Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

Our host, Maureen Metcalf, posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI, or check out the Kindle version at https://amzn.to/44buVz8. The audiobook version is now available at https://amzn.to/4dTCleZ.

Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

• Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A by Steve Robinson; it’s available in hardback at https://amzn.to/460LnmQ, on Kindle at https://amzn.to/3RVXhZs, and as an audiobook at https://amzn.to/3xPjBgn.
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Paperback = https://amzn.to/3VEl7cU, Kindle = https://amzn.to/45JGm1L, and audiobook = https://amzn.to/3RPhC2y.
• Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better Together, the African Way by Mungi Ngomane. Hardback (https://amzn.to/48Doh6j) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/48YCRF4).
• Nerve: Lessons on Leadership from Two Women Who Went First by Martha Piper & Indira Samarasekera. Paperback (https://amzn.to/3tOtzg4) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/41OYdT5).

NOTE: As an Amazon partner, we may make a small commission from books you buy through these links.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

Ken Moore is chief innovation officer at Mastercard and a member of the company’s Management Committee. He leads the Mastercard Foundry organization, inclusive of R&D, Digital Futures, Product Lifecycle Management, and Experience Research & Design teams. In this role, Ken is responsible for the company’s innovation agenda, including incubating and bringing new products and services to market, unlocking the potential of emerging technologies, and anticipating changes in customer needs. Ken is an advisory board member to the World Intellectual Property Organization on the production of the Global Innovation Index, and an Expert-in-Residence at Harvard Innovation Labs at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Transcript
(auto-generated)

[00:00:00]

Maureen: This is innovating leadership, co creating our future. I’m your host, Maureen Metcalf, the founder and CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, where we help leaders be future ready. Helping us in this mission today is Ken Moore, the chief innovation officer at MasterCard. We’ll be introducing you to the store of the future.

This is a continuation of a discussion with MasterCard from last week, Ken, we’re delighted that you’re with us.

Ken: Delighted to be with you. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast and your show.

Maureen: So chief innovation officer at MasterCard does not at all describe your, the scope of your job. Can you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Ken: Certainly, certainly. It’s, it’s definitely one of the coolest sounding job descriptions in the world though, right?

Maureen: It is.

Ken: but what does chief innovation officer mean? Um, really for us, it means trying to figure out where the world is going [00:01:00] and then trying to create the products and services. That will help our clients and ourselves be successful in that world.

So to be kind of more specific to that, Maureen, I lead a team called Foundry, which is the innovation arm of MasterCard. And what does Foundry do? I mean, essentially it’s, it’s an embedded function right across the organization that powers our ability to create and deliver differentiated products, services, and experiences.

So we’ve got teams of product managers, uh, futurists, really cool job title, probably cooler than my own, researchers, data scientists, experienced designers, developers, and then collectively we’re responsible for MasterCard’s innovation agenda.

Maureen: And so for listeners and why, why this interview is a stay tuned is one, we care about innovation, but all of us spend and collect money and much of that is done [00:02:00] through the MasterCard platform. So you are. In many ways, the foundation of commerce across all industries and company sizes,

Ken: I think that’s true. I mean, I think MasterCard sometimes is, is misunderstood, um, Maureen. I mean, historically, and we’re very proud of this. We started off very much as, as a payments network or even a card. Payments network, but that’s not really reflective of MasterCard today over the past number of decades.

Not years, but decades. We’ve really been evolving our business. So today we have more than just card rails, right? If you’re using some of the digital payment tools that are out there, if you’re doing ACH payments, indeed, even if you’re processing transactions on a blight on a block chain, it’s quite possible you’re using a MasterCard product and service.

But even then, beyond payments, our products and services go way beyond that. We have really substantial businesses in [00:03:00] security, uh, in data, in, in, um, uh, identity, um, and many, many other businesses beside that. So it’s a really diverse company today. The way I would probably categorize us is we’re a technology company playing more broadly in commerce.

And even if you were to look at our mission, it would talk a lot about kind of powering economies. Empowering people building sustainable world where everyone matters. And I think that vision that that mission, which is broader than payments is kind of what defines us. And when you bring that then down into which customers do we serve?

And why am I here today? It means that we really serve a very diverse set of customers, not just the more traditional kind of retail banks and acquirers and the traditional merchant categories like the in store, um, merchants that we would have had from decades ago, but also much, much, uh, more Um, kind of recent customer segments.

