Ann Cairns

President, International

Ann Cairns is president, International, for Mastercard, responsible for the management of all markets and customer-related activities outside of North America.

At Mastercard, Ann has built sustainable, strong growth rates for the company across both mature and emerging markets. She has led the expansion of Mastercard outside North America into different geographies and new customer segments; embracing the continued evolution to digital while driving an increased focus on safety, security and convenience. Ann serves on the company’s management committee.

Ann is passionate about the role Mastercard can play in delivering financial inclusion through innovation and has continued to build the business through new global partnerships with governments, telecommunication companies and organizations including the World Food Programme.

Ann brings more than 20 years’ experience working in senior management positions across Europe and the U.S., where she ran global retail, commercial and investment banking operations.
Prior to joining Mastercard in August 2011, Ann was head of the Financial Industry group with Alvarez & Marsal in London, where she led the European team managing Lehman Brothers Holdings International through the Chapter 11 process.

Prior to that Ann was CEO, Transaction Banking at ABN-AMRO, and spent 15 years in senior operational positions at Citigroup. Ann sits on the Group Board of the Fortune 500 Company Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and is Chair of ICE Clear Europe.

A Pure Mathematics degree at Sheffield University and a M.Sc. with research into medical statistics from Newcastle University resulted in an early career as an award-winning research engineer, culminating as the Head of Offshore Engineer-Planning for British Gas. Managing a team of 50 plus engineers at a very early age, Ann was the first woman qualified to go offshore in Britain.