Mastercard has initiated a senior leadership reshuffle to better coordinate and implement its strategic priorities around its Core Payments, Commercial and New Payment Flows and Services divisions.
The appointments come as the US-based international payments giant looks to step up its adoption of new technologies and practices. This has included increasing its use of two of the biggest talking points in payments, Open Banking and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
To move its strategy forward, the company has made three C-level appointments, whilst also confirming that its President of Cyber and Intelligence, Ajay Bhalla, will leave the company after a 30 year career.
John Lambert has become Chief Product Officer at Core Payments, Raj Seshadri as Chief Commercial Payments Officer at Commercial & New Payment Flows, and Craig Vosburg will lead the Services division as Chief Services Officer.
Michael Miebach, Mastercard CEO, said: “These changes will reinforce our strategy and competitive advantage to drive long-term growth, diversify our revenue streams and differentiate our products and solutions. Our teams will be able to execute faster and deliver more value to our partners and customers.”
Breaking down the role each division plays in Mastercard’s strategy, the firm described Core Payments as the foundational division as a means of providing seamless and secure payments.
The division covers core payments, products and platforms, real-time payments, innovation in acceptance, consumer value propositions, and optimisation capabilities.
Commercial and New Payment Flows covers payment and data flows, including commercial cards, B2B account payables and receivables, non-carded bill payments, remittances and disbursements.
The division also covers healthcare-oriented solutions, with Mastercard identifying a ‘scalable opportunity’ in payment and data flows beyond consumer card payments.
Lastly, the Services division incorporates three of Matercard’s teams; Cyber and Intelligence, headed by the outgoing Bhalla; Open Banking, an area where the company has been significantly stepping up its efforts lately; and lastly, Data and Services.
The segment covers fraud management, risk and cybersecurity, growth based on insights, analytics and loyalty. A new Data and AI organisation has been set up as part of this division, led by Greg Ulrich, as Chief AI and Data Officer.
This new segment will focus on “commercialisation for both internal and external applications, and the governance of these functions across the entire enterprise”.
As noted above, Open Banking and AI have taken on increased prominence within Mastercard’s global operations. Speaking to Payment Expert after the Pay360 conference, the firm’s Senior Vice President of Security Solutions and Processing, Tulsi Narayan, explained how Mastercard is using these technologies.