So e commerce, uh, new types of merchant categories, [00:04:00] mobile network operators, governments, NGOs. So, you know, business side of banks. So a really diverse set of customers that we serve today. And in many ways, we realize that we’re not the incumbent for some of these customers. So, um, We’ve had to use differentiation, we’ve had to use our understanding of the future and our ability to use, you know, modern technologies to create compelling products and services that are going to allow us to compete for business with these new customer segments.

And I think that’s what’s. You know, really, uh, what’s really interesting and probably talks a little bit to why we believe it’s so important that we understand not just the future of retail, um, but the future more broadly of commerce.

Maureen: let’s jump to the future and then we’ll come back to your innovation process.

Ken: If I frame this overall, there’s a lot of technology out there. There’s a lot of changes in, uh, and in both our customers behavior. So that the merchants, the banks, [00:05:00] um. The government and non governmental partners that that kind of are the middle B in our B to B to C are B to B to small B, small B being a small enterprise, but but we serve their needs, but also we serve the needs of of the end customer.

So that’s a lot of. Customers to kind of consider here. So we really have to look at the kind of needs of the ecosystem overall. And the reason I started there is it becomes really important for us there for to separate signals from noise when it comes to the future of retail. So So we have to look at the inputs that we’re getting from all of those customers.

We spent considerable time and effort ourselves looking at emerging technology. So technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, of course, you can’t do a podcast at the moment without talking about AI or gen AI. But also quantum 5G becoming 6G and all these technologies that are both individually interesting, but collectively coming together [00:06:00] in really compelling ways that will allow us to change the future of retail.

And that’s just one lens, right? The second lens is, you know, consumers, both what they want today, but also. What they’re likely to want tomorrow, given change in the world, is changing too. So we see those things happening. We also run one of the largest networks of, I suppose, fintechs and partners through both our startup program, but also through our broader partnership programs in the world.

So we have connections with. Hundreds and hundreds of VCs. Um, I think we have 80 odd percent of the kind of leading fintech partners globally are either our partners or our customers, and we see where smart money is being invested in the marketplace. Clearly, we do our own research here as well. We have a vast network today, spanning many, many countries, billions of consumer touch points, you know, over 100 million merchant touch points and numerous banks.

[00:07:00] And we put all of that together and then we separate that signal from the noise. And then in the context of, you know, bringing that back down to retail, what, what are we really seeing? There’s, there’s probably kind of five big trends that are starting to play out. Um, first one really is, is around kind of intelligence in, in store.

So You know, more intelligent journeys and experiences across the actual store itself. And that’s really being brought about by kind of data overlays, um, you know, kind of elevating the in store shopping experience. So, so you see more information on a good or a service, or you can find it easier. We’ll come back and maybe we’ll talk a little bit about that.

So, so the first one really is about kind of more intelligent experiences in store. The second one really is about more immersive experiences online, right? One of the things that online lacks as a channel is you don’t get to touch and feel the item and see how it works with the rest of your wardrobe or how it fits in your [00:08:00] room if it’s an item of furniture.

So how are mixed reality and other technologies bringing the in store shopping experience and connecting it to customers either at home or in their mobile applications? The third area is really conversational. So this is the one around AI, right? That thing we just can’t avoid at the moment. So how are AI and communication technologies, Edge, 5G, you know, 6G at some point in time, I often get asked, 6G is already a thing.

It’s just not out there in the world. But we know what it is. We know what it looks like. And we know what it will enable. But how are those technologies coming together to power kind of a continuous process? Really, really personal dialogue between consumers and the brands with which they’re engaging.

And then, um, how do we actually, um, you know, so, so if that’s, if that’s kind of, so if it’s intelligent, immersive, conversational, and the fourth one then is personal. So, so how do we use analytics and how do we really understand [00:09:00] and give insights to the retailers themselves so that they can better serve and address their consumer, their customers, preferences.

And understand their behavior so they can create a more compelling experience. And the word experience there links to the fifth one. So experiential, and this was probably prompted first by kind of, um, kind of high end fashion probably got there before the rest of retail, where fashion, beauty, and kind of apparel brands have been pioneering highly experiential shopping through immersive and Also sustainable experiences.

So so those are probably the kind of five intelligent in store immersive online conversational hyper personalization and experiential and more. And if you permit, um, I’ll happily go into some examples of some of the things that I think about when I when I think about each of those. But before I do that, let me hand it across and see.

