Leaders In Payments

As we continue our spotlight on women leaders in payments this month, this week’s episode features Monneo Managing Director Lili Metodieva. A talented artist with a childhood dream to become a pilot, you may wonder how Lili ended up in fintech? The answer is simple: she thrives in dynamic, fast-paced environments and it most comfortable when she’s out of her comfort zone.

Lili was born in the sixth oldest city in Europe on the southside of Bulgaria. She received her undergrad degree in IT and a graduate degree in commerce. And her first job after college was selling telecommunication equipment to large companies looking to facilitate cross-border video communication. Following a short time in the telecom space, she decided she wanted to dive into something completely different and challenging so she took a job in ecommerce.

After 10 years in the payment space Lili then decided to take a break from the industry and start a personal venture related to Facebook marketing and online advertising. But it didn’t take long for her to realize that the payment space was ultimately her “dynamic love for life.”

For those of you who may not know Monneo is a company that specializes in connecting the dots between traditional banking and online commerce. Her job as managing director is to recognize opportunities, prevent mistakes and get things organized. She will be the first to say that business comes down to connection with people and her guiding principle is to treat others the way you would like to be treated. She also feels the most important quality every leader should possess is respect. 

Tune in this week to hear Lili talk about her journey through payments, what leadership means to her and how getting out of your comfort zone is the only way to progress and grow.

As we continue our journey through honoring our women in payments leaders this month, my next guest is another exceptional individual that does nothing short of inspire. Her name is Lixia Zhu and she is the global head of product for Vynamic Payments at Diebold Nixdorf.

 For those of you who may not know Diebold Nixdorf is an innovation bank with more than 150 years processing, 22,000 employees and a portfolio that spans 130 countries. They are dominant in both the hardware and software niches, spanning everything from ATMs, POS systems and protective safes to software services for global, retail, and private sector clients. Vynamic Payments, specifically, caters to top tier 1 & 2 global financial institutions.

 Lixia’s role in this company is to define strategy for business and product, oversee daily execution, leverage strategic partnerships, and optimize the go-to-market strategy. As for her background, Lixia grew up in China as the youngest of four daughters during a time when boys were favored, and her country promoted a one child only preference in the home. She will understandably credit her parents as active sources of inspiration for her noteworthy career journey and untappable potential.

 Not only is she leading a dynamic department in a full-time role, she’s also currently in the process of completing her global executive MBA program. Tune in this week to hear Lixia talk about the importance of getting out of your comfort zone as it relates to growth and momentum, her guiding principles of being authentic, open minded, and eager to learn, as well as the one quality she thinks every woman leader should possess in order to be successful in this industry, where women executives are the minority at only 4%. 

Her story is truly inspiring and her drive is contagious!

My guest this week marks our first impressive female leader in payments to kick off our Women Leaders in Payments monthly special. Her name is Kathleen Pierce-Gilmore, and she is the head of payments at Silicon Valley Bank.

For those of you who may not know, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is often referred to as “the bank of innovation” and is very popular throughout the fintech space. SVB caters specifically to private equity firms, venture capitalist firms, accelerators, and incubators. They serve as a commercial bank for standard BAU protocol and also provide infrastructure and licensing for their partners in need of embedded payments. In addition to all this, they also facilitate all things startup as far as fundraising, IPO, acquisition and the like, as well as a $7 billion capital platform used to invest in companies they gain exposure to through their innovation roots.

And if you think that’s impressive, wait until you hear about the woman behind their payments legacy. 

Kathleen grew up in what she would describe as very unstable circumstances. Her family suffered from severe financial insecurity and she will be the first one to say that poverty is more than just an economic state. However, it was this experience that drove her to become the woman she is today. This instability throughout childhood eventually brought her into one of the most stable industries available. And her journey getting there has been absolutely fascinating!

With a résumé that includes some of our industries heaviest hitters such as American Express, Capital One and PayPal, Kathleen has truly been a trailblazer for women everywhere – not just in payments. Tune in this week to hear her talk about her guiding principles of integrity, excellence, compassion, and happiness, as well as what it takes to be a change agent and what every woman leader should possess.

My guest today is a self-proclaimed “black sheep recovering banker” who is still trying to figure out how to make the world a better place and save customers money on the cost of doing business. C2FO CEO Sandy Kemper is at the pinnacle of a fascinating career spanning decades in the payments space.

 For those of you who may not know, C2FO is it a decentralized financing platform that services approximately 1.3 million customers globally and across all verticals. Their mission is to provide low cost, convenient capital to everyone that needs it, and they are driven by a passion to help companies find ways to grow their business. In a nutshell, their platform matches accounts payable and accounts receivable transactors to allow those that have accounts payable to pay early or over an extended amount of time to ensure that nothing limits the flow of capital between suppliers and customers.

