What's your job about?
In my current team within Mastercard, Financial Planning & Analysis, we track, budget, and forecast revenue and expenses for the company on a variety of levels. We communicate with areas of the business to understand what projects or programs are happening and when so we can do our job as accurately as possible. I specifically look after aspects of our services division (think Loyalty, Advisors, Cyber & Intelligence, and Processing). A lot of people in the business rely on us so they can make key decisions about new sales, new products, and expenses. Finance as a whole is also involved with the financials of new deals, building a contract from the ground up, and seeing whether opportunities are profitable or not.
I am also lucky enough to gain experience from a range of teams, such as the Customer Solutions team, and our Account Management team. This range of experience helps me gain a holistic understanding of how Mastercard works. We may find a product solution to present a Loyalty solution to a customer, and the revenue will come back to me at the end of the month. I appreciate seeing the entire lifecycle, and the behind-the-scenes information helps me in my finance role.
What's your background?
I grew up on the beautiful Northern Beaches of Sydney, moving out of home when I started University in the city. I worked full-time in the office of an off-campus student accommodation to support myself during uni, which meant I was doing my assignments and classes mostly at night. After finishing Uni, I moved to Iran to study the Persian Language and to experience a new culture (unfortunately 1 month before covid hit the world), where I spent the best 2 years. This definitely pushed me outside my comfort zone and gave me the opportunity to learn new skills, as well as how to adapt and thrive in such a foreign environment. While I was there, I became an actor in a television program teaching Persian to foreign students as well as an international film festival movie. I got to be very creative and meet so many new people, pushing my language skills to the next level and giving me some great memories. Luckily, I was still eligible for the Grad Program at Mastercard and the starting date aligned with my return to Australia, doing my rounds of interviews while I was still overseas.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes definitely, however, you have to be very comfortable with numbers. I came from a Finance major at uni, so I had a familiarity with many of the tools I use day-to-day such as Microsoft Excel and the formula shortcuts that helped me complete my assignments faster. A range of degrees and experiences form skills such as Problem Solving, Analytical Thinking, and Communication, all of which I use in every aspect of my job and life at Mastercard. People who want to continuously learn and gain a range of new skills would thrive in this job and therefore could come from a range of professional and educational backgrounds.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
Having a substantial amount of responsibility and ownership right from the get-go. I had read about this before joining and was excited to hopefully experience this, and it was definitely the truth. I was given ownership of the entire Loyalty finance portfolio in my first month and have also absorbed others since that time. It gives me a real purpose within the company, which I believe can sometimes become lost in other programs. Also being involved with other teams gives me a breadth of tasks in my day from projecting revenues at 10.00 am to prototyping a bank’s app at 1.00 pm.
What are the limitations of your job?
The fact that more senior you become within my team, it is likely you will need to (or be greatly advantaged to) be CPA or Chartered Accountant qualified. Therefore it can be a limitation if this is something you are unsure you’d like to pursue. In saying that, I did not study any level of accounting at Uni and so far, I haven’t found this to be an issue. However, it may become one in the future if I decide to stay in the team.
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