Asia-Pacific Power List 2021: Rustom Dastoor, Mastercard

Rustom Dastoor

SVP, head of marketing and communications, Asia Pacific
Mastercard
Singapore
Member since 2020

Mastercard’s lead APAC marketer returns to our Power List after a tumultuous but successful year for the credit-card brand, in which it reimagined its pre-Covid shift from advertising to experience into more digital and home-based forms of experiences. 

A good example of this was its ‘Open the Open’ campaign, which brought tennis fans to the Australian Open through a series of virtual fan livestreams since Mastercard couldn’t bring them physically to the event. Instead of settling for less, the virtual activations saw brand media coverage, engagement rates and positive associations soar from previous years, along with uplift on key brand associations like ‘innovation’.

Dastoor also played a role in stay-at-home campaigns directly related to the pandemic across the region, providing consumer discounts for new home essentials.  He also helped amplify the ‘#ThankYouVyapaariyo’ campaign to show appreciation for frontline workers in India to more than 100 million consumers and merchants through social media and TV inventory. 

Underscoring the active role that brand marketing can play through the pandemic, Mastercard’s efforts have paid off. Its brand equity increased during Covid’s peak in 12 of the 14 Asian markets it measured. 

So it’s not surprising that Dastoor actively supports Mastercard’s brand-purpose initiatives for the greater good of the company, industry and beyond. As the leader and convenor of the Asia-Pacific chapter of Mastercard’s ‘In Solidarity’ efforts, Dastoor and his team not only partner on internal communications to ensure all employees feel equally respected, but also ensure sponsorship platforms and advertising is inclusive, allowing participation from all sections of society. They also source corporate gifts from local merchants for small-scale industry and lead-marketing campaigns, and they work to ensure Mastercard reaches its target of restoring 100 million trees by 2025 with the Priceless Planet Coalition. 

On business objectives, 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 as one of the most innovative payment technology companies. 

A product of Ogilvy & Mather earlier in his career, Dastoor has thrived taking on big global strategy mandates, which included helping asset manager BlackRock build a retail brand and strengthen its corporate reputation. After joining Mastercard in 2014, Dastoor’s global strategy work included leading the brand’s B2B marketing efforts worldwide from New York, before moving to Asia in 2018 to lead APAC marketing. 

Dastoor can be found on Twitter @rustomdastoor.