Payments
10 Mastercard product leaders
These ten product leaders hold vice president or senior vice president product roles at Mastercard, in areas such as checkout, tokenization, cross-border payments, identity verification and cyber products. A reader can learn from them how product work is organized inside a global payments network and how new products are taken to market with partners.
Professionals to explore
01—10Christopher Briggs
LinkedInExperience: Senior Vice President Product Management, Identity Verification Services · Mastercard
Senior Vice President Product Management, Identity Verification Services at Mastercard since September 2025. His other roles include Chief Product Officer at Mitek Systems (2022–2025) and Vice President of Product Management at Mitek Systems (2022), and he has been a Thought Leader at the Forbes Technology Council since 2023.
Eric Wachs
LinkedInExperience: Vice President, Product Management, Payment Optimization · Mastercard
Vice President, Product Management, Payment Optimization at Mastercard since 2024. His earlier Mastercard roles include Director, Product Management, Token Performance (2021–2024), Manager, Product Management, Global Digital Payments (2018–2021) and Manager, Digital Product Specialist, US Digital Payments (2017–2018).
Fope Agbedia
LinkedInExperience: Senior Vice President Product Management · Mastercard
Senior Vice President Product Management at Mastercard since June 2024. Earlier Mastercard roles include Senior Vice President, Strategy and Transformation (2022–2024), Vice President, Open Banking (2022) and Vice President Business Development (2019–2022). Before Mastercard, Fope Agbedia was Vice President Client Services at Applied Predictive Technologies (2016–2018).
Fred Branca
LinkedInExperience: Vice President, Product Management, Cyber and Intelligence Solutions · Mastercard
Vice President, Product Management, Cyber and Intelligence Solutions at Mastercard since 2016, after serving as Vice President - Product Management Excellence, Project Management Office at Mastercard (2010–2016). His profile says he commercialized 14 global products; his earlier Mastercard roles include Product Leader, Innovation & Global Process Management - Advanced Payments (2005–2008).
Gene Reda
LinkedInExperience: Senior Vice President, Agentic and Digital Growth Products · Mastercard
Senior Vice President, Agentic and Digital Growth Products at Mastercard since November 2025. At Mastercard he was also Vice President, Product Management (2022–2025) and Director, Product Management (2018–2022), and before that Vice President, Cards Product Management at Citi (2014–2018).
Jonathan Grossar
LinkedInExperience: Senior Vice President Product Management · Mastercard
Senior Vice President Product Management at Mastercard since July 2026; his profile headline reads Senior Vice President, Checkout Services, Mastercard. Before that he was Vice President of Product Management at Mastercard, a role listed from August 2000 to July 2026.
Justin Harnish
LinkedInExperience: Vice President of Product Management · Mastercard
Vice President of Product Management at Mastercard since 2021; his profile says he leads the development and deployment of AI and machine learning products across areas including payments, and lists open banking and big data among his focus areas. He was previously Senior Chemical Engineer (2017–2021) and Technology Strategy Program Manager (2012–2017) at IM Flash.
Neel Master
LinkedInExperience: Vice-President, Product Management · Mastercard
Vice-President, Product Management at Mastercard since 2020; his profile says he leads a team of product managers driving commercialization of tokenization and ecommerce checkout solutions for Mastercard's largest region. He was earlier Vice President, Product Development & Innovation (2018–2020) and Director, Product Development & Innovation (2016–2018) at Mastercard.
Smita Sebastian
LinkedInExperience: Vice President, Product Management and Innovation · Mastercard
Vice President, Product Management and Innovation at Mastercard since 2021. Her earlier Mastercard roles include Director, Product Management and Innovation (2018–2021), Director, Product Development and Innovation (Mastercard Send & QR) (2015–2018) and Product Leader, Product Development Personal payments (P2P and Bill Pay) (2014–2015).
Sudhir Iyer
LinkedInExperience: Vice President, Product Management · Mastercard
Vice President, Product Management at Mastercard since 2025; his profile says he leads a product management team within the global product organization of Mastercard Move, covering cross border network product development, use case expansion and transaction processing. He was Product Head, Mastercard Cross Border Services EEMEA as Vice President, Product Management (2021–2025) and Regional Product Head Mastercard XBS MEA as Director, Product Management (2017–2021).
Choose the right perspective
Match the person's product area to your question, since checkout, cross-border, identity and security products serve different customers and follow different launch paths. For questions about how the organization has changed over time, favor people with long Mastercard tenures, and for current priorities favor those in recently created roles.
Questions to take into the conversation
- 01How does Mastercard decide which new payment products to build and which markets to launch them in first?
- 02What does it take to get issuers, acquirers and merchants to adopt a new Mastercard product?
- 03How do Mastercard product teams work with outside partners and fintechs when building on the network?
About this directory
This is a professional research starting point based on business profile data retrieved on . Titles and companies reflect that source snapshot and may describe past or present roles. Check the linked profiles for current details. Inclusion does not imply Instant Expert membership or availability.
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