Vice President, Internal Audit (similar to Head of Audit / Audit Director / ED level)

Our Purpose Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential. Title and Summary Vice President, Internal Audit (similar to Head of Audit / Audit Director / ED level) Vocalink Limited (VLL), a Mastercard company, is a Bank of England-regulated Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) organisation, and its technology powers the U.K.’s real-time, batch, and cheque image clearing services, as well as over 47,000 ATMs. This enables payments of 90% of salaries, 70% of utility bills, most ATM transactions, and every cheque cleared in the UK. Mastercard/ Vocalink Internal Audit provides independent and objective assurance and advisory services to assess and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of governance, risk management, and internal control processes. The Vice President, Internal Audit is a senior leadership role within the function, reporting directly to the Head of Internal Audit for VLL. This is a pivotal leadership position responsible for shaping the team's strategic direction, strengthening capabilities, and driving the continued evolution and maturity of the Internal Audit function. The successful candidate will play a key role in supporting regulatory engagement, managing senior stakeholder relationships, and delivering a high-quality, risk-based assurance programme. The role also contributes to senior Vocalink governance forums and committees, providing independent insight, constructive challenge, and trusted advice to support effective decision-making and sound risk management. They will also bring significant experience across both business and technology risk and control environments, enabling them to lead a diverse audit portfolio and provide holistic assurance across Vocalink's business operations, technology landscape, and strategic change initiatives. Role Responsibilities include but are not limited to: 1. Stakeholders • Establish and maintain collaborative partnerships with business management, including VLL executives and centralised functions, to support the identification, assessment and resolution of risk and control matters and drive scalable, and sustainable improvements. • Lead and support senior stakeholder engagement across the VLL Executive Committee (ExCo), Board and management committees, the three lines of defence, and regulatory interactions with the Bank of England. • Champion a strong risk and control culture and provide independent objective advice and constructive challenge to management. • Identify and communicate key thematic observations, emerging risks, control trends, and business insights to senior management, committees, and the Head of Internal Audit to support informed, risk-based decision-making. 2. Audit Delivery • Lead the development and execution of the VLL risk-based audit plan, ensuring alignment with strategic priorities, key business risks, regulatory expectations, customer obligations, and emerging industry developments. • Contribute to the ongoing evolution and maturity of the Internal Audit function through quality assurance activities, methodology enhancements, innovation, and the adoption of leading audit practices. • Ensure appropriate and proportionate audit coverage across strategic, financial, operational, technology, cyber, resilience, and compliance risk areas. • Oversee the delivery of multiple complex and concurrent audits, applying sound professional judgement to assess the design and operating effectiveness of key control areas. • Drive high standards of audit quality and reporting, ensuring audit conclusions are clear, evidence-based, risk-calibrated, and supported by practical and sustainable recommendations. • Oversee the tracking, validation, and escalation of audit issues, working with management to ensure timely remediation and effective resolution of identified risks. • Develop and maintain audit programmes and testing approaches aligned with Internal Audit methodology and Global Internal Audit Standards • Leverage data analytics, technology-enabled auditing techniques, and continuous monitoring capabilities to enhance assurance coverage, efficiency, and insight generation. 3. People • Lead, develop, and inspire a high-performing and inclusive team, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and professional excellence. • Provide effective coaching, mentoring, and performance feedback to support colleague development, succession planning, and talent management objectives. • Build and maintain a high-performing talent pipeline ensuring the team has the skills, expertise, and capacity required to deliver the audit plan and meet evolving business and regulatory expectations. • Promote continuous learning, innovation, and adoption of data analytics, emerging technologies, and modern audit techniques. • Collaborate effectively with regional and global audit teams to optimise resources, share best practices, and deliver consistent, high-quality assurance outcomes. All About You • Significant experience in Internal audit, Risk Management, or a related assurance function within a complex regulated environment, ideally within financial services, payments, critical national infrastructure related organisations. • Strong understanding of governance, risk management, internal controls, and regulatory expectations within highly regulated environments • Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and challenge effectively at Executive Committee, Board Committee, regulator, customer, and