Our Executives

Beena Pothen
Division President, West Southeast Asia

As President for Mastercard's West Southeast Asia division, Beena Pothen leads strategy, growth and customer engagement across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei and Myanmar — spanning some of the world's most digitally advanced economies alongside its fastest-growing ones. In this expanded role, she is focused on strengthening Mastercard’s commercial momentum and deepening partnerships with financial institutions, merchants, fintechs, and governments to advance the technologies that help businesses and consumers participate more fully in the digital economy.

Her 15-year tenure with Mastercard has taken her from India to the UAE and Malaysia, giving her a broad perspective on how payments have shaped innovation, market development and technology adoption across different economies. Prior to her current role, she served as Country Manager for Malaysia and Brunei, where she strengthened Mastercard’s market presence, expanded stakeholder engagement and helped accelerate digital transformation across the payments ecosystem. Under her leadership, Mastercard launched Strive Malaysia, a national initiative supporting small-business digitization, alongside Strivers’ Hub, a mentorship platform for women-led businesses — examples of her belief that business growth and inclusive impact can reinforce one another.

Before joining Mastercard, Beena built experience across banking, technology, FMCG and pharmaceuticals. That cross-sector foundation has shaped her pragmatic, commercially-focused approach — combining customer insight, product strategy and ecosystem collaboration to turn innovation into measurable business impact.

Known for her collaborative leadership style, Beena is passionate about building trusted partnerships, scaling digital solutions and creating growth opportunities for businesses, consumers and communities across Southeast Asia.