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Leaders In Payments
Leaders In Payments
Women Leaders in Payments: Bunita Sawhney, EVP of Consumer Products & Processing at Mastercard | Episode 345
How does one rise to become a powerful voice in the payments industry? Join us for an exclusive conversation with Bunita Sawhney, Executive Vice President of Consumer Products and Processing at Mastercard, who shares her remarkable journey from Newport Beach to New York. We'll uncover the deeply supportive family environment that nurtured her, her academic pursuits at Cal Berkeley and Columbia, and her dynamic career spanning retail banking and product innovation. Bunita's insights into her role at Mastercard and her passion for promoting gender diversity through the Women's Leadership Network provide a compelling narrative for anyone interested in leadership and empowerment.
Explore the complex challenges female leaders face today, including underrepresentation and gender pay gaps, and how Mastercard is making strides to overcome these barriers. Bunita offers a candid look at her own career challenges and the importance of mentorship programs. She also discusses the mission of the 30% Club and offers invaluable advice for young women eyeing a future in the payments industry. This episode is a treasure trove of inspiration and practical tips, showcasing Bunita's dedication to fostering an inclusive and equitable corporate landscape. Tune in to discover her guiding principles for success and her unwavering commitment to empowering women in the business world.
Thank you for joining us during this special series running throughout the month of July, focused exclusively on women leaders and payments. We've got great content this month, focused on mentorship, career advice, getting out of your comfort zone, having your voice heard and much, much more. A special thanks to our contributing sponsors, stacks Payments, nuve and MAP Advisors, and to our episode sponsors, nmi, dailypay, g&d and Ingenico. Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast. I'm your host, greg Myers, and today's special guest is Benita Salni, the Executive Vice President of Consumer Products and Processing at MasterCard, and she's also a member of the company's Management Committee. Benita, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show and, more specifically, thank you so much for participating during Women Leaders in Payments Month.
Bunita Sawhney:Oh, greg, thank you so much for having me, and what a pleasure, and I'm particularly proud, to be joining you for this month.
Greg Myers:Great, great. Well, if you don't mind, tell our audience a little bit about yourself, maybe where you grew up, where you went to school, where you currently live, a few things like that.
Bunita Sawhney:Sure, you got it. I am a California native, born and raised, grew up in Southern California in a town called Newport Beach. I did my undergrad at Cal Berkeley, so I'm a Berkeley Bear and then I moved to the East Coast after working for Los Fargo for a number of years to do my master's at Columbia, and I now live here in New York, almost 20 plus years later, in Westchester, with my family my husband just breathe and our two kids, amara and Ajay.
Greg Myers:Awesome, awesome. Well, tell us about your role at MasterCard.
Bunita Sawhney:So at MasterCard, I'm responsible for our consumer products and processing business, so that includes everything from our core products. That includes credit debit prepaid. Also, that includes buy now, pay later and installments, and I'm very proud to say that we also include within there our ESG solution, so that, which we do from a sustainability perspective and from a financial inclusion perspective, I have the very proud responsibility of being the executive sponsor for our Women's Leadership Network, which is one of our largest BRGs in the company, looking after the care and comfort of inclusion for everyone, but with an emphasis on supporting our women here at MasterCard.
Greg Myers:Great, great. I know we're going to dive into more details on that in a minute, but before we get into the meat of the conversation, I'd like to do this little icebreaker exercise where I'm going to ask you a few sort of this or that questions, so something like do you prefer early morning or late night? You give me the quick answer and we will run through these 10 questions really quickly. Are you ready? I'm ready, okay, do you prefer summer or winter, summer Cats or dogs, dogs, apple or Android, apple, coffee or tea.
Bunita Sawhney:Ooh, I love both. Okay, if I had to choose, I'd go with coffee.
Greg Myers:Okay, books or movies. Books Beach or mountains, beach Chocolate or vanilla Chocolate. Texting or calling Texting the city or the country.
Bunita Sawhney:Ooh the city.
Greg Myers:Okay, and finally, my favorite pizza, or pasta Pizza. All right, thank you so much for doing that. I really appreciate it. All right? Well, let's rewind a little bit and start talking about you. So what was your life like growing up?
