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.
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Would You Let AI Buy Your Flights? Mastercard’s Bet on Agentic Commerce | Next to Lead
Wednesday, September 30, 2026 • Duration 43:54
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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Never Heard of Toast? How a Restaurant Tech Giant Dominates Global Dining | Next to Lead
Thursday, September 17, 2026 • Duration 29:38
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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Meta’s Billion-Dollar Bet on Wearable AI | Next to Lead
Wednesday, August 19, 2026 • Duration 17:27
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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Tinder’s CMO Has a Hard No for Dating AI Chatbots | Next to Lead
Thursday, August 6, 2026 • Duration 19:45
As dating apps experiment with AI, Tinder CMO Melissa Hobley is drawing a line between using the technology to help people connect and using it to replace human connection. Tinder wants AI to help users choose their best profile photos, make sense of complex astrology charts, and ultimately spend less time on their phones—not create artificial people to date. At Cannes Lions, Fortune’s Ruth Umoh sits down with Hobley to discuss AI avatars, the future of digital intimacy, and where technology’s role should end and real-life connection begin.
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A McKinsey Partner Warns Slow AI Adoption Could Cost Companies Their Existence | Next to Lead
Wednesday, July 22, 2026 • Duration 01:01:44
AI is rewriting the rules of marketing, but not every brand is ready for it. At Cannes Lions, Fortune's Ruth Umoh sat down with the marketing and growth chiefs behind four major brands to drop the polish and tackle the messy middle: what's really holding AI adoption back. How do you build momentum when your data strategy is still warming up? How do you chase innovation without torching the budget? And what happens when "AI-powered everything" creates more noise than results? Expect straight talk, live debate, and hard numbers on where the hype ends and the business impact begins.
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Killing Vanity Metrics: How AI Just Blew Up The CMO Job | Next to Lead
Friday, July 17, 2026 • Duration 45:51
Today’s CMO isn’t just selling the brand; they’re responsible for the business, owning revenue, product, and data. At the same time, AI is automating a huge slice of marketing and exposing the metrics that don’t actually move the business.At Cannes Lions, Fortune’s Ruth Umoh sat down with the marketing chiefs of Slack, Zoom, Slalom, and TD Bank U.S. to unpack how AI is reshaping their roles, what they now measure, and how they chase growth.
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How Coach's Parent Company Keeps Winning Gen Z
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 • Duration 30:56
You may know Coach and Kate Spade, but you may not know Tapestry, the $30 billion company behind them. After a blocked merger with Capri Holdings, and the sale of its Stuart Weitzman brand, Tapestry is betting on Coach's momentum to fuel its next phase of growth. As luxury retailers compete for younger consumers in an uncertain economy, Tapestry CFO and COO Scott Rowe says the key is winning Gen Z, investing in brand engagement, and using AI-driven insights to stay ahead of changing consumer behavior.
00:00 Why Coach Is Winning While Luxury Struggles
01:18 Tapestry's Competitive Advantage
02:09 Scott Rowe's Career Journey
03:42 Why He Left Manufacturing for Fashion
04:11 Why Global Experience Creates Better Leaders
05:35 Is Job Hopping Better Than Company Loyalty?
07:58 Why Scott Joined Tapestry
09:46 Balancing the Roles of CFO and COO
10:39 The "So What?" Test for Business Investments
11:37 Why Finance and Operations Work Better Together
12:41 What the Failed Capri Merger Taught Tapestry
14:33 Can Kate Spade Make a Comeback?
15:59 How Tapestry Is Navigating the K-Shaped Economy
17:27 Why Coach Keeps Winning
19:18 The Biggest Myth About Gen Z Consumers
20:38 How Tapestry Uses AI
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How Carvana Survived a 99% Stock Collapse | Next to Lead
Monday, April 27, 2026 • Duration 34:59
In late 2022, Carvana was flirting with bankruptcy after its stock collapsed 99% in just 16 months. Now, the online used-car retailer is staging a stunning comeback, pouring billions into acquisitions, infrastructure, AI, and its signature car vending machines.
In this episode of Next to Lead, Fortune’s C-suite and Leadership editor Ruth Umoh sits down with Carvana strategy chief Christina Keiser to discuss what it will take to sustain that momentum and how it came back from the brink.
00:00 Intro
01:05 What is Carvana
04:49 Carvana’s online shopping business model
06:32 Christina’s rise to the C-suite
08:20 Christina’s strategy role at Carvana
10:56 Carvana’s vision
11:51 Christina’s vision
12:34 Managing Carvana’s stock crash
16:37 Looking back at Carvana’s crisis
19:00 Staying focused in leadership
21:27 Carvana’s inventory strategy
23:04 Balancing rising interest rates
25:28 Carvana’s ADESA auction acquisition
28:55 Carvana’s car vending machines
31:30 Carvana’s AI strategy
33:47 Christina’s best leadership advice
34:13 Christina’s advice for recovering from a career mistake
34:37 Christina’s personal car and outro
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Big Pharma's Trust Gap? How Gilead Is Rewriting the Narrative | Next to Lead
Monday, April 13, 2026 • Duration 30:15
Gilead Sciences moves at a pace rarely seen in pharma, delivering breakthrough COVID-19 antivirals and HIV preventatives in record time. Yet, in an industry facing a massive trust deficit, speed isn’t always enough.
In this episode of Next to Lead, Johanna Mercier, Gilead’s Chief Commercial & Corporate Affairs Officer, joins Fortune’s Leadership Editor Ruth Umoh to discuss how the company is rewriting its narrative and balancing its patients with its shareholders.
00:00 Intro
01:05 Mercier’s role at Gilead
03:05 Work-life balance and managing energy
05:10 Mercier’s biology and business background
06:02 Personal motivation and prioritizing patients
08:10 Balancing profits with patients
09:04 Public trust
11:03 Resilience following failure
13:02 Drug pricing agreements with the federal government
14:33 Growth engines for Gilead
15:24 Gilead’s billion-dollar acquisition strategy
17:24 Gilead’s COVID-19 and SARS pivot
18:07 Gilead’s AI strategy
21:34 Responsible AI use
22:10 AI-powered predictive analytics
23:07 Mercier’s leadership strategy
24:24 Ending HIV
25:30 Rapid-fire questions
30:45 Outro
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Can Adobe Survive the AI Era It Helped Shape? | Next to Lead
Monday, March 23, 2026 • Duration 22:22
Adobe built the modern creative economy, but as AI reshapes how content is made, its legacy may be its biggest risk. With a leadership shakeup and rising competition, will Adobe stay indispensable or will they'll be left behind? In a moment of transformational change, Adobe President of Customer Experience, Anil Chakravarthy, says the challenge is moving as fast as AI-- without losing sight of what their creatives, marketing professionals and businesses want.
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