Do you think that would be would be interesting for Okay. Thank you. You and for your [00:10:00] listeners,

Maureen: I do think it would be interesting. And one thing that strikes me is the trends you’re looking at. Because my mindset of MasterCard has been my experience with the cards in my wallet and how it connects with Venmo and PayPal and those things. So when you’re talking about an augmented shopping experience, you’re expanding my view of what I think MasterCard would care about.

So I’m curious about, as a business owner, as a shopper, how do these things connect? These trends relate and how does mastercard attend to them in their innovation agenda

Ken: it, it’s hugely critical. I mean, our success as a company is dependent on their success as a company, which is dependent on doing and creating compelling and trustworthy experiences for consumers. So maybe before I jump into kind of the [00:11:00] intelligent and, and maybe give some examples of that, Maureen, I, I, I think a, a comment I’d make here is consumers and, and, and SMEs out there are, are, are really intoxicated by these.

Very, very compelling experiences that technology is making possible tomorrow that maybe aren’t possible today. But, but they also have fear and they see too many bad examples in the paper of bad actors doing bad things. So when I think about MasterCard in this space, and I think about this emerging future, you know, our core mission has always been to help businesses.

Um, exchange something of value, good businesses and consumers exchange something of value between each other safely, securely, and with the consumer in control of that experience. I think all that’s really happened here is the number of things that we can exchange that have value has broadened its broadened to include data.

It’s broadened to recognize that the consumer [00:12:00] is often more remote from the merchant with which they’re having a shopping experience. It’s broadened to include loyalty points. So I think when you see MasterCard in that context, we help merchants and consumers and businesses exchange something that has value between each other.

I think that maybe gives you a different lens to look at our company and therefore a different lens to help you understand why it’s so important for us. That businesses and consumers succeed in this world. That’s coming. And that’s really are at the heart of our mission. And that’s kind of why we lead in here.

We also know that when somebody has a relationship with MasterCard, you’re not just buying a product or service today. You’re also relying on us to invest into unlocking the future and into helping that future arrive in a way that’s safe, that’s secure, that’s going to be built for the benefit of both consumers and for the businesses that we serve.

So hopefully, Maureen, that gives you kind [00:13:00] of a lens on kind of why we do that and why we lean in. We want retailers to win. We want them to succeed in the future. We want them to create compelling experiences that benefit consumers, and we want to do all of that. The exchange of this broader set of things that have value.

We want to be able to enable them to do it safely, securely, and with the consumer in control. So hopefully that makes sense, Maureen.

Maureen: it does and i love the innovation focus that as a business partner although i’m in the small b category that i know i can count on mastercard. To enable my business not just to meet my client expectations today but as they evolve and emerge and as we’re Focusing on ai and leadership and those things that we have partners who are More innovative than we are So so that we will not have to worry [00:14:00] Six months or six years from now.

How do we do that value exchange?

Ken: Well, thank you. And, um, thank you for giving me this opportunity to kind of hopefully help both your listeners and the broader audience understand just the range of capabilities and the role that MasterCard is trying to play. So let me then jump back more into your question around kind of unpicking and maybe illustrating through some examples, kind of, you know, those, those five experiences that we talked about, right?

So intelligent, immersive, conversational. Personal and experiential had to kind of check myself there to make sure I remember them all. So if I think about intelligent in store, what I’m talking about there is that physical stores themselves are evolving. They’re becoming a lot more intelligent. They’re using interactive in store environments and information overlays to kind of educate shoppers both.

On what they’re buying, the provenance of a good or a service, where did it come from, how did it get there, are the carbon credits [00:15:00] that it has, was it, you know, made in America, was it, um, you know, was it using sustainable packaging? So, so they’re providing far more education, but also they’re providing in so many of the bigger stores already piloting applications that help consumers navigate around the store itself.

And they’re using technologies like, you know, smartphones and smart tech to be able to do that. So smartphones put it with a branded merchant app, put a bit of geolocation solution on top of it. And suddenly you can actually guide customers around your stores, the particular product or service. That they’re trying to buy when you think about smart technology, think about creating kind of a more compelling, um, experience for the an intelligent experience for the consumer in the store.