Bunita Sawhney:So, as I already mentioned, I grew up in Southern California with my family who immigrated here from India. My mom and my dad came here when they were teenagers and didn't know each other later in life. But life for me as a child was one part of being an enormous, wonderful, loving family cousins galore as well as also being part of my mom's small business and when you have a small business in your family, everybody plays a role. So I had the opportunity to really grow up in the support of this big, giant family.
Greg Myers:but also with the learning of being part of a Hallmark store before I went off to college.
Bunita Sawhney:A Hallmark store, I don't think they have those anymore, do they, I know, but they do. But it's changed a lot.
Greg Myers:Okay, great. So when you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Bunita Sawhney:Oh, I mean, I think I went through a number of phases, anywhere from wanting to be a singer and have a musical career to wanting to be a business owner and supporting my mom in her career, and eventually, you know, my parents tried really hard to convince me to be a doctor or a lawyer. My sister, my brother took those roles and I found myself in a corporate life.
Greg Myers:Okay, great. So let's talk about your career journey a little bit. What did that look like and how did it lead you to getting to MasterCard?
Bunita Sawhney:Sure. Well, I had the good fortune when I was in college at Cal to actually participate in an advertising competition that led me to an internship at Wells Fargo Bank, and so I actually started my formal career, so to speak, in retail banking in the credit card division at Wells, and then I worked there for a number of years, moved to New York, as I mentioned, to do my master's and spent again another kind of clip of my journey at a number of retail institutions. I worked at JP Morgan Chase, I worked at Citibank, I spent 12 years at HSBC across a number of different capacities, starting my career in marketing and eventually pivoting to product and innovation roles. And then, about eight and a half years ago, I had the good fortune and opportunity to join MasterCard in their global products organization. And here I am now, having done a number of roles here, both in global as well as in our market teams, in our regional groups, and now back leading consumer products for the company world.
Greg Myers:Great, great. Well, that brings us to today. So obviously you've been successful throughout your career. What are some of your guiding principles?
Bunita Sawhney:Yeah, look, I think my guiding principles are remembering one from a first, from a career and a relationship perspective. It's not a race, it's most certainly a marathon. It's long and it's enduring. And therefore, really understanding who you are, what kind of impact you want to make, how you connect with others and operating with the spirit of integrity and trust is what will carry you through and really help you build trusted relationships with your peers, with your colleagues, with your team, with your customers and ultimately, of course and most importantly, with your family, who supports you along the journey. So, for me, I think the two most critical pillars and principles are around integrity and trust. I think one add-on I would say is just ensuring that we create all of us an inclusive environment that fosters an environment that allows everybody to participate, because I feel like that diversity drives more innovation, better decision making and, ultimately, a heck of a lot more fun.
Greg Myers:Okay, great, well, thanks for sharing that. So what do you feel are some of the biggest challenges that female leaders face?
Bunita Sawhney:Yeah Well, you know, as I learn every day from being a member of our Women's Leadership Network, I do have the benefit and the opportunity to really think about what matters to the women here at MasterCard and how we operate with women all around the world, and there are a few things that stand out to me. Generally speaking, women are still underrepresented in many leadership roles, not just here at MasterCard, but everywhere, and that has a specific challenge associated with it. Don't see women in leadership roles. It might be hard to find mentors or role models. It can also impact visibility and influence within an organization. So it's something we, for sure, are focused on, in terms of both representation and making sure that we continue to help our women reach leadership positions.
Bunita Sawhney:Two, I would say gender pay gaps continue to be a significant issue again all around the world.
Bunita Sawhney:Ensuring equitable pay is critical, not just from an equity perspective or a fairness perspective, but also for retaining and motivating our top talent and making sure that we support men and women through their journeys by ensuring equitable pay. Ensuring equitable pay I can speak for MasterCard because, of course, I know our data the best, but in 2023, I am proud to say that MasterCard continued to earn a dollar. Women continue to earn a dollar for every dollar that men earn. So we have that parity. But from a median pay perspective, the women are at 96.4%, which is an improvement almost 2% improvement year over year but there's still a bit of a gap. So we have work to do. We continue to have work to do. And last kind of clarifying point there is it's not that gap is not because women are making less money than men per se, but it's really because we need to ensure that women are equally represented in those leadership roles where there's obviously different pay levels, and that will help us close that pay gap in particular.
Greg Myers:Okay, awesome. Well, let's talk about stepping out of your comfort zone. Can you share an experience where you had to step out of your comfort zone to achieve growth, and then what impact did you feel like that had on your professional development?
