My Mastercard Journey (Part 1): Navigating a new industry
So it’s been a week since I’ve left Mastercard and one day to go before I start in my new role at Checkout.com. The entire experience has been stewing in my mind since December when I first accepted the offer from Checkout.com. I had attempted to write this in my head several times but had failed miserably. After struggling with a couple of iterations, I think there are two main objectives I hope to achieve with this multi-part series:
1) It can’t be too prescriptive
2) It should (hopefully) be useful to anyone reading it; perhaps useful in the sense that you might know me better or be able to navigate your early years as an analyst better
The first iteration of the article came in the form of a listicle which I eventually abandoned. As I was writing the article, I realized that it’s too difficult to generalize best practices because circumstances vary for every individual. I settled for a sharing of my 2.5 years at Mastercard but trying to cram so much information in one article is too much for both the reader and writer. I eventually settled for a multi-part article which will cover what my journey in Mastercard entailed, how I approached joining a new industry and some of my thought processes for some of the key decisions I made during my time at Mastercard. Again, take what you find useful from my sharing and adapt it to suit your style. Never take anything wholesale without applying it to suit the context.
Background
For those who know me, I spent about 2 years in Credit Suisse where I rotated across several departments. As I hit my second year and was placed permanently in the front office, it became apparent to me that private banking isn’t what I saw myself doing for the long term so I decided to look for other opportunities. There are a couple of things that I feel are salient when you’re deciding to change jobs for the first time:
1) You can experiment with your first 1-2 years fresh out of college but have a good idea of what you would want to do. In other words, you shouldn’t have like 5-6 other choices you want to entertain if this job didn’t work out. My alternative career route was to do something more strategy related because fundamentally, the things I enjoyed doing usually involved solving some form of a puzzle. If you have 5-6 choices, then you need to start observing yourself so you can figure out what are some fundamental skills you enjoy applying, then see which career paths enable you to do that. Usually a good question to get started with is: “What have I done all my life?” or “What do I spend most of my time doing?”. Figure out what you like about those things on a fundamental level and explore your career options from there.
2) If you have no expertise, no matter how good you think you are, you don’t have that much leverage in the hiring process. You are replaceable because the hiring manager would have to invest in you to allow you to generate value. In short, you have leverage if you’re hired for a skill set and you have less leverage if you want to be hired to obtain a skill set. I didn’t negotiate my package when Mastercard gave me an offer, because I’m not going to jeopardize my shot at learning about payments for a short term financial gain (understandably, some people may disagree with this). However, I feel that if you think you can really bring value to the team, you’ll be recognized quickly enough. In one of the later parts, we’ll talk abit more about absolute value and relative value but more importantly, how to assess your own value without your ego getting in the way.
3) Just because you’re changing industries doesn’t mean that you’ve wasted your time. After having worked 2 years, I felt like I developed a better sense of empathy and people skills due to the various rotations I had to do in Credit Suisse. I also understood what I wanted in the long term, which could be more valuable than simply obtaining skills that don’t fit into your long term goal. If you’ve been working consciously (i.e not just going in to do your job), you’ll realize start to notice different things in the work environment (such as dynamics between individuals, navigating bureaucracy effectively etc). These are often what people lump under the vague term “soft skills”.
Let the Mastercard Journey Begin
When you first join a new company and have 0 knowledge about the industry, my advice is to try to do two things: observe your manager and devour knowledge voraciously. The fact is, your utility is near 0 because you need time to develop before you can add value. Observing and listening is really important regardless of your rank and title. There are two incidences that really shaped my thinking about this:
1) I was interviewing some students for the USP program in NUS with a professor recently and one of the questions he asked the candidate was: “What would you first do if you want to solve X (X being some abstract problem we were discussing)?” The student replied: “Identify the causes and solution accordingly.” Some of us may find that response completely reasonable, but for those who have read too many management consulting books, the first step should be to scope, define and understand the problem. When our instinctive response is to identify the causes, we assume we understand the problem. Similarly, if you start responding actively in an entirely new environment, you are imposing your set of norms and assumptions to a space you have no knowledge about. Hang back, observe, learn and think. In time, I guarantee you if you’re really listening, you’ll understand how to add value.
2) When I was in JC (more than a decade ago), there was a game we played during Council camp that shaped my view of what it means to think strategically. We played a game where there was a map of grids and you had to get to the end to win. You could make a move every turn and you had limited resources. Additionally, we were given the option of using our turn 1 to strategize (whatever that meant) or to immediately make a move. Perhaps due to our age and eagerness to ‘get ahead’, we decided to move one square immediately. Halfway through the game, we ran out of resources but other teams still seemed fine. It was only after the fact that we realized, if you chose to ‘strategize’ on turn 1, you get a card that grants you a significant advantage. The advantages differ, but it was almost a necessity if you wanted to get to the end goal. In our eagerness to gain a quick win, we forfeit any chance of winning. The same with your new role. Think it through first, observe and then make your moves. That one turn could very well cost you the game.
One of the reasons why I accepted Mastercard’s offer was because I was going to be rotating within Market Development as well. Yes, I love rotations, because they often teach you much more if you’re new to the industry. Everyone has their own set of expertise and a different vein of knowledge to tap on. If you know that your purpose in joining a company is to learn, then you should ensure that the position you’re accepting optimizes that learning process. Look for opportunities to learn, even if the tasks you are given sound unglamorous. I’ve learnt through experience that the unglamorous things teach you the most and differentiate you from others. In the next article, we’ll talk more about active learning, how I applied active learning in my first rotation (the merchant team) and how I thought through the decision to jump to acceptance despite having a great manager.
Happy to get feedback on the article - tell me what you want to hear about more, ask me if you have any questions etc. Mentoring, teaching, writing are things I enjoy fundamentally so I’m always happy to get feedback and make these articles more engaging.
P.S: The image uploaded was from one of our volunteering trips in Cambodia. Unfortunately there just aren’t many pictures of me in Mastercard…