Today she is building Europe’s fintech infrastructure. But her career path took some unexpected turns

Line Ahrensburg is Vice President for Open Banking Engineering in Europe. She also spends time on the Girls4Tech programme in Denmark, whose aim is to get girls aged 7-12 to consider a future in the STEM fields.

Frederik Ploug Søgaard
September 1, 2022

Frederik Ploug Søgaard

@frederik

Line Ahrensburg thought she would have a career as a software developer. But other opportunities came her way, and she took them, and today she is responsible for Open Banking Engineering in Europe at Mastercard.

Sponsored: This article is published in collaboration with Mastercard.

Mastercard is building superhighways for Open Banking across the whole of Europe. Line Ahrensburg is central to this work, in the newly created position of Vice President for Open Banking Engineering Europe. But her path to a responsible position in the fintech world was not exactly one that cut straight through the world of banking.

With a degree in software development, Ahrensburg had developed a passion for database administration, and she was sure this would be her job. But early on in her career, the chance to move to a more managerial position came along and she seized the opportunity, and again later, something else that was unplanned, after ten years working in management and technology in the pharmaceutical industry, she entered the financial sector.

“I followed a great boss, so in that way, ending up at Mastercard was unplanned. But unplanned in a real cool way, because I found out that it’s actually an insanely interesting industry,” said Ahrensburg.

Large-scale financial inclusion

Mastercard has strengthened its position in Denmark in recent years through acquisitions and in other ways, and today Ahrensburg is one of 300 colleagues based in Copenhagen. She is currently looking at the development of a completely new infrastructure called Open Banking, which Mastercard is about to roll out globally. And she means that we have only seen a fraction of what it makes possible.

“You will be hard pushed to find a more exciting area within fintech than Open Banking. It’s about using data in a way where users get the power: what will they share and how can it meet their needs? The entire concept of democratising the financial market and its data is about making financial services accessible to as many people as possible, and I think that’s a worthwhile goal,” said Ahrensburg.

Ahrensburg not only reasons that financial inclusion is a goal worth pursuing – with Mastercard’s major organisation supporting her, she also sees the opportunity to create change and development on a large scale.

Seizing the opportunity

For Ahrensburg, Mastercard’s size does not just mean that her ambitions with Open Banking are big. She also believes that it has actually helped to give her the opportunity to do it.

“Tech is more than just code. It’s people, who are creative and innovative in many different kinds of ways. Mastercard provides many opportunities for trying something different. It may well be that you occupy an IT technical role today, but if you really want to work with products, then we can find a way to do that. There are many development opportunities and exciting career paths that exist within tech in Mastercard, and my new role is a good example of this. My career path is driven by passion and ambition, and also by seeking out and seizing new opportunities as they arise,” said Ahrensburg.