Bunita Sawhney:Yeah, I mean I think now stepping out of my comfort zone feels like a norm.
Bunita Sawhney:But certainly earlier in my career I sort of started my journey, as I mentioned, in marketing and for the first 10 years of my career all of my roles were sort of in that one function, in a bit of what you'd argue a very important but specialized function.
Bunita Sawhney:And so for me that moment, that big moment, was when I had a really great business leader and sponsor encourage me to think about trying something different outside of my comfort zone and getting into a different discipline entirely. And that began then for me a journey into product management, into development, into understanding pricing and analytics, eventually getting into leading a sales force, and it put me down a path of general management. But had I not had that pivotal moment and that opportunity, with both centered around a caring leader and having a really good conversation with feedback, I might have taken a very, very different path and as a result, as I said, I now find myself taking a little bit more risk, finding a little bit more discomfort, but really enjoying that as opposed to fearing that or shying away from it, which has been a gift.
Greg Myers:Yeah, I think people early in their career see it as a challenge right. Getting out of your comfort zone, going from marketing to product or whatever it may be, is a big challenge. And I think as you get further along in your career you almost want those things right Because you know you're going to, professionally and personally, grow from them. So I think it has a lot to do with where you are in your career.
Bunita Sawhney:That's exactly right. And you're right that confidence, that comfort comes in part with the learning. It comes in part with experience and maturity. But you're also right Having the gift of that relatively early in my journey also probably created an accelerated path and some momentum for me as well.
Greg Myers:Right, right. Well, you mentioned earlier in your intro about being the global executive sponsor of the Women's Leadership Network at MasterCard, so can you tell us what the network does?
Bunita Sawhney:I can. So our Women's Leadership Network at MasterCard is one of our BRGs or employee groups that I know organizations refer to them by acronym a little bit differently, but it is dedicated to empowering women within the organization, fostering an inclusive environment and promoting gender equality. Our vision is to create a workplace where women can thrive, advance and lead with confidence, and I'm really proud to say we do that hand in hand with the allyship of everyone in the company. Right, it's not just women for women, it's everyone supporting one another for our women's growth and development.
Greg Myers:Okay, and there are a lot of companies out there that are interested in starting organizations like the Women's Leadership Network, so can you provide a little advice that you would give to companies that want to start that kind of organization?
Bunita Sawhney:Yeah, sure.
Bunita Sawhney:Well, first of all, I would certainly encourage companies to do so, if they haven't already Starting an organization like our Women's Leadership Network, it's a significant step forward towards fostering diversity, equity and inclusion within a company.
Bunita Sawhney:For us, what we learned from our process is one we set the organization up by establishing clear and measurable objectives.
Bunita Sawhney:What do we want to achieve, how are we going to go about it and how do we then put the initiatives through the volunteering, right Through the community that is self-identified and joining in making this opportunity for prosperity and growth happen? We ensure that the network's vision and mission align with MasterCard's vision overall, so I would suggest any company thinking about it is really authentically connect the dots between the employee group as well as company's mission and vision, because having participation and sponsorship and support all the way from the top is really, really important. I'm so proud at MasterCard to have the support of our CEO, michael Meeback. He's one of our greatest supporters and cheerleaders for the organization. Michael Meeback, he's one of our greatest supporters and cheerleaders for the organization, but that's represented across our ELT, our management committee, and so having really that leadership involved all the way through so that every rung of the organization has the opportunity to participate and that representation is seen at all levels is what has helped the organization really thrive.
Greg Myers:Okay, and you said something there that I want to double click on. If it's okay and it's about results, how do you know this is successful?
Bunita Sawhney:Yeah, so we do ensure that each year we set ourselves objectives as an employee relationship group, as our BRG, and we measure those results and we also take an annual survey.
Bunita Sawhney:For example and I'll just use that one example Every year the full membership receives a qualitative survey and a quantitative survey, an opportunity to give us feedback to make sure that the content, initiatives, the programs that the BRG are creating are meeting the community's needs. We measure things as, for example, how many employees did we reach, how many events were held, how much career support? And this year, if I take MasterCard's BRG's focus, we're thinking about how do we help our women develop across their career ambitions but also support them as it relates to making sure they find balance in life and making sure that we think about the intersectionality of those concepts, and so each of the initiatives that we put forward to support those two things have a measurement associated with them. We look at that report regularly, we meet together as a steering committee. If anything is off track, we pivot and we adjust and we learn, and as it's on track, we continue to support it and accelerate.
