Innovation vs. Risk: How a Former Mastercard Exec Designs AI Strategy

When AI hype is shouting “anything is possible,” it’s easy for teams—especially in regulated, risk-aware orgs—to feel like innovation is either reserved for the “creative people” or only happens in labs behind closed doors. JoAnn Stonier makes the case that innovation isn’t a personality type—it’s a muscle. You can train it, but you also need permission, constraints, and a shared way of working so the results don’t devolve into chaos (or a pile of half-baked agents someone tries to “just unplug”). This episode is a practical look at how to balance innovation with risk without turning your org into a two-headed “push-me pull-you” that never goes anywhere. The throughline: design thinking isn’t a tired framework—it’s the operating system that helps organizations create consistent, values-driven guardrails as AI becomes increasingly democratized across every function. Resources from this episode: Join the Digital Project Manager Community

You can listen to Innovation vs. Risk: How a Former Mastercard Exec Designs AI Strategy online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Innovation vs. Risk: How a Former Mastercard Exec Designs AI Strategy is an episode from The Digital Project Manager Podcast by Galen Low.

This episode is 47:05 long.

This episode was published on Mar 10, 2026.

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