Parag Mehta appointed Executive Director of Philanthropic Center for Inclusive Growth at MasterCard

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MasterCard has named Indian American Parag Mehta as its executive director and senior vice president of its Center for Inclusive Growth where he will be leading a team of professionals who are dedicated to ensuring that the benefits of growing economies accrue to all segments of society.

Mehta has been working at MasterCard since June 2017 and he was previously the vice president for strategic engagement at the Center for Inclusive Growth, where he was responsible for growing a community of influencers on the front lines of inclusive growth – economic growth which is fair, lasting and leads to shared prosperity.

According to a video posted by MasterCard on its Twitter account, Mehta says:

“The Center for Inclusive Growth is the philanthropic hub within the company, which has a goal of doing good in the world. Our idea about philanthropy is harnessing our talents and our skills and our expertise and the assets that we have at our company and putting it to work to solve specific issues. And in our case at the center, those issues are income inequality and information inequality. A lot of these businesses starting out, they don’t have the sales, marketing, and legal and accounting, and all that know-how that big companies have in spades,” he said of the MSME companies, saying it’s important as their success helps the economy thrive and so our ability to provide training to these small businesses, our ability to provide examples to them and help them grow is really critical.”

Mehta earned his bachelor’s from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.P.A. in healthcare management from Syracuse University, though he started his career in politics.

Mehta has served as a Presidential Management Fellow for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in from 2000 to 2002, after which he worked as a deputy field director for Ron Kirk’s for U.S. Senate run that same year and later served as deputy political director at Dean for America from July 2003 to February 2004, and then America Votes from February 2004 to January 2005.

From April 2005 to November 2008 Mehta served as the director of training and then director of external communications at the Democratic National Committee and from November 2008 to January 2009, he was the public liaison for the AAPI, LGBT, and Education and Arts communities for the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team.

He has also served as the special assistant to the director at the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs from August 2010 to March 2015, then transitioned to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as its chief of staff and senior adviser to the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.

He joined MasterCard in June 2017.