Joann Stonier - Mastercard | 4YFN Barcelona 2025

Speaker Bio

JoAnn C. Stonier has been appointed as a Fellow of Data & Artificial Intelligence for Mastercard serving as a leading expert in those areas to assist the organization’s innovation, policy and risk efforts. Prior to being appointed as a Fellow, JoAnn served as Mastercard’s first Chief Data Officer for over five years, leading the organization’s data strategy and innovation efforts. JoAnn is a global data expert and strategist with extensive experience overseeing the curation, quality, ethical use, governance, and management of Mastercard’s global data assets. She is also an expert in artificial intelligence with a keen interest in the areas of ethics, data equity, minimization of bias and ensuring fair outcomes as especially as the use of generative artificial intelligence increases.

JoAnn has been instrumental in designing and operationalizing Mastercard’s global data business, first as the firm’s first privacy officer, then as their first data officer and now as their first fellow. Her leadership is integral to Mastercard’s push to deepen the strategic value it can provide its cardholders as well as its merchant, banking, and government customers, through data-driven products, services, and thought leadership. She has also been key to ensuring our financial inclusion data initiatives as well.

JoAnn is a recognized and highly sought-after thought leader and speaker in emergent data, AI and privacy issues. She has advised industry executives, governments, intergovernmental organizations, and NGOs. Currently, she serves on the United Nations Expert Group on Governance and Artificial Intelligence and is Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Data Policy and Equity. In addition to this service, JoAnn is an executive advisor to the Cantellus Group, on the Global AI Council, the chair of the USCIB Policy Committee and a member of the OECD CDEP Committee. She teaches at Carnegie Mellon University in their Chief Data Officer program and is an adjunct professor at Pratt Institute, where she teaches in the Design Management Master’s Program.

Throughout her career she has been nominated and won various awards such as such the Business of Data’s Top 100 Data Leaders of the Year for 2022, Technology Magazine Top 100 Women in Tech for 2023, and 2023/22 CDO Magazine Global Data Power Women to name a few. In 2011, she was named a Fellow to The Aspen Institute’s First Mover’s Fellowship Program. Her work has been featured by Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Cybersecurity Law Report, JW Michael & Co. Captains of Privacy, Oliver Wyman Forum, Digital Future Society, American Banker and PYMNTS, The Economist, VentureBeat among other notable publications.

JoAnn received her Juris Doctorate from St. John’s University and her Bachelor of Science degree from St. Francis College. She holds memberships in the Bar of the State of New York and the Bar of the State of New Jersey. She is based in Purchase, N.Y.

Selected Features and Publications follow:

The Economist - The data dividend: harnessing information for competitive advantage"

World Economic Forum Global Technology Governance Summit -Shaping the Future of the Data Economy

Forbes - JoAnn Stonier of Mastercard—A Unique Take on the CDO Role

Forbes - Fighting AI Bias: Digital Rights are Human Rights

Harvard Business Review - Are You Asking Too Much of Your Chief Data Officer?

Cyber Security Law Report - The Growing Role of the Chief Data Officer: Skill Sets, Priorities and Collaboration

Captains of Privacy - Captains of Privacy Interview: JoAnn C. Stonier, Chief Data Officer for Mastercard

World Economic Forum - Closing the trust gap: how responsible data use can accelerate a sustainable society

Oliver Wyman Forum - Ensuring Privacy by Design

Digital Futures Society – JoAnn Stonier

Drexel - Beyond Payments: Insights from Mastercard’s Chief Data Officer