So what do I mean smart shelves that can give you information on the product, interactive mirrors in a changing room, which maybe recommends items that you should buy or allows you to virtually try on items and tells you the other items in [00:16:00] stock, maybe a size up a size down or in a different color. Um, so those are some examples of kind of some of the smartphone and kind of smart tech applications, but then and Sherry and Jen may have touched on this, but we’re also seeing that innovation, both in the friction associated with stores as well.

So stores are becoming more intelligent. In both the way that you enter the store and also the way you check out from the store. So mobile based payment solutions, AI powered apps like Sam’s Club in the U. S. is a, you know, it’s got a next gen scan and go solution and they can process rewards in real time, but they can also send digital receipts for consumers as they leave the store.

Just to give you a few examples, you’ve got Marks Spencer Marks Spencer is using a smartphone app that guides customers around the store, it takes their shopping list, um, that you enter into the app and it tells you where they all are, so it literally guides you around the store itself to each of the items in the shortest possible time.

Um, H& [00:17:00] M group, I think that’s cost stores in the U. S. and Adidas, they’ve both been using fitting rooms with smart mirrors, so that idea that we talked about, about displaying a product and allowing you to try on different sizes and colors, but also then perhaps recommending other items that might go with the item that you’re wearing.

Um, Instacart. I know I know them very well. Fantastic company deploying thousands of AI powered smart cards that that use computer vision and also AI to identify items. They’ve got barcode scanners that you can pay on the actual shopping trolley itself, but also they can use personalized offers and then Walmart, I know, is also using AI enhanced scan and go technology to pay as you go and bypass the kind of checkout line.

So there’s quite a lot going on in that kind of creating intelligence in store. If I jump then more into kind of how do our companies using technology to create [00:18:00] more immersive online experiences, and please feel free to interrupt me at any time, but as e commerce itself evolves technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality, some of them are ready today.

Others will be ready tomorrow, right? But also technologies like spatial computing are bringing really tactile experiences of so that they’re almost creating the in store experience. But they’re enabling us to shop from anywhere, whether it’s on our PC at home or on a mobile app. And they’ve got technologies like reverse image search.

So you can show a photo or upload a photo of something you saw on a magazine or a photo you’ve taken of a product on a TV advertisement and the search engine will identify what the item is. But also it’ll actually go out and scan for that item on the web and come back with options for where you can buy it.

You’ve got virtual try on platforms that, that scan your body. They take snapshots of all your biometric data, your neck [00:19:00] size, chest size, arm length, um, length of your legs, circumference of your waist. And they offer highly personalized shopping experiences you. To help us buy clothes that fit, but also to solve the problem of returns, right?

So, so you don’t buy, I’m going to do this on me and I’ll be kind so that I don’t buy a kind of a large, an extra large and an extra extra large item and then send back the two that don’t work. These virtual try on platforms actually help me get the one that’s really going to fit the property, but also they avoid the merchant returns and all of the issues that we have around sustainability that are associated with that.

And that’s before we even get to the kind of spatial computing examples. So the wearables, the headsets, which. Are evolving incredibly quickly at the moment with, with many, many companies in this space using them. I know a great example. I mean, we’re all familiar with, you know, with the products from Google and Meta and Braban and others.

But to give you maybe a different example, Smith, [00:20:00] Smith Optics is, uses a kind of a face scanning app. Um, I ski really badly. I have delusions of adequacy is the right way to talk about my skiing, but, um, but I know that they take, uh, they have a face scanning app that takes the contours of your face and then 3D prints ski goggles.

That fit you precisely. So you don’t get that fogging off or things like that. And snap feet, I think, is an Italian startup, and they have a 3D biometric imaging algorithm that allows customers to scan their feet white. So you get shoes that fit you perfectly. So these are just some examples, maybe of smaller companies that people may perhaps have not heard of that are embracing these technologies, leaning into retail, you know, To kind of create these compelling experiences.

So that’s intelligence in store. That’s immersive online. Many examples to give you in conversational and personal and experiential as well. But [00:21:00] I realize like all good Irishmen, I’m really talking fast and furious here, Maureen, and want to give you an opportunity to come back in.

Maureen: So one of the things that struck me as I was listening is I was in restoration hardware recently, saw something in the showroom, which is what they want that I say must have that. And then you can’t take it home. You’ve got to have it shipped because they don’t want their showroom half empty. And I took, uh, like you buying multiple pieces of clothing.

