Leaders In Payments

In this episode we take a deep dive into the world of high-value, complex B2B payments with our guest, Andrew Hawkins, CEO UK & Europe for ShieldPay. He's here to show us how ShieldPay is revolutionizing the payments industry with solutions aimed at reducing manual processes and risk. Hear about his exciting journey, from dabbling in technology in his early years to becoming the CEO of a leading fintech company. As you listen, you'll learn about the innovative services they offer, including enabling mergers and acquisitions and capital markets, and how they aim to continue growing and progressing.

But that's not all! We also venture into the thrilling future of payments and financial services. Imagine a world where payments are less visible and seamlessly integrated into our daily lives - from a simple Apple tap to pay to EV car charging. We explore the impending decentralization and disaggregation of financial services, and the potential of technologies enabling tokenization, digital identity, and smart contracts. Get your gears grinding as we discuss the implications of the PSD3 regulations in Europe and the evolving role of data in the next generation of financial services. This episode is a goldmine for anyone interested in understanding and staying ahead in the ever-evolving world of payments and fintech.

My next guest for our Women Leaders in Payments series has both an entrepreneur and facilitator spirit, being born into a family of self-starters and go-getters that depended on their entrepreneurial ventures for their foundation. KeyBank Senior Leader, Commercial Payments Carol Wang started her career in marketing but her intrigue with payments quickly changed her trajectory.

One of Carol’s roles at KeyBank is to lead the Solutions Engineering Team – a dedicated department that provides end-to-end technical payment services. Why did Carol choose KeyBank? In a nutshell, she perceived the capacity to build her career the way she wanted to within the infrastructure of a large organization.

As for her guiding principles, there’s one tried and true principle that has been with her throughout her entire career, and one that has adapted as her career has matured. Regarding the tried and true one, Carol emphasizes the importance of looking at who you’re going to work with and for versus just focusing on the job itself. And the other? Having an opportunity that will allow you to make a scalable difference.  

We also discuss her most eye-opening career moments – including a corporate case study she participated in that had some pretty interesting results regarding the typical male and female response. Don’t miss it!

My guest this week has his roots in India but has lived in just about every country you can possibly imagine, including Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, United Kingdom, United States, Australia and even Egypt. He’s an avid reader, trivia enthusiast, and spends his spare time evangelizing the gospel of cloud native code. Pismo CEO NA, EMEA & APAC Vishal Dalal is this week’s leader in payments.

For those of you who may not know, Pismo is a cloud-native platform. Vishal explains it like this: when anyone gets in touch with a bank via a card swipe, ATM, our Internet portal, there is a giant piece of software that does a plethora of work on the backend to check balances, process payment messages to other banks and verify accounting. Pismo makes that software and ensures that it works seamlessly, effectively, and nonstop without any interruptions – anywhere.

As for their competitive advantage, Vishal touts their ability to offer a multitude of products versus many of their competitors that play in only one space. They also target both the green and brown field market sectors (with most competitors targeting only green) and they operate solely in the public cloud. Another way to look at them? Think the Autobahn for financial infrastructure!

Tune in to hear Vishal talk about his journey to the role of CEO, including where he sees the industry going in the next 2 to 3 years including the limitless possibilities of AI. We also talk about the innumerable opportunities that come from cloud native code, enabling anyone with a bright idea and a credit card to do amazing things.

My third guest in our Women Leaders in Payments series is a true example of what it takes to be a female leader in our industry. She started at Burger King, as a ham and cheese guru, working her way up to cashier – and all to pay for her ESL classes at university in Boston (including Harvard). And now? CEO and Head of Financial Institutions LATAM at Standard Chartered Bank! Germana Cruz has learned how to always be ready for the unexpected. In fact, she embraces it! 

Learn what attracted her to the financial industry and what kept her with the same bank for the majority of her career. Hint: Work-life balance. It’s absolutely fascinating to hear her talk about the importance of performing her role as a mother, as it relates to her corporate success. 

As for guiding principles, she has three: invest in your education is first and foremost, followed by managing expectations and identifying your values in a manner that prevents you from crossing your own lines.

Tune in to hear Germana talk about her journey as a female leader in this industry, including the necessity for choosing your battles, the importance of listening, and the feedback that completely changed her understanding of her projected career path.

My guest on this episode is nothing short of interesting. Not only does she have a very successful finance company, she also has a blog and a gaming group that caters specifically to poker players! In fact, poker is a personal passion of hers that (she feels) has helped her become a better founder due to the many metaphors the game offers for life and business. Bluejay Finance Co-founder and CEO Sherry Jiang is this week’s leader in payments.

For those of you who may not know, Bluejay Finance is a Blockchain technology company that strives to make it easier for private investors to tap into private market investments typically less accessible in the professional world. Sherry likens it to a crypto-based Angel List, only for private market investments outside venture capital.

The two main players in their ecosystem include individual investors and borrowers (or asset originators). As for as their competitive advantage, BlueJay focuses on private credit as the asset class and offers the potential for granular investments that have the capacity to target the under $50 million investment sector (which is currently underserved) with a more passive income strategy.

Tune in this week to hear Sherry talk about her journey to CEO, including the lessons she has learned when it comes to product versus people, testing, learning, and iterating – and the truth about the non-linear journey. We also talk about where she sees the industry going in the next 2 to 10 years as it relates to mobile payments, cryptocurrency and Blockchain.

Here to help me kick off the second episode of our Women Leaders in Payments series is Chase Payment Solutions Canada President Marilu Gaudio. Marilu grew up with first generation Italian immigrants, in a traditional Italian household focused on family and food. In fact, she credits her father for her amazing work ethic that has gotten her so far in her career. So, how did she wind up going into payments when one of her original career paths had her slated as a teacher? You’ll have to tune in to find out!

