MasterCard considering F1?
The company is an active sponsor in sports with a long-standing commitment to soccer with the UEFA European Championships and the Champions League, in addition to several Latin American tournaments. It sponsors several golf events and is involved in Major League Baseball, it is also involved with the All Blacks rugby team and with Cricket Australia, in addition to being involved in music and fashion sponsorships.
The company has been undergoing significant changes in recent years, since it began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006. It has a new corporate name “MasterCard Worldwide" and the goal of global expansion, particularly in the Asian markets. Next week a new president and chief executive officer will take over the company, when Ajay Banga succeeds Robert Selander, who had been in charge since 1997. Banga is a Sikh who was born and educated in India. He began his career with Nestle and later moved to Pepsico and Citigroup before joining MasterCard last year.
The company has also appointed a new Chief Marketing Officer in Alfredo Gangotena, a French national, born in Germany and raised in Latin America.
He speaks four languages was a graduate of mechanical engineering before moving into marketing with Walt Disney, Universal Music, Henkel, Proctor & Gamble and Hutchison/Priceline. He joined MasterCard in 2004. Since then he has spent time in Europe as well as the Asia/Pacific, Middle East and African markets.
The change of management gives the company a much more global outlook than was previously the case with the previous US-centric executives. Joe Saward