Director, Skills Insights

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, Skills Insights
The Director of Skills Insights strengthens Mastercard's enterprise capability by defining, governing, and activating the skills that matter most across global job families. This role applies deep skills intelligence, analytical thinking, and taxonomy governance to ensure Mastercard has a clear, scalable, and future-ready view of workforce capabilities.
Key Accountabilities
Skills Strategy & Future Capability Alignment - Strategic Foresight • Analytical Thinking • Workforce Insight Translation
- Identify emerging, evolving, and declining skills using labor-market insight, workforce analytics, and business strategy.
- Recommend enterprise skill priorities that support agility, internal mobility, and future readiness.
Skills Identification & Proficiency Definition - Facilitation • Critical Thinking • SME Engagement
- Support the skills identification and calibration sessions across job families as part of the Job Architecture refresh.
- Define critical skills and proficiency expectations through partnership with SMEs, leaders, Talent Acquisition, Learning Consultants, and People Business Partners.
Skills Taxonomy Governance - Taxonomy Management • Governance Design • Change Leadership
- Maintain and evolve Mastercard's global skills taxonomy within Workday Skills Cloud.
- Use platforms such as Lightcast, Gloat, Phenom, and assessment tools to identify taxonomy gaps, redundancies, and emerging needs.
- Apply governance standards to ensure clarity, consistency, and high adoption.
Skills Intelligence & Insights Reporting - Data Literacy • Insight Generation • Storytelling with Data
- Produce quarterly skills insights on emerging, declining, and high-scarcity skills.
- Translate data into executive-ready narratives that guide hiring, learning investment, and workforce planning.
Enterprise Collaboration & Advisory - Influencing • Relationship Building • Executive Communication
- Advise leaders across HR, Technology, Product, Operations, and regional teams on capability needs and skills strategy.
- Support stakeholders in using skills insights to inform job design, learning, mobility, and talent decisions.
External Benchmarking & Best Practice Integration - Innovation Scanning • Market Research • Comparative Analysis
- Benchmark skills taxonomy practices against leading organizations and global trends.
- Introduce new methods, tools, and insights to elevate Mastercard's skills strategy.
Capabilities Required for Success
Technical / Functional Skills
- Skills taxonomy design, governance, and lifecycle management
- Workday Skills Cloud configuration and optimization
- Skills intelligence and labor-market analytics (Lightcast, Gloat, Phenom, etc.)
- Skills identification and facilitation (workshops, SME calibration, mapping)
- Skills assessment literacy
- Data analysis, insight synthesis, and narrative creation
Leadership & Collaboration Skills
- Strategic thinking with a future-skills orientation
- Executive-level storytelling and influence
- Stakeholder alignment in a global matrix environment
- Systems thinking across talent, learning, hiring, and workforce strategy
- Change leadership and curiosity-driven learning
Experience Indicators
- Experience managing global skills taxonomies, preferably in Workday Skills Cloud
- Prior work in skills strategy, job architecture, workforce planning, or capability modeling
- Experience with skills intelligence platforms (i.e. Lightcast, Gloat, TechWolf, Workera, etc.)
- Proven ability to convert data into insights that influence business decisions
- Experience facilitating SME workshops and large-scale skills identification
What Success Looks Like
- Clear, validated, future-ready skills profiles across all job families
- A well-governed enterprise taxonomy adopted across regions and functions
- Quarterly skills insights that shape hiring, learning, and talent strategy
- Strong enterprise alignment to a shared skills framework
= Mastercard increases workforce capability, agility, and future readiness through skills intelligence
Mastercard is a merit-based, inclusive, equal opportunity employer that considers applicants without regard to gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disabled or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We hire the most qualified candidate for the role. In the US or Canada, if you require accommodations or assistance to complete the online application process or during the recruitment process, please contact [email protected] and identify the type of accommodation or assistance you are requesting. Do not include any medical or health information in this email. The Reasonable Accommodations team will respond to your email promptly.
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.

In line with Mastercard's total compensation philosophy and assuming that the job will be performed in the US, the successful candidate will be offered a competitive base salary and may be eligible for an annual bonus or commissions depending on the role. The base salary offered may vary depending on multiple factors, including but not limited to location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Mastercard benefits for full time (and certain part time) employees generally include: 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; and many more. Mastercard benefits for interns generally include: 56 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time; jury duty leave; and on-site fitness facilities in some locations.
Pay Ranges
Purchase, New York: $168,000 - $269,000 USD