Greg Myers:Great, great Well. Thanks for sharing all that. It's an exciting initiative and I'm sure you're proud to be the leader of it. Well, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about mentorship. It's one of my favorite topics and this is sort of a two-part question. One did you have any mentors that influenced your career? And second part how important do you think mentorship is for emerging leaders?
Bunita Sawhney:Yeah, I feel very fortunate that I most certainly have been the beneficiary of both mentorship and sponsorship, and maybe even earlier in my career I didn't even know that it was mentorship that was occurring right.
Bunita Sawhney:And maybe later in my career I realized that mentorship can take many flavors and forms, whether that's peer mentorship or whether that's formal mentorship with someone outside of my business line or outside of the company. And for sure I found the benefit of making sure that I had someone, or in some cases, many people, who, for me, could offer me their insights based on their lived experiences, based on their career journey, and then be able to reflect that back and hearing me and really listening to what I'm thinking about or what I might be struggling with or how I might be looking for advice to progress and really having a great conversation for us to construct ways forward or empower me with tools that I might not have otherwise considered without those vantage points. So I certainly recommend for people throughout their journey, right At your early start, as you're in the middle of your journey, and beyond, to find peers and leaders in your organization, outside your organization, who can be that sounding board for you and help you think through your opportunities and your challenges.
Greg Myers:Okay, and you mentioned something there mentorship and sponsorship. Do you see those as similar, same or two different things?
Bunita Sawhney:I think there's correlations, but I do think they are two different things. Right, sponsorship, unlike mentorship. Right, where mentorship is a relationship where your mentor is hopefully taking the time to get to know you, to get to understand you and also, therefore, to be an ongoing sounding board and person who can provide you with feedback and counsel as you think specifically about your journey. You know, sponsorship can be someone who you might have more limited interaction with, but eventually is someone who can be an advocate for you in the rooms that you're not even in. Oftentimes, people's careers or decisions about their next steps are being made and they're not even in the room, and so it can be very, very helpful to have someone whose radar you're on, who has an understanding of your talent and your potential, who has an understanding of your contribution as well as your ambition, but also can really champion for you in rooms, like I said, that you may not be in or circles that you may not be a part of. So I do think there's a difference, even though there's a correlation.
Greg Myers:Yeah, okay, yeah, okay. One final question on mentorship and this has come up over the course of this month and having these conversations is when you're early in your career and kind of emerging. You know, I think some people tend to gravitate towards oh it has to be this formal program that I'm part of and it's got to be structured, with an agenda and all this, and then there, you know, the other path is kind of like it doesn't have to be part of a formal program, right, your mentor could be your boss, it could be someone outside the company, it could be someone outside the industry. So sort of any thoughts on kind of that kind of structured versus non-structured mentorship.
Bunita Sawhney:Yeah, you know it's such a great question, greg, and you're right, when I was sharing my own experience about mentorship only maybe in hindsight did I realize that I had the benefit of mentors who were in different shapes, and what I meant by that exactly was in some cases certainly there may have been a more formal opportunity, but in many cases it was informal and it was a relationship that grew and it could have been started very, very organically.
Bunita Sawhney:So I think there can be benefits, of course, to a more inorganic program, particularly, for example, if you're new to an organization and you're trying to blend in and you're trying to figure out the ways and how it's working, and having a formal mentor who might be able to help you be a Sherpa in the organization, for example, can be very helpful. And so companies who put formal programs together can help us do that the other times. I think formal mentorship programs can be very helpful is helping kind of connect skip level individuals, someone at a very senior rank with more earlier stage career person who may not organically interact with one another, and yet I definitely think that we have the opportunity and should avail of the opportunity to have mentorship in your people manager from time to time, or you know your peers and your colleagues who interact with you regularly and still can be sage. You know sounding boards and people that can give you great advice.
Greg Myers:Right, great. So can you talk about the 30% Club? How are you involved in that?
