Pilar Aurrecoechea

Pilar Aurrecoechea is senior vice president, Account Management, Banco Santander, within International Markets. In this role, she is responsible for growing the business within the account as well as bringing new innovations to the bank to be implemented jointly. Ms. Aurrecoechea has over 30 years’ experience in payments and financial services.

Ms. Aurrecoechea rejoined Mastercard on July 1 of 2015, after 18 months as the Financial Services global director for Telefonica Group. In addition to developing and launching Telco financial products at Telefonica, both for B2B and B2C customers, she was the president of the Board of the joint ventures between Mastercard and Telefonica in Latam: Zuum and MFS as well as board member of Yaap, JV between Telefonica, Banco Santander and Caixa in Spain.

Prior to moving to Telefonica, Ms. Aurrecoechea was Mastercard Spain and Portugal country manager for two and a half years. Before that, she worked at Visa Europe as senior vice president of Consulting for four years, as the head of Payments for Caja Madrid for eight and a half years, and at American Express for 10 years.

Ms. Aurrecoechea earned a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of California, San Diego and a Master of Business Administration from San Diego State University.