Mastercard is rolling out its Virtual C-Suite for its small- and medium-size business clients, starting with a virtual chief financial officer.  

“The Virtual CFO is a key place to start because finance sits at the center of strategic business decisions,” Mastercard’s Chief Commercial Payments Officer Raj Seshadri told FinAi News. 

The roughly 400 million small- and medium-size enterprises globally account for approximately 90% of all businesses, 70% of employees and 50% of global GDP, according to the World Economic Forum. 

“Yet, many [of these businesses] must navigate increasing financial and operational complexity with limited resources,” Seshadri said, noting that’s where a virtual C-suite comes in.  

The Virtual C-Suite is “a new agentic experience designed specifically with small businesses in mind, to help them operate with executive-level insight and decisioning,” she said. 

Small businesses might have a shortage of resources, but there is no shortage of data for such things as payments, expenses and performance metrics, Sheshadri said. However, “there is a gap in turning that data into actionable insights.” 

AI can fill that gap. 

“AI allows us to move beyond digitization, into interpretation, providing always-on, executive-level financial guidance that was previously out of reach for most businesses,” she said. 

Role of virtual CFO

A virtual chief financial officer (CFO) works all day, every day, analyzing and monitoring tasks that used to be time-consuming, including: 

• Identifying cash flow risks; 

• Flagging anomalies; 

• Benchmarking against peers; 

• Managing working capital and supplier relationships; 

• Optimizing payments; 

• Pulling reports; and 

• Reconciling data across systems. 

“The Virtual CFO utilizes data across the systems and platforms the business already uses — from payments to expenses to cash flow — and translates it into actionable insights,” Sheshadri said.  

“Ultimately it’s about turning data into a dialogue — making financial intelligence both accessible and actionable in real time.” 

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