Director, Communications at Mastercard

Job Title

Director, Communications

Senior Communications role where successful candidate will lead internal and external communications for Mastercard across Southern Africa, as part of the Marketing and Communications team for Sub-Saharan Africa.

The jobholder will bring a positive commitment to joining an Africa leadership team focused on rapid success and growth. He or she will have a track record at building competence and confidence in the strategic use of communications within the organization, and will deliver impactful and credible communications to key external stakeholders, as well as the equally important employee base.

Based in Johannesburg, he or she will report to the Marketing and Communications Vice President for Sub-Saharan Africa with a dual report to the Communications Vice President for Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa. The main mandate of EEMEA Comms is to be responsible for building and advancing, as well as defending and protecting, the reputation of Mastercard, its products, enterprise and brand in EEMEA.

This jobholder position will lead on all communications fronts across the Southern Africa cluster, and work closely with the Communications lead for East and West Africa cluster to ensure strong Africa narratives. These fronts are: External and Media Communications, Social and Digital, Internal Communications, CSR and Event Management.

The position will effectively act as lead for the SA Comms in Africa and will, as such, provide strategic counsel to the SA senior management team and market managers, and support strategic business initiatives by ensuring best-in-class communications counsel to business leaders and internal clients. He/she will partner with Marketing on brand building with a sophisticated approach to, and execution of, issues and reputation management with the SA management teams. He/she will have successfully managed and responded to corporate and media issues and crises. He/she will be expected to draw on a robust corporate or agency experience to bring fresh, proactive strategic thinking to the enterprise.

Responsibilities

Lead responsibility to tell the Mastercard Africa/Southern Africa story at a global level, internally and externally:

• Lead Mastercard's communications strategy and media presence across Southern Africa. Work with the EEMEA Comms VP, SSA Marketing and Coms VP, senior management, country mangers and business unit leads to devise and implement successful communications programs at local and pan African levels, allocate resources and direct execution.
• Manage our PR Agencies in Africa including day to day management, development of strategy, overseeing contracts and budgets
• Direct a strategic and interactive employee communications and engagement program in close partnership with EEMEA Internal Comms and SA HR to make sure all SA employees understand and subscribe to the EEMEA business strategy, and their voices are heard at the leadership level
• Utilize all existing Mastercard EEMEA and Global internal communications channels, and devise where appropriate new ones, to make sure the Southern Africa division story is well told within Mastercard.
• Work with Marketing to put in place a solid social media communications platform to ensure optimized share of voice for MasterCard in social networks across Africa and effective 2-way communication therein
• Identifies and secures speaking opportunities that position Mastercard as thought/industry leaders
• Builds working relationships with key stakeholders (e.g., communication departments of banks, consumer unions, merchants, media partners, community leaders and governments )
• Manage relationships, negotiate contracts and facilitate service level agreements for all strategic alliances the business has with communications-related vendors, spokespersons and agencies

Experience Required

• The ideal candidate will have a distinguished track record as a high achieving communications executive with a demonstrated capacity to build and execute communications programs that support business growth within a dynamic and changing corporation.
• Excellent writing skills in English
• A recognized influencer who has successfully advanced a company's growth proposition with special depth in the areas of external and internal communications
• Corporate Affairs experience as it relates to delivering the company's message and implementing events and programs for non media audiences at international, national and local levels.
• Team player who will work well with senior business and functional leaders of Mastercard SA and SSA
• Keen understanding of the Southern Africa scene beyond just media and into culture, economy, socio politics and development agenda
• Educated to degree level, with a minimum of 8 years experience in corporate communications or primarily in company communications, with other experience that may derive from positions with a national or international public association or public relations agency.