 One of the things I found this fascinating about this interview is the mind-blowing stats that Sandy provides. According to him, the total economic output of the world is around $240 trillion. And if you then assume that the average payment term on any given transaction is approximately 60 days, that’s $40 trillion of accounts payable or accounts receivable on the books of businesses around the world at any given time. And this gives you a Birdseye view of their global target market.

 Tune in to hear Sandy talk about his journey to CEO, including what the next 2-3 years offer as it relates to more transparency and reduced friction in payments and financing, the applicability of crypto and Blockchain in his particular industry, as well as the advantage C2FO offers to diverse business owners with their no-risk-assessment-needed business model.

This episode is sponsored by Citizens Pay. Designed to streamline the buying process, Citizens Pay is a leader in “Buy Now Pay Later” that provides merchants the security of a premier national bank on an omnichannel platform which drives sales and builds loyalty.

If you want to learn more about Citizens Pay, visit https://citizensbank.mvk.co/2hycr where you can find additional information about Citizens Pay’s buy now pay later financing solution.

What does a video game designer and avid Vietnamese art collector have to do with payments? A lot! Evvio Co-Founder Adrian Jones started his entrepreneurial career at 15 years old in the videogame design industry, only to find that his passion for technology and the impact it can have on the world around him would eventually propel his career into the ecommerce payments space.

For those of you who may not know, Evvio is an ecommerce technology company that provides opportunities for anyone, anywhere to participate in ecommerce. They specialize in person-to-person emerging ecommerce transactions and their technology adds tremendous value to exchange networks such as: 

●      Social commerce

●      Super apps

●      Online gaming 

●      And the metaverse!

Fluid commerce is probably one of the biggest buzzwords you’ll hear in this podcast, with Evvio driving this intention for their target audience. And one of their main objectives is to make ecommerce inclusive in that it doesn’t require a bank account or credit card to transact. As for their competitive advantage, the ability to earn and spend without value passing out of the e-commerce network is the first thing that Adrian points out, followed closely by fraud prevention capabilities that allow the seller and buyer to maintain a cryptographic agreement of services being used.

Tune in this week to hear Adrian talk about the future of our industry as it relates to the projected growth of person-to-person ecommerce, the demise of credit and debit card payments, and the social commerce exchange that will spike from $560 billion in 2020 to $2.9 trillion in 2026. As for what he projects beyond the next 10 years, he has this to say based on his own experience: “Much as we try to forecast what the world will be like in years ahead, there are just so many things we don’t see coming.” Don’t miss this one!

My guest this week has a genuine passion for building things that create a significant impact and then using it as a mechanism for change. But according to Inscribe CEO and Co-Founder Ronan Burke, the true fulfillment in this comes with creating the opportunity on your own and not waiting for someone else to give it to you.

For those of you who may not know, Inscribe is a fraud detection automation company that helps fintechs approve more customers by automating their account opening and underwriting workflows. This includes automatically overseeing some of the most fundamental checkpoints when it comes to ensuring safe, secure transactions, such as:

·       Identity verification and KYC

·       Corporate control

·       Platform integrity

From a long-term perspective, Inscribe’s mission is to create a fair and efficient payments ecosystem by protecting platform integrity through automation and fraud detection. And their product adds value to any company that transacts large payments and facilitates high-trust interactions. And as for what makes them stand out against their competitors, one of their main advantages is they offer a fully automated solution with absolutely zero human engagement in the detection approval loop.

Tune in this week to hear Ronan talk about his journey to CEO and what the next 2-3 years look like as it relates to fraud. One thing he knows for certain is that fraud will increase substantially as the payments industry moves towards faster, cheaper, and more real-time transactions. As for what he foresees in the next decade, it looks like we can expect an ecosystem that offers less risky and even safer options when it comes to facilitating large transactions in an online environment versus a traditional retail scenario. 

This episode is sponsored by Citizens Pay. With Citizens Pay, merchants have the security of a leading national bank and an omnichannel platform designed to streamline the buying process.  If you want to learn more about Citizens Pay, visit https://citizensbank.mvk.co/2hycr where you can find additional information about Citizens Pay and the buy now pay later payment model.

 My guests today are President, Lynne Baldwin and CEO Jack Baldwin from BHMI. BHMI develops and licenses the Concourse Financial software suite which is an integrated cohesive collection of back-office products that operate in near real-time.

 The product is architected around the Common Core with four separate applications that bolt on to it including extended settlement, reconciliation, fees and commissions and disputes. BHMI sells primarily to large scale financial services companies including financial institutions, banks and co-ops, processors, networks, issuers, and acquirers.