As I’m sure most of you know, Chase Payment Solutions is a full acquirer, offering payment services and solutions for both small and large enterprise clients. Marilu’s department works closely with the Canadian payment network, corporate and franchise organizations, as well as financial institutions, associations, and technology partners to both integrate and optimize the payments ecosystem.

When it comes to her guiding principles, she cites integrity, honesty, and resiliency as her top three. We also talk about the importance of treating others the way you, yourself, would like to be treated and the need for active listening in management roles. She also strives to always show up as a student, not an expert, in both life and business.

Tune in to hear Marilu talk about her journey to President, including why she grades the current state of our industry on a C+ to B- scale when it comes to female leadership and where we can do better. We also discuss some of her most eye-opening career moments that taught her the value that comes from not attempting to be the expert on absolutely everything.

Here to help me close out our six-part series on embedded finance is Inktavo CEO James Armijo. After a brief stint in finance, James was quick to ascertain the truth that spending 16 hours a day working a spreadsheet would not lead to a tremendous amount of career satisfaction for him personally. So, he made the jump from finance to SaaS companies and payments and never looked back! As for what keeps him up at night these days, it has a little to do with payroll and a lot to do with the future of the embedded finance ecosystem. 

For those of you who may not know, Inktavo is a SaaS platform that supports apparel decorators (or screen printers) in their mission to provide decorative apparel to their local community. Their software is unique in that they provide an all-in-one platform for their customers to thrive and flourish, including customizable designs, web checkout, order tracking and (of course) embedded finance options.

In talking with James about the embedded finance journey, it’s interesting to hear his take on the steppingstones and stumbling blocks present in such a prolific ecosystem. For Inktavo’s customer base specifically, lending is one of the most significant value adds they can provide in a much more streamlined fashion due to the data they have access to. 

Tune in this week to hear James discuss all things embedded finance, including the three-phase embedded roadmap and the benefit that comes from focusing on customer pain points versus just monetization when it comes to your embedded strategy. We also talk about where he sees the embedded ecosystem in the next 2-5 years as it relates to payroll and AP/AR initiatives.

My guest on episode 238 has a passion for football, tennis, F1 and (of course) payments! Only, not in that order. A self-proclaimed payments geek, Paramount Commerce COO Dave Roe is a product guy at heart with a self-driven mission to make the complex look simple – especially when it comes to payments!

For those of you who may not know, Paramount Commerce is the leading bank-account-based payment solutions provider. The company itself just celebrated 20 years in business and has roughly 150 satisfied employees. They specialize in the online gaming and sports betting sector, as well as international e-commerce, and their two biggest offerings revolve around Interac-based payments products and instant bank transfer via the EFT rails.

As for their competitive advantage that has enabled them to process more than $1 billion in payments, Dave circles back to their mission: to simplify payments for all sides of the transaction. We talk in detail about how the payment experience can make or break your conversion rate, as well as your customer relationship. Dave focuses heavily on their best-in-class payments experience and their strategic partnership strategy, as well as their genuine intention to make good friends with each and every customer. 

Tune in to hear Dave talk about his journey to COO and where he sees the industry going in the next 2 to 3 years, including the numerous changes expected in bank-to-bank payments, the advancement in open banking, and the expectation of real-time rails. 

My guests this week earned her very first dollar selling avocados with her neighborhood friend, took her first job as a retail warehouse employee and was actually one of the original baristas before Starbucks made it such a mainstream profession. So how did she wind up in payments? You’ll have to tune in to find out! Spoiler alert: it was a tough choice between deodorant and financial technology.

Clover Network CMO Andrea Gellert is here to help me kick off our annual Women Leaders in Payments month!

For those of you who may not know, Clover is the leading cloud-based POS solution for small and medium sized businesses in the U.S. They offer a front office solution for payment acceptance, as well as a technology platform for business management. As for their competitive advantage, Andrea touts not only their capacity to offer enterprise-grade solutions for small businesses but also their genuine emphasis on the human connection – creating a business model that focuses much more on the relationship than the transaction.

We spend some time talking about her most eye-opening moments throughout the span of her career, including how to facilitate and sustain the startup pace-of-change, high-energy environment regardless of the company size, as well as how your efforts tend to get diffused when you explore absolutely every business opportunity for your brand.

Tune in to hear Andrea talk about her journey to CMO, including the guiding principles that have helped her navigate her career and why it’s always so important to start any journey with the end in mind. We also discuss the most powerful lesson she learned from a round of constructive criticism that continues to influence her management style even to this day. 

Here to kick off the next episode in our embedded finance series is Maast Chief Revenue Officer Ernie Moran. Ernie has been in the industry for more than 25 years and is currently an integral part of the team that is defining embedded finance at his company. What’s his recipe for success? According to Ernie, a disciplined focus on delivering real value to the market always wins out. And there are few things that offer more value in our industry than embedded finance.

For those of you who may not know, Maast helps software providers like ERP and vertical SaaS become a one stop shop for their customers by offering as suite of integrated services in their software platform. Their goal is to simplify money management for businesses while enabling software providers to unlock the hidden revenue offered through the embedded ecosystem in a manner that truly optimizes the customer experience.

Ernie himself defines embedded finance as “everything to do with the flow of money” and gives a comprehensive overview of the three-step process required for the most efficient embedded model for any business. Also on tap for our discussion is the necessity of having the right products, at the right time, and in a manner that is easy to consume. We also talk about the ISO community and their role in the future of embedded finance. 

Tune in to hear Ernie talk about the embedded ecosystem including the embedded finance trend as it relates to the overall industry, the necessity for innovation to stay real-time and relevant, and the projected demise of organizations focused on selling traditional payment services. Ernie wraps up with some great concepts both software companies and ISOs should consider when exploring embedded finance.