Why I left Mastercard

The good, the bad and the ugly of working at a large company

Hey friends 👋🏻

How have you been?

It’s been 3 straight weeks since I last reached out.

I hope this doesn’t sound like an excuse, but a lot has happened. So, I wanted to share that with you.

I left Mastercard about 2 months ago after 2 incredible years working with some of the smartest people in the professional world.

In this post, you’ll hear about my experience working at Mastercard, but more importantly, you’ll hear about why I left and what I’m doing now.

---

---

First of all, a short background…

I joined Mastercard on the 3rd of April 2023 as a Manager.

I was responsible for Digital Products. This includes Apple Pay, Google Pay, Tokenization, Contactless Payments, Wearable Payments, Mastercard Digital Enablement Services(MDES), MDES for Merchants (M4M), Digital First Program, and some merchant checkout solutions like Click 2 Pay and Secure Card on File.

Geographically, I covered the English-speaking West African countries, i.e., Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and The Gambia.

I have always been in the financial services industry. Before joining Mastercard, I worked at two banks and two fintechs.

But my responsibilities at Mastercard exposed me to the latest developments in payment tech.

If you’re considering working at a large international organization, let’s talk about the best and the worst through the lens of my personal experience.

Let’s start with the good part.

Photo by naipo.de on Unsplash

The best things about working at Mastercard

In no particular order, these are the best things I enjoyed working at Mastercard.

• The Real Galácticos

Imagine playing for the Real Madrid’s Galácticos squad that included David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, Iker Casillas, Raul Gonzalez and co.

That’s how I felt working at Mastercard.

Imagine collaborating with colleagues from every corner of the globe, each bringing a unique cultural perspective and professional background. I had a similar experience working at FairMoney, but this was on another scale!

In my engagements with people who worked for the likes of Microsoft, Google, Network International, and the likes, this is one of the most commonly mentioned benefits.

There is something about playing alongside other stars. You up your game naturally!

• Comprehensive Benefits

I joined Mastercard on the back of two back-to-back fintechs.

This was at a time when the global VC funds’ free flow was drying up. If you work at a fintech and are fairly senior, you’d constantly be talking about “runway” or the next round of raise, balancing employees’ benefits/perks with company survival, etc.

All those disappeared overnight.

Large international companies like Mastercard, Visa, and Microsoft are not always the highest paying in terms of net salary, but their perks and other compensations are usually very comprehensive. The health insurance package at Mastercard and leave policies are the best.

For example, I was super shocked to learn that I was entitled to 4 months of paternity leave spread over 12 months.

My first reaction as a Nigerian, bruised by Nigerian HRs was “haa! no be me carry the pregnancy o” 😂

The HR Director was like, “We want you to have time to support your wife and bond with your new baby. That applies to adoption, too.”

They even sent a gift to the baby from the head office in New York!

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

• Unparalleled Scale and Impact

There's an undeniable thrill in contributing to products and services that touch millions/billions of lives daily. At a company like Mastercard with presence in over 210 countries, your work, no matter how specialized, is part of a global financial ecosystem.

This scale translates into significant impact, offering a sense of purpose that smaller organizations often can't replicate.

You're not just building a product; you're shaping how individuals and businesses pay and get paid.

• Robust Learning and Development Opportunities

Large organizations are often synonymous with extensive resources dedicated to employee growth.

I had many structured training programs and certifications on different subjects through a joint partnership between Mastercard and top global universities.

3 of the top things I learned at Mastercard are:

1. Communications

2. Managing Up

3. Strategy

These are topics for another day.

Enough of the good part…

---

---

The worst things about working at Mastercard (or any large organization, really)

• Limited Individual Impact (Perceived):

While your work contributes to a massive whole (Mastercard made US$28.2 billion in 2024), it can sometimes feel like a tiny cog in a very large machine.

It can be challenging to see the direct and immediate impact of your contributions, especially in highly specialized roles.

This can lead to a sense of detachment or a feeling that your efforts aren't as significant as they might be in a smaller, more nimble organization.

When I was building products at my previous (smaller) companies, it was easier to see the direct impacts my job had on people and businesses on a much more personal level.

• Feeling Lost

Mastercard has over 35,000 direct employees.

It’s easy to feel lost being one of that multitude, especially in the early days.

If you’re considering working for a large international organization, you need to make peace with being one of the people.

The day you join, you’ll stop being “special.”

You’ll just be a staff ID.

This is already a very long post, so let me stop here for now.

Why I left Mastercard

First of all, there’s no perfect company.

Second, if you find a perfect company, don’t join them. You’ll corrupt the system.

My point? I left not because Mastercard is bad. I left for personal reasons, which I will share with you now.

• I was tired of being an Individual Contributor

After years of leading a team in previous employments, I decided to join Mastercard as an Individual Contributor (IC).

At the beginning, it was fun. I had no direct responsibilities for anybody. All I needed to do was get my job done, and that’s it. I didn’t have to deal with people’s moods and intra-team conflicts.

But as time went on, I realised I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would.

As I continued to think about my future career plans/goals, it was clear that it involved things around leading/managing/supporting people. And like many people at Mastercard, I was an individual contributor with little to no chance of leading a team, even if I continue to get promoted.

Seeing so many senior people either as an IC or managing 1 or 2 persons wasn’t exactly exciting to me.

I understand that some people prefer IC roles, but it wasn’t for me.

• Market Nuances

To people outside, Africa is a country.

To those of us inside, Africa is much more than a continent. It’s a super fragmented market.

The richest African country by GDP at Purchasing Power Parity (International Dollars) is Egypt at 10,826, while the poorest is São Tomé and Príncipe at 1.06 (at a ratio of over 10,000). That’s two worlds apart. Compare that to Europe with Luxembourg at 152,915 and the poorest being Moldova at 19,678 (a ratio of 7.7).

Even within the same African country, the gap between the haves and the have-nots is crazy.

What does this mean?

Many international organizations expect the rate of adoption of emerging payment technologies to be similar to what they have in the US and Europe. It’s worse when they quote stats on how Africa is made of young people.

Young, but with little to no disposable income.

With each country, you’ll have to deal with their unique local regulations/mandates, unlike Europe.

Take Apple Pay as an example. The vast majority of people already use an iPhone. So, adopting Apple Pay was easy.

In Africa, Android reigns supreme. Brands like Infinix, Tecno, Itex, Xiaomi, and Samsung outnumber iPhones 9 to 1.

On top of that, Nigeria has one of the largest instant payment processing networks in the world.

Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS)’s Instant Payment (NIP) system ranks among the top real-time payment systems globally in terms of transaction volume. In 2024, NIP processed approximately 10.47 billion transactions. This positions Nigeria as a significant player in the global real-time payments landscape.

Ghana has a similar system called “GhiPPS” (Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems Limited)

This means that consumers and businesses expect instant value as against T+1 common with payment solutions coming from outside Africa.

Even if Google Pay launches in these markets (for Android users), it’s going to face an uphill battle for adoption against instant payments. Coupled with the fact that these markets are low-trust markets, contactless payment adoption has been very slow.

To help you understand it better, the Central Bank of Nigeria only released a governing policy on contactless payment as recently as 2023.

Circular is one thing. Adoption is another.

I was pushing a large rock uphill.

I believe 100% that Africa will adopt these emerging payment technologies, but expectations need to be aligned with market realities.

What’s next for me?

Well, I joined the amazing team at Sterling to lead the Card Business for the bank.

If you’re on LinkedIn, say hi, Nnamdi Azodo 👋🏻

Got a partnership idea? Reach out!