 Their primary differentiators are that they focus exclusively on the back-office and their near real-time processing. BHMI employees less than 100 people by design and pride themselves in providing excellent customer support.  

 Jack and Lynne are passionate about helping injured wildlife and have help create the Baldwin Wildlife Center where they care for between five and seven thousand injured animals per year. 

My guest this week has a passion for learning and evolving as a leader, as well as keeping in touch with his employees and understanding what their day-to-day looks like. In fact, it’s his favorite way to spend his coffee break. SEON COO and Co-Founder Bence Jendruszak is a leader in the fraud prevention space with a proprietary platform that offers a plug-and-play API and a data enrichment advantage.

For those of you who may not know, SEON started as a cryptocurrency exchange platform. However, a string of fraud experienced personally through this business venture eventually led Bence and his team to rethink their strategy. In his own words, “we faced fraud in our own skin because we started accepting credit card payments and our business was pretty much going to burn to the ground.” Upon looking for a solution in the marketplace to address their specific needs, Bence and his team found nothing. Thus, SEON was born. Originally a fraud prevention tool to address their own business needs, they later pivoted it into a sales tool that became their dominant go-to-market asset. “Our mission outgrew itself when we realized we could sell it on a global scale to make a global difference.”

As for their target audience, SEON offers value to any online business dealing with fraud issues or authenticating online users. They offer an out-of-the-box solution with one single API that can be individually adapted to the needs of the user, in addition to a meaningful data enrichment advantage with the intention to focus on live information versus stale data.

Tune in this week to hear Bence talk about his journey to COO, as well as where he sees the industry in the next 2-3 years when it comes to decentralization, cryptocurrency and blockchain. Spoiler alert: fraud is here to stay!

My guest this week has a vision for payments and a passion for ice cream! Orum CEO Stephany Kirkpatrick comes by her entrepreneurial spirit naturally as the daughter of an immigrant who came to the U.S. with nothing and “built from zero to something.” This in and of itself gave her passion for what our financial system can do to power the American household. 

Fast-forward several years later and Stephany found herself with a burning desire to “power a financial system where everyone has the freedom to build to their potential.” And that is just what she did with Orum. For those of you who may not know, Orum is a B2B embedded payments program that gives customers access to their money faster, along with a better capacity to maneuver through the financial system. Through their unified API, you can move money in all directions and across all major domestic payment rails. 

According to Stephany, they are “at the intersection of infrastructure in the financial ecosystem,” with speed being the number one problem they’re solving for. Or, more specifically, the speed at which customers can get money into their crypto wallet and onto the blockchain. 

“We sit in the middle of the complex two-part transaction with an interoperable layer that allows customers to start their transaction on RTP and finish it on card rails,” for example. Stephany goes on to say that Orum is consistently optimizing for speed, risk, and cost so that consumer lives can be transactional 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Tune in this week to hear Stephanie talk about the future of crypto, the necessity of RTP, and the $72 trillion market that Orum strives to support and optimize.

My guest this week has a burning desire to take the road less traveled and a passion for interacting authentically with others who have different lived experiences. He comes from a family of entrepreneurs and always knew he wanted to start a business that would make a positive impact on the world. So, of all the different businesses he could choose to start, why did he choose technology? According to Remitly Co-Founder/ CEO Matt Oppenheimer, “inherent in technology is the ability to scale and make a massive impact.” And this is just what he set out to do! 

A global citizen who has traveled close to 100 countries, Matt saw firsthand the challenges that come with cross-border payment remittance. And thus, Remitly was born with a vision to “transform the lives of immigrants and their families by providing the most trusted financial remittance services on the planet.” They sent more than $20 million to 5 million customers across 2,000 corridors (think U.S. to Mexico) last year alone and their core value proposition includes three main pillars: trust, peace of mind and reliability. 

According to Matt, Remitly is “doing for remittance what Amazon did for e-commerce.” They have 22 different send countries, with 130 receive countries in their portfolio. And just to give you an idea of their target audience, there’s roughly $1.6 trillion worth of funds that get sent globally every year. 

Tune in this week to hear Matt talk about is journey from Nairobi, Kenya to Remitly’s CEO. We also talk about what to expect from our industry in the next 2-3 years as it relates to remittance specifically. Did you know, for example, that 75 to 80% of customers still go to a physical cash location to send money back home? Matt foresees a shift coming in this sector as consumers begin to trust digital more. As for what keeps him up at night and what he spends a tremendous amount of his time and intention trying to create? You’ll have to tune in to find out!