In this episode of Excitement Talk, Gordon Euchler sits down with Nicola Villa, Executive Vice President of Strategic Growth at Mastercard, to explore the intersections of technology, public policy, and economic transformation across three decades of innovation.

From his beginnings in industrial economics to his early days at Cisco’s European call center, Nicola shares an extraordinary career journey that took him from pioneering B2B e-commerce to global smart city initiatives, and now to AI-driven public sector solutions at Mastercard. Nicola shares why trust, not tech, is the real driver of innovation, how a tiny Finnish city near the Arctic Circle became a global reference point for innovation, the critical role of language and cultural translation between sectors, why copy-pasting Silicon Valley doesn’t work—and what to do instead. Moreover the four pillars Nicola believes every successful public-private partnership needs: leadership, governance, competencies, and technology.

Tune in to find out how to create real societal change at scale and get insights about the future of global innovation.