I, I took a shot. I bought some stuff. I’m sitting here looking at a piece of art sitting on my floor right now. I think it’s going to work. It would have been really nice to have my virtual reality room. Take that piece of art, upload it to my house and say, okay, that fits here. It fits there. I can buy another one or not that one, this other one, because the process of [00:22:00] shipping a large wooden thing, not a little frame is not simple.

And so that, that answer to how is the customer experience changing? Really speaks to me that it’s not hard to go into a store and buy stuff it is hard to then navigate where does it fit and how do I return the stuff because this will require repackaging a large, you know, big box of. Thing getting it to UPS.

I can’t drop it in a little box. I have to get to a UPS store, load it in my car. All of that, Is because I don’t think of MasterCard being the one making the changes. I do think of changes happening. I don’t think of your role in that process. Driving the future of commerce and even better that I could just put on the virtual reality goggles and, [00:23:00] and move the thing around and see what my house would look like with this fabulous new piece of something, whether it’s, well, and I also shop for my husband’s clothing.

So it would be really

Ken: not alone in

Maureen: virtual reality of

Ken: won’t tell anyone.

Maureen: It would be nice to have a virtual reality mic that I could just tap the thing and watch the clothing spin yes to this, no to that. And he wouldn’t have to be bothered with the options. They would just arrive.

Ken: let me take that same experience that you’ve just given me on the fly there. And I remember a stage I stood on in India, I’m going to say five years ago, and I was using a technology called Arc at the time. And I was building compelling experiences for retailers to help them, to help consumers buy things online.

That they wouldn’t normally buy without being able to physically see them in a store. So what I was doing is I took a smartphone. I built the technology, [00:24:00] deployed it on a smartphone. We were making this available to merchants at the time. And actually, in all honesty, it’s kind of more readily available from lots of providers out there today.

But it shows you how that experience can be recreated. So through my smartphone in front of a state, in front of an audience of maybe three, four hundred people, I’m kind of looking at the stage around me. Okay. So I can see the stage, just the camera on my phone. I can see the stage around me and into that I’d integrated the ERP.

So, so the, all of the kind of the inventory, the products and services that a particular warehousing company. Let’s make it up. Let’s call it Ikea. Right? That’s just a made up name in this, in this particular context here. And I was able to pick products and services. So chairs, okay. Uh, tables, and I was able to drop them into that image so I can see exactly how they look in the room in which I’m standing.

I could go right in, I could walk around them, I could see the color, I could get the accuracy down to about six millimeters. So the size and shape of that was about six to [00:25:00] six millimeters was accurate for that room. Now at the time, what I couldn’t do was bring my friends into that room with me. So they could also apply it in your case on the artwork, right?

So they would be able to see it in Maureen’s, um, in your living room, right? They’d be able to see it in your living room on the wall. You’d be able to see it. You’d be able to see everything else that’s around it in your living room. You’d kind of go, does that work? Yes or no? I kind of think it does. Not going to trust my husband, but I’m going to bring a few of my friends into this, and I’m going to see what they think all of that is possible today.

And those are the types of things that our advisors and our other organizations together with our partners are out there building with retailers at this point in time. I’d circle back to what I said at the front at the outset. Some of these technologies are absolutely ready for prime time now. Others rely on underlying technologies.

So, you know, network connectivity, speed, things like that, that sometimes are maybe not quite there yet. [00:26:00] But, you know, but the future is coming on this. Um, I can’t remember who said it, but was it? It’s actually not. It’s not something recent. Apologies. The light went off in my office because I’ve been sitting still for too, for too long.

Uh, apologies for one second. This can only happen when, you know, you’re truly live. Um, but no, it really isn’t.

Maureen: Ken Moore.

Ken: so the quote was the future happens very slowly and then all at once. Right. And I think we’re really seeing that in retail, right? We’re seeing the ingredients today. Of a future that’s going to be standardized and much more readily available in kind of 3 to 5 years time.

I think we’re all going to be there. I would give you the comparison with AI, right? AI has been around for decades and decades and decades, and it’s had many false stones. So the future was coming. The future was coming. And then suddenly it happens all at once. And I [00:27:00] think retail, not with one technology, but with the convergence of five or six, you know, the intelligent, immersive, conversational, personal and experiential technologies.

I know we’ve got to talk about some of them, not all of them, but I really think as those come together, we’re going to have that moment in retail. And when it starts, natural competitive dynamics kind of bring everybody towards a common end point quite quickly.

