Senior Counsel (Employment, Litigation and Core Products)

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

Senior Counsel (Employment, Litigation and Core Products)

As Senior Counsel, Employment, Litigation Management and Core Products, you will be part of Mastercard’s Regional Legal team supporting a fast moving, highly matrixed organization committed to powering an inclusive digital economy where transactions are safe, simple, smart, and accessible. You will join a highly experienced and collaborative legal function providing strategic, practical, and business oriented legal support across Asia Pacific.

This role sits at the intersection of people, products, and risk, requiring strong employment law expertise, sound judgment, and the ability to partner closely with business leaders, Human Resources, and regional and global legal colleagues. You will advise on complex and sensitive employment matters, oversee litigation and investigations, and provide end to end legal support for Mastercard’s core and digital product offerings across the region.

The role is based in Singapore and works closely with Regional Counsel teams, as well as Product, Commercial, Compliance, Privacy, and Regulatory stakeholders across APAC.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Employment Law & People Strategy

• Serve as a trusted employment law advisor across Asia Pacific, providing timely, practical, and commercially aligned legal advice.
• Advise on a broad range of employment matters, including performance management and discipline, compensation and benefits, wage and hour compliance, terminations, restructurings, reductions in force, and workplace investigations.
• Partner with Regional Counsel and HR leadership to develop globally consistent approaches while ensuring compliance with local employment laws.
• Draft, review, and negotiate complex employment related agreements, including employment contracts, offers, separation agreements, and restrictive covenants.
• Advise on employment and benefits aspects of corporate transactions across APAC, including M&A, divestitures, and joint ventures, from due diligence through integration.
• Monitor employment law developments and regulatory changes and guide HR and business teams on proactive compliance strategies.
• Support scalable delivery of employment law advice through templates, tools, training, and knowledge resources; partner with HR to design and deliver employee and manager training.

Litigation & Dispute Management

• Provide strategic oversight of civil litigation, arbitration, and other dispute resolution proceedings across the region, including employment related disputes.
• Lead and manage employment related and general disputes, including demand letters, internal investigations, regulatory inquiries, agency complaints, and litigation.
• Act as the central point of contact for external counsel, overseeing litigation strategy, pleadings, evidence management, costs, and settlement discussions.

Products & Commercial Support

• Provide end to end legal support to Mastercard’s product teams across APAC, supporting the development, launch, and scaling of innovative payment and digital products across Core Payments, Digital Enablement, Security Solutions, and related Services.
• Advise across the full product lifecycle, including ideation, design, build, go to market, and post launch operations.
• Partner closely with Product and Engineering teams on product intake, risk assessments, and launch readiness.
• Draft, review, and negotiate product related and commercial agreements, including product terms, customer contracts, licensing, technology, services, and partnership agreements.
• Advise on payments, financial services, data protection, consumer protection, competition, and technology regulatory issues across APAC markets.
• Support regulatory engagement and product approvals in collaboration with Regulatory, Compliance, and Government Engagement teams.
• Identify legal and regulatory risks early and propose pragmatic, commercially focused solutions aligned with Mastercard policies and global standards.
• Collaborate with regional and global legal colleagues on cross border initiatives and scalable product legal frameworks.

EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS

• Qualified lawyer with a strong academic background; this role is best suited to candidates with 10+ years of post qualification experience, though candidates outside this range will be considered.
• Strong employment law expertise with associated litigation experience across Asia Pacific; prior corporate in house experience and regional or global exposure are strongly preferred.
• Experience advising on technology enabled products, regulated services, or complex commercial arrangements is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated ability to operate independently on employment matters, exercising sound judgment on when to collaborate or escalate.
• Strong understanding of product driven legal issues, including technology contracting, data protection, platform risk, and regulatory considerations embedded in product design.
• Commercial, solution oriented mindset with the ability to advise at speed in a fast moving, environment.
• Proven ability to analyze issues holistically, think strategically, clearly articulate risk and reward, and enable the business to move forward efficiently and thoughtfully.
• Effective collaborator who can partner across People & Capabilities, Product, and other stakeholders at multiple levels within a highly matrixed global organization.
• Flexible, proactive, and team oriented, with the curiosity and confidence to take on new and unfamiliar subject areas and drive meaningful impact.
• Highly organized, with the ability to manage a significant and varied workload, adapt to change, and execute with excellence in a fast paced environment.
• Excellent legal and business judgment, analytical and problem solving skills, and strong written, verbal, drafting, negotiation, and stakeholder management capabilities.
• Comfortable working in a cross functional, multicultural environment across Asia Pacific, balancing legal risk with business objectives while maintaining high professional standards.

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.