Bunita Sawhney:Yeah, so I'm sure you're familiar with the 30% Club. They're a pretty well-established organization at this point. But the 30% Club, just for those who aren't familiar, aims to increase gender diversity at senior management levels and on corporate boards. It's an organization that MasterCard partners with and I'm certainly very proud to be affiliated with because it actively supports the mission of gender diversity and advocating for gender equality. So I use my partnership and my opportunity to be part of this organization specifically in being a mentor to people who are looking for mentorships through the 30% Club. But I am a very big fan of the work that they're doing and I particularly like that they're doing work where we have the opportunity to connect people across organizations and across geographies all over the world.
Greg Myers:Okay, great. So let's play out this scenario. Young woman's graduating from college. She's interested in going into the payments industry. She looks at kind of the growth of it, the innovation, the technology, and she's thinking, hey, I want to build a career in this space. She comes to you and says, Benita, what advice would you give me to be successful in this industry? What would you tell her?
Bunita Sawhney:Yeah, I would say a few things, you know. First, I would say congratulations on making that choice, because what a wonderful career and what a wonderful industry to be a part of. And I would also say there's a number of helpful ways whether you're not yet in the organization that you're hoping to be joining, or whether you're within the organization and you're trying to grow your career to one, establish a network, a network of people who can help offer their guidance, be a support to you and help you through your journey. A couple of organizations one we just talked about, which is the 30% Club it's a good example but also, I would say, women in Payments is an organization that we partner with closely who helps us with exactly that connecting people who want to have careers in payments. So I think there's a number of ways to do that, but I would start by establishing a network of people who can help you on your journey.
Bunita Sawhney:The other thing I would say is think about your personal learning plan. How are you going to really be a sponge? Learn what you need to learn and be able to determine for yourself the type of role or roles that you going to really be a sponge. Learn what you need to learn and be able to determine for yourself the type of role or roles that you want to play, whether that's product management, whether that's operations, whether that's sales, whether that's marketing or whether that's general management, and therefore a combination of all of those things. But then kind of think about the building blocks of your learning journey that you want to pursue.
Bunita Sawhney:And what I say to everyone, no matter which industry they want to be in, if it's payments or otherwise, is make sure you start by having a fundamental understanding of what your stakeholders' motivations are. If it's within your organization, what motivates the company? What are the profitability layers? How does the company make money? For example, if it's with your peers, what are their objectives? How can you learn what they do and support what they do? And if it's your customers, what are their motivation layers, so that you can add value through your role and beyond your role? So, to me, making sure that you really understand what makes the payments industry tick, from the vantage point of the role that you're playing, will help set you up for success.
Greg Myers:Great, great. I think that's amazing advice and thank you so much for sharing it. Well, let's wrap up with one final question who or what inspires you to keep pushing forward in your career?
Bunita Sawhney:Oh, my goodness, I take inspiration from many sources.
Bunita Sawhney:I'm also a textbook extrovert, if you can't tell, but I'd start by saying empowering women and being inspired by the women around us is definitely one very clear North Star for me, and being able to contribute to initiatives and support initiatives that help us from an equity, equality and inclusion perspective is one clear source of inspiration for me.
Bunita Sawhney:Beyond that, though, I would say, as we think about payments and the role that we're playing here at MasterCard, or beyond MasterCard, for the partners that we work with, what we're doing touches every consumer in their everyday life, and we have a real opportunity, as a force for good, to help include people in a critical infrastructure, right A payments infrastructure that helps empower people and empower economies, right. So for me, that's another incredibly inspiring source from a career perspective. And last but absolutely not least in fact, I should have probably started with it is my family, ever supportive, ever enduring. But I couldn't do what I do without the cheerleading group that is my wonderful husband and my two credible children, my daughter Amara and my son Ajay, who just being able to see the world through their eyes is incredibly motivating to come in every day and want to make this world a better place for them. So those are the three things awesome.
Greg Myers:That's great inspiration all around. So, benita, thank you so much for being on the show today. I know your time is incredibly valuable, so I really appreciate you being here.
Bunita Sawhney:Oh, it's such a pleasure, greg thank you for having me and what a great conversation, thank you, thank you, thank you and to all your pleasure. Greg, thank you for having me and what a great conversation. Thank you so much.
Greg Myers:Thank you. Thank you, and to all your listeners out there. I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story, a special thanks to our sponsors for helping make this month possible, especially our contributing sponsors, stacks Payments, nuve and Map Advisors, and to our episode sponsors NMI, daily Pay, g&d and Ingenico. To learn more, visit wwwleadersinpaymentscom.