Maureen: I understand a little bit about the trends, a little bit about what MasterCard’s doing. How do you, one, it sounds like an incredibly exciting place to work. Like

Ken: have the best job in the

Maureen: you or. Or, or work for you, but I’ve got my own job. So how do you keep your people inspired, motivated, because innovation is also hard work.

Ken: really is. And I mean, if you think about the way we innovate, right? So, so [00:28:00] we get this diverse set of signals that come to us from our clients, from our partners, from venture capitalists, from our academic partnerships, from all these fintech companies that we, that we work with. Plus on top of it, our desktop research, and we really put all of that together, Maureen.

And then what we try to do is from that, we try to figure out, and this is really where those futurists come in. We try to figure out, well, given this set of signals, having separated signal from noise. What do we think this is going to look like a couple of years from now, and we publish a huge number of reports on this.

Right. We call it the signals report. So signals on the future of retail signals on the future of commerce signals on that. So we publish reports. This is what we think is likely to happen here. The big trends that we think are likely to play out, but we put our money where our mouth is, too. So we also then try to build the products and services And that’s the really fun part of my, of my job.

And that’s the part that probably keeps [00:29:00] the team more motivated than anything. It’s yes. Yes. We get to dream the dreams. But we also have to ground those dreams in the realities of the use cases that are going to create value for both our customers and for the end consumer, because we’ve got to build the products and services that are going to work.

And we do that. We don’t always build clearly. Sometimes we partner, we acquire companies to help us execute on that future. But the way that we do that as well is as we talk about building a product, we kind of show our customers what we’re building and why, based on our kind of, you know, view and what’s likely to happen into the future.

And then some customers who have a common view with us, our partners have a common view with us. Help us build against that same future. So they co create with us. So, and that’s really the piece that we do. And if we live in that world, if we’re always imagining tomorrow, if we’re testing our imagination, if we’re grounding it in kind of the [00:30:00] reality of value for our customers and for the end customers, and then if we’re building the products and services, I’m doing it in a way which is going to inspire trust because trust is so central to the to the products and services that are going to succeed in the future.

And that’s a really, really interesting set of rules that allows us to track to attract probably, you know, Somebody once said to me, no matter who you are, the best people work elsewhere. But I can tell you, we’ve got some pretty goddamn good teams in this space in Foundry. So we’ve got some folks right across the world.

I think we have teams in 20, 30 countries because our clients are in a broader set of countries than that, and we need those inputs. But they’re all contributing towards building these products and services, and they’re all contributing to bringing the outside in, and they’re all contributing to help us think through and sift out the kind of signals from the noise.

And that’s a little bit about how we do it, and it’s a little bit about why I think it’s such an interesting place to [00:31:00] work. One of the things I talk a little bit about is well, um, Maureen is and the reason I say this is because I think it’s going to become an even more interesting place to work in. We always talk about change and the pace of change, and there’s been countless people who’ve talked about, you know, how long it took the Internet to get to a million users or Gen AI to get to a million users or the smartphone to get to a million users.

So they look backwards and they say, Oh, my God, it’s so much faster today than it was yesterday. We also look forward, and one of the really interesting things about change is that it’s exponential, so the rate of change in the future is increasing over what we’ve seen in the past. Just to ground that for you, by 2040, we’re going to have to be able to spot and respond to four times the level of change that we have to spot and respond to today.

Now just think about that for a second, so we’re going to have to be able to spot a change, do something about it, figure out our [00:32:00] response, do something about it, deliver the outcome, and then do the next change, and the next change, and the next change. And that’s really, really hard to be able to do that if your company, and you certainly can’t do it all yourself, you need partners, you need partners like the partners that we have in MasterCard.

And if you’re a retailer, you need partners like MasterCard themselves, because it’s in that accelerated rate of change. It’s only the most nimble and those that really have three growth muscles, organic growth, inorganic growth. So acquisition and partnership that are really, really going to survive. And it’s those that lean in to the future of technology in particular, because technology is really what’s driving an awful lot of that change.

So I’m hoping not just do we have a really interesting place for our teams to work today on a really interesting dynamic with with the hundreds of thousands of wonderful partners we work with around the world, but I think I think those partnerships will be tightened as we look to the future and as the pace of change accelerates [00:33:00] again.

