Asia-Pacific Power List 2020: Rustom Dastoor, Mastercard

Rustom Dastoor

SVP, head of marketing and communications, Asia Pacific
Mastercard
Singapore

As APAC’s top marketer for a brand that has declared advertising dead and shifted money away from traditional advertising towards sponsorships and experiences, one might think Rustom Dastoor could find himself on the outs with mainstream creative agencies.  But as a product of Ogilvy & Mather himself, who back then helped asset manager BlackRock build a retail brand and strengthen its corporate reputation, Dastoor knows there are many ways to build brand affinity with customers outside of media campaigns and has argued creativity is channel-agnostic for agile modern agencies. 

At Mastercard, Dastoor spearheads not just the development and activation of integrated marketing strategies, but also works closely with issuers, merchants and governments across APAC to strengthen the brand’s corporate reputation.  The aim is to be known in the region as one of the most innovative payment technology companies. Dastoor’s communication work on Mastercard’s new sonic branding reflects not only his ability to speak to multiple stakeholders at once, but reflects the brand’s forward-thinking to stand out in a world where e-payments are ubiquitous.

Of course, not everything can be planned, and with the emergence of COVID-19, Dastoor has learned to pivot along with everyone else at Mastercard by moving their experiential offerings online to new platforms and communicating this across many Asian markets. But since joining Mastercard in 2014, Dastoor has thrived taking on big global strategy mandates, including leading the brand’s B2B marketing efforts worldwide from New York, in his last role before moving to Asia in 2018.

Dastoor can be found on Twitter at: @rustomdastoor