How Mastercard’s Michael Miebach learned to love collaboration

In June 2021, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach was invited to the company's headquarters for an interview by Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. At the time, the business world was gradually returning to offices post-pandemic while still observing indoor masking and social distancing. Miebach guided Mastercard through the end of the pandemic and later diversified the company's business beyond consumer credit cards.

He now focuses on data, insights, digital identities, and stablecoins. Revenue grew from $18.9 billion in 2021 to $32.8 billion in 2025 and experts predict 2026 revenue will exceed $37 billion. Miebach attributes his growth mindset to embracing collaboration. He transitioned from being solely responsible for products as chief product officer to recognizing the importance of the payments ecosystem working together.

Mastercard is embracing AI opportunities in agentic commerce, where AI agents find the optimal product for humans. However, completing transactions has been challenging. Miebach treats AI agents as additional partners in the payments ecosystem, similar to the traditional cardholder, issuer, merchant, and acquiring bank. Mastercard launched Mastercard Agent Pay in the U.S. in early 2025 and launched Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M) in June to enable agents to transact with other agents continuously and at high speeds.

AP4M has 31 participants, mainly fintech companies, emphasizing the importance of partnerships. Despite the emergence of different standards in the agentic commerce space, Miebach believes a set of standards will eventually emerge, similar to Apple Pay. He is optimistic that agentic purchases, currently a "tiny" portion of Mastercard's annual 180 billion transactions, are poised to accelerate once industry players align on regulations, tech standards, loyalty points integrations, and a trustworthy system for consumers.

Miebach has also become more comfortable with change and uncertainty since taking the top job, realizing that employees and leaders often learn as they go, especially in fast-moving technologies like agentic commerce.