So I would offer that up a little bit as well and here morning.

Maureen: I have so many phrases that I want to say one today’s the slowest day that you’ll have in the rest of your

Ken: Oh, I love that. I’m going to borrow that. That’s that is brilliant.

Maureen: That the most effective leaders have the mind of a scientist because we’re living in a world where we already don’t know. I can’t look to necessarily leading practice. Now, I also don’t discard it and just, you You know, go back and create bad stuff, but I use leading practice plus a scientific approach to the world to formulate a good hypothesis and build my products.

Um, I was having this conversation earlier today, a client who was, uh, Researcher who basically said she, she was working on speech and hearing and said, I am as happy to be proven wrong as [00:34:00] right. And specifically think about I’m solving hearing problems for people who can’t hear. If I spend years going down the wrong path, I have.

Taken years from their lives that they can’t hear. So through that lens, it can’t be about my ego. It’s gotta be about my constituents. So co creating is with the, with the partner in mind has to be foundational to my approach.

Ken: I totally agree. And when you when you look to the future of retail, I mean, whilst overall, I think that the outlook is really positive, right? But there’s also challenges out there. And also, I think those challenges are balanced by some reasons to be really optimistic, um, that we can shape the opportunities and this transformation in the right way.

So, you know, for us, certainly, when you think about some of the challenges that customers have, it’s all this technology, what’s real and [00:35:00] what’s ready for prime time now versus what’s not. I mean. How do we integrate that into some of the, you know, existing technologies that, that we actually have, you know, how do we, we’re really dependent on consumer adoption, you know, most retail businesses are driven on scale.

So, so how do we make sure we really understand. You know, the experience that we’re delivering to a customer and, you know, I mean, you see a lot of companies in the wearable space at the moment, but they’re really working hard on that. They’ve not quite got it right yet, but they’re working really, really hard in experimenting to find the right combination of headset and technology and use case that’s really going to drive adoption and then even some of the technologies themselves, even AI, right?

There’s still a fairly, um, Heavy resistance out there to kind of AI assistance. I saw, I think it was an IBM survey recently, where two thirds of the respondents were dissatisfied with the [00:36:00] experience that they had with AI. And that’s not a diss on AI. AI is absolutely going to get there. It’s just we have preconceived notions of what a chatbot was.

That were defined two and three years ago versus what chatbots could do today with the introduction of Gen AI and what they’d be able to do a couple of years from now. But there’s also so many opportunities, you know, so many retailers understand that that trust. Trust in their brand, trust in the promise, trust in their products and services is really their currency.

Um, you know, actually, that’s, that’s probably a good way of saying it. Trust is the currency of innovation and those brands are leaning in. They’re trying to create regulations, comply with regulations, keep pace of the expectations, really important around data, right? Um, customers can can get very edgy if they feel that their data is right.

You’re being taken without their consent or being used for somebody else’s benefit rather [00:37:00] than from there. So we see, we see companies really trying to do the right thing there and navigating those kind of privacy concerns. Um, and, and that’s why I think if you, if you, if you see that, and if you just see the sheer amount of investment that’s going into this space and the pace at which the technologies themselves.

Are actually advancing and also as humans, you know, we’re using technology in other parts of our lives, connected homes, connected cars. Our kids are growing up, you know, my, my son did that, you know, when he, I’m going to say 12 years ago, it’s probably longer. Actually, he’s 18 now. I hope he doesn’t listen to this because I’m going to be shaming him on air, but I think when he was five or six, he tried to swipe the TV because his entire experience was an iPad, right?

So. So their perceptions of technology, their trust in technology, and he’s 18 now are far different to what mine was when, you know, I’m more than 18, right? So I think there’s lots of reasons to be kind of [00:38:00] hugely optimistic in this space as well. And I think on balance, I think the reasons to be optimistic, particularly with the mitigants that you see good actors, you know, putting out there and the investment going into this space.

I think the reasons to be optimistic outweigh. The concerns that we will have to navigate along the journey.

Maureen: I appreciate that. And it’s interesting as a theme across everyone. I’ve interviewed. We all acknowledge that. Yes, there are risks. Absolutely. Smart people need to be paying attention to risks, but there are so much bigger opportunities for what our world looks like in the next decade or 2 decades and beyond for what will be possible for humans.

