Next to Lead featuring Fortune editor Ruth Umoh is a weekly vodcast series featuring a new generation of Fortune 500 leaders. Each week we talk to today’s most prominent C-suite executives who are shaping the future of business. Episodes will reveal what drives these executives, their vision for the future, and how to succeed in today’s hyper competitive landscape.
Would You Let AI Buy Your Flights? Mastercard’s Bet on Agentic Commerce | Next to Lead
Mastercard is betting on a new era of agentic commerce, where AI agents can act on behalf of consumers, make purchases, and even transact with other machines. But handing an AI agent your wallet raises new questions around trust, identity, and accountability. What happens when an agent buys the wrong thing, exceeds its authority, or gets manipulated? And how do you build a payments system that can distinguish between human and non-human actors?
Fortune’s Ruth Umoh sits down with Ed McLaughlin, Mastercard’s President and Chief Technology Officer, to discuss the future of agentic commerce, AI-powered fraud prevention, cybersecurity, and what happens when machines become participants in the global economy.
0:00 AI Agents Are About to Change How We Shop
1:04 What’s Keeping Mastercard’s CTO Up at Night?
3:46 How Mastercard Transformed Over 20 Years
5:33 Lessons From a Startup Founder
8:34 How Mastercard Makes Decisions at Scale
11:15 How to Move Fast Without Breaking Things
16:11 Is Identity the New Challenge of the AI Era?
20:14 Mastercard’s Biggest AI Opportunities
26:17 Who’s Liable When an AI Agent Makes a Purchase?
36:30 The Leadership Skills AI Can’t Replace
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17 Sept 2026
Never Heard of Toast? How a Restaurant Tech Giant Dominates Global Dining | Next to Lead
Toast started as a point-of-sale company. Today, the restaurant technology platform serves over 180,000 locations globally and is expanding into areas including payments, payroll, marketing, reservations, retail.In this episode of Fortune Next to Lead, C-suite and Leadership Editor Ruth Umoh sits down with Toast CMO and COO Kelly Esten to discuss the company’s growth strategy and its vision for the future of restaurant technology.
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19 Aug 2026
Meta’s Billion-Dollar Bet on Wearable AI | Next to Lead
Meta is spending billions to catch up in the AI race, betting that its latest model, Muse Spark, can help close the gap with its biggest rivals. But the company’s aggressive AI investments, ranging from advertising tools to its latest AI-powered smart glasses, are coming at a cost: Meta’s profits fell 14% in the second quarter, as spending surged alongside hefty legal penalties.
In this episode of Next to Lead, Fortune’s C-suite and Leadership Editor Ruth Umoh sits down with Nicola Mendelsohn, Meta’s Head of Global Business Group, in Cannes to discuss the company’s AI ambitions, the creator economy, and Meta’s push towards AI supremacy.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:08 Ad
01:38 How AI is Shifting All Business
03:02 Meta’s AI Ad Stack Advantage
04:26: Meta’s Creative Workplace Launch
04:53 Meeting Customers Through Messaging, Business Agents
06:43 Meta’s Customers Key Pain Points
07:20: Case Study: Car Rentals in Brazil
07:54 Is Meta Taking Too Much Control?
09:07 Estée Lauder Experiment
10:44 Kylie Jenner x Meta Glasses
12:04 Creators, Community, Commerce
13:40 AI Hype, Responsibility
14:48 Future of Creators, Agents
16:28 Looking Ahead for Nicola
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