Woman of Distinction: President Biden Appoints Mastercard Executive Shamina Singh to His Export Council
- The Indian American is the founder and president of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and serves as the executive vice president of Sustainability at the payment-processing corporation.
President Joe Biden has appointed Indian American Shamina Singh as a member of his Export Council, the White House announced last week. Founder and president of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, Singh serves as the executive vice president of Sustainability at Mastercard and is a member of the payment-processing corporation Management Committee. “She has drawn on over 20 years of global experience to develop a unique social impact model that leverages the assets of the public and private sector,” according to her profile on the Mastercard website.
Since 2014, Singh has led the center “with a remit to leverage Mastercard’s data, technology, capital and expertise for social impact,” her profile says. In her role as EVP of Sustainability, “she is responsible for the development and implementation of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy across the company, including linking ESG metrics to compensation for all employees,” the profile adds.
When the company created the Mastercard Impact Fund in 2018 “with an initial $500 million investment,” Singh was named president “and charged with activating those philanthropic dollars to advance inclusive growth and financial inclusion around the world,” the profile says. “Her leadership has contributed to Mastercard’s global leadership and reputation of doing well by doing good.”
She has held senior positions in the White House and the U.S. House of Representatives. She was executive director of the first President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. In 2015, she was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a six-year term on the board of AmeriCorps. She served as chair for two years.
She co-chairs the Ad Council of America’s Advisory Committee on Public Issues and serves on the Advisory Boards of the Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellowship and the New York Department of Financial Services Innovation. She has been named to the Financial Times’ Top 100 LGBT+ Executives and Fast Company‘s Queer 50 lists.
Singh has studied at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the Indian School of Business. She earned a Bachelor of Science from Old Dominion University and a Master of Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. She received the alumni of distinction award from both institutions.