And taking it from that global, what will your son’s life look like when he’s your age? And there will be things that neither of us can imagine that are just commonplace. Think about swiping the TV and [00:39:00] times 100, 000. Of what’s what can happen.

Ken: I totally agree. I mean, I was asked recently, um, what I thought the impact of AI would be Gen AI in a very short time frame. So the next, you know, 18, kind of 12 to 24 months, what I thought the impact of Gen AI would be on commerce, which includes retail. And I said, look, it’s really three things. It’s going to make commerce even smarter.

It’s going to make commerce even safer. So this is recognizing that it’s, it’s twin edge thing here. We got to protect, um, the, and it’s crucial that we do. And it’s going to make commerce even more personal times 1000 to your point, right? As you cast this into the future. So I think there’s just tons of reasons to be.

incredibly excited. I hope I live long enough to see some of these technologies become commonplace because personally for me, [00:40:00] that world’s going to be a really exciting world to live in.

Maureen: We’ve talked about big trends, how commerce is changing what you’re seeing from the lens of innovation at MasterCard globally as one of our largest commerce Companies in the world we’ve got listeners who are everything from probably close to your peers to new and emerging leaders if there were a couple of things you would want listeners to take away based on this conversation.

What would those be? And I realized now you’re synthesizing everyone. That’s one of your customers into two phrases. So, so

Ken: didn’t they? Um, I think some of the things I would say lean into tomorrow. I think there’s a, the bigger, the biggest risk you can have. Is by clutching to yesterday. I think it is [00:41:00] incumbent on all of us to lead into tomorrow. I would say, make sure you never compromise on your ethics, your responsibilities to your clients, data to trust, trust in your brand, right?

We can get intoxicated by tomorrow. We can forget about the need for tomorrow to arrive safely. Don’t make that mistake. I would say. Understand you can’t do this all yourself. There’s too much change out there. Pick the things, don’t, don’t do it all. Pick the things, whether it’s checkout experiences or new channels or, you know, helping customers discover you as much as you discover customers.

Whatever, whatever the things that are going to be most important to your business are, pick those as your battles. I would say make extensive use of partners. You’re never going to have the capital no matter how big you are. And I include us in that one of the biggest companies in the world. You’re never going to have the capital to do it all yourself.

You need partnership and partnership [00:42:00] requires compromise and it requires and it requires us to look at our business models and to deploy different solutions in different ways. And I would say you’ve got to become digital. As digital as you can be, because with this rate of pain of change, our business models themselves, all of the processes that support our businesses have got to become agile.

So that’s everything from, you know, your software development lifecycle, your manufacturing processes, your supply chain processes, your contracting processes, you’ve really got to make them as automated and as intelligent as you possibly can. So to me, I think Maureen put on the spot, those would probably be the five things.

That I would suggest, uh, that, that are really important to focus on.

Maureen: I can’t think of anything to even respond to other than that’s a lot. That’s a lot for any of us to live up to even two or three of the

Ken: Yeah. [00:43:00] Hence partners and pick your battles, right? Really, really, really important. Um, that, and, and that’s why, again, that’s why we do shows like this. That’s why we have the businesses that we have. We are trying to be that partner, at least one of those partners for our customers out there, because if they don’t win, we don’t win.

That’s it.

Maureen: Thank you. What a wonderful note to end on. If we don’t, we will all win together or we will all lose together.

Ken: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a real blast, a real pleasure. Thank you so much.

Maureen: Thank you, Ken. And how would people learn about you and the work you’re doing beyond going to MasterCard. com?

Ken: Reach out to any of our teams globally. Follow me on LinkedIn. If anyone would like to, I publish a huge amount of content there. If you’re lucky enough to be up in Harvard or one of the universities that I’m associated with, perhaps we get a chance to meet in person. Um, and I’m a real global guy, right? I spend [00:44:00] about a third, about a quarter of my time in the US.

Thanks. Quarter of my time randomly anywhere in the world. And as you can tell from my accent, I’m proudly Irish. Um, so I’m, I’m always around, uh, Maureen and, and, uh, I would encourage people to reach out to me directly on LinkedIn. It’s probably a great channel. I’m, I’m pretty active. So, uh, or indeed, you know, contact me through any of your local, you know, MasterCard reps or any of the people that you’re working with.

Maureen: Ken, this has been just a brilliant conversation. Thank you.

Ken: My absolute pleasure. Thank you again for having me.