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Richard Wormald
President, Asia Pacific
Mastercard
Richard Wormald leads Mastercard’s Asia Pacific business with a focus on building the next generation of financial services across this dynamic region. In this role, he oversees the company’s strategy and growth, spanning commercial strategy, business development and engagement with key stakeholders, including governments and regulators, card issuers, retailers and retailer acquirers. He is also a member of Mastercard's Management Committee.
Rich previously served as division president for Australasia for nearly a decade, driving growth and innovation in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Before joining Mastercard, he built Coles Financial Services at Wesfarmers, including the Coles Mastercard portfolio, insurance products and mobile wallet. He also led the acquisition and redevelopment of the flybuys loyalty programme and developed Coles Financial Services’ big data analytics capabilities.
In the earlier part of his career, Rich worked with Accenture, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Ford Motor Company across the UK, Europe and Asia. He also co-founded a healthtech startup enabling video consultations via smartphone and serves as a non‑executive director and member of the High Performance Advisory Board for Australian Sailing.
Speaking at SFF 2026
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10:20–11:00amThu 19 NovFestival StageHall 1, Singapore EXPOPremium
Technology Rewiring
From Intelligence to Action: The New Architecture of Competitive Advantage
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Tal CohenPresidentNasdaq
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Prof. Simon ChestermanVice Provost (Educational Innovation); Dean, NUS College; David Marshall Professor of Law; AI Governance & Policy Lead, NUS AI InstituteNational University of Singapore
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Richard PuVice PresidentTencent
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Leong Yung CheeGroup Chief Financial OfficerUOB
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Richard WormaldPresident, Asia PacificMastercard
About this session
AI is moving beyond generating insights and assisting decisions to taking action — planning, coordinating and executing increasingly complex workflows. This shift towards agentic AI has implications far beyond technology, challenging the operating models, organisational structures and assumptions through which businesses have traditionally competed. As intelligence becomes more accessible, competitive advantage may depend less on who has the best AI and more on who can redesign their organisation, infrastructure and decision-making to turn intelligence into outcomes at scale. This session explores how agentic AI is reshaping the architecture of business from the systems that connect people, data and machines to the operating models that enable speed, adaptability and differentiation. In a world where AI can act, what will separate the leaders from the laggards and where will tomorrow’s competitive advantage really reside?
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