Banking/Open Finance, lending, fraud, or risk preferred.
• Strong understanding of modern data and AI platforms, MLOps, cloud technologies, and production machine learning environments.
• Strategic and pragmatic approach to balance long-term AI innovation with near-term execution.

Technologies

• MLOps
• Cloud technologies
• LLMs
• NLP
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Foundation models
• Machine learning
• AI

Compensation

• New York City, New York: $244,000 - $390,000 USD per year
• Purchase, New York: $233,000 - $374,000 USD per year

Benefits

• Insurance (including medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, disability, life insurance)
• Flexible spending account and health savings account
• Paid leaves (including 16 weeks of new parent leave and up to 20 days of bereavement leave)
• 80 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time
• 25 days of vacation time and 5 personal days, pro-rated based on date of hire
• 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
• 56 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time (interns)
• Jury duty leave (interns)
• On-site fitness facilities in some locations (interns)

Location: New York, NY (onsite)

Salary: USD 233,000 - 390,000 per year