Career Advice: Fireside Chat with Anissa Chen (Kellogg MMM ‘20)
This week, we spoke to Anissa Chen, Kellogg MMM 2020, who worked as a product manager at MasterCard Labs before Kellogg.
About MasterCard Labs: MasterCard Labs, a new global Research & Development arm dedicated to bringing innovative payment solutions to market with greater speed.
Anissa Chen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anissachen/
What was your role at MasterCard Labs?
I was a Product Development Manager in MasterCard Labs, the corporate innovation arm within MasterCard focused on the future of payments. Labs worked on forward-looking technology initiatives such as blockchain, IoT, wearables, e-commerce, etc. A lot of untested territories.
Whenever I attended trade shows such as Money 20/20 and CES to showcase our different technologies, the number one question I fielded was: “Why is MasterCard, a credit card company doing this?” My response? Technology is evolving everything, including how people pay. It makes perfect sense for a payments leader to be at the forefront that evolution. Many people don’t realize that MasterCard works behind the scenes supporting Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay. (Pro tip: MasterCard is actually a payments company and does not issue credit cards!)
What were your activities at this role?
Day-to-day I worked with my team of 30+ engineers, spread across Ireland and Singapore, to bring new concepts to life. That includes managing roadmaps, defining features, removing blockers, and deciding how to move forward. At the same time, I worked closely with marketing and sales leads to test new ideas in various market. Often we bundled our solutions as a value-add for strategic clients vs. stand-alone offerings. For example, Santander has a long-term commitment to higher-ed education with over 1,200 university partnerships worldwide. One of my most recent projects was working closely with Santander to digitize on-campus payments through pilots in Mexico and Spain.
What do you think are the main skills needed for that role?
It’s all about collaboration and communication. MasterCard is truly a global company and often in the same day I would talk to colleagues in Europe, North America and Asia for the same project. Being able to navigate cross-cultural barriers was very important to being effective in my role. Because MasterCard has a a B2B2C business model, our customer obsession centered our bank partners and we had a very strategic, consulting like approach around them.
How would describe the company culture?
MasterCard invests heavily to ensure people feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to work. I had many opportunities to volunteer with organizations such as Girls who Code and Network for Teach Entrepreneurship. Similar to other corporations, we have affinity groups called ‘business resource groups’ where employees are encouraged to take an active role in shaping the culture within the office. Every year, MasterCard hosts a conference called the “Global Inclusion Summit” where they bring business resource group leaders from all the various offices to headquarters. During those three days, discussion is centered around how MasterCard continue to advancing diversity and inclusion initiatives.
What were your personal learnings in this role?
Two come to mind. First is the importance of cultivating a global mindset. Even though I worked on a global team, my Brazilian manager often commented how ‘American’ I was which was part of the motivation to come to business school. Second, my role afforded me a front-row seat to just how difficult digital transformation is. Although I was in arguably the ‘coolest’ business unit, I often felt frustrated that we weren’t moving fast enough (by my standards). Inertia is especially difficult to escape at a large company in which navigating the shifting dynamics of technology is new territory for executive management. On the flipside, I had greenfield opportunities to suggest and implement new ideas which MasterCard was very receptive to.
What would you recommend for Kellogg students that want to prepare for a role such as this?
There are a lot of opportunities to integrate technology into financial services in a meaningful way. Figure out what area within fintech you’re passionate about and understand the underlying technology!
