Inside the Future of Payments: Adyen CEO

Feb 5, 2026

Pieter van der Does, co-founder and co-CEO of Adyen, a payments fintech scaling global merchant payments. He shares Adyen’s origin story and why they built every layer in-house. Listens about engineering-led culture and hiring standards. Discusses AI in authorizations, fraud, KYC, and trends like shopper identity, omnichannel and least-cost routing.

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ANECDOTE

Humble Sabbatical Sparked A Global Startup

Pieter van der Does left RBS after a two-year agreement, took a sabbatical in Brazil, and was later convinced by his co-founder to start Adyen.
Early traction came from MyCityDeal/Groupon, which rolled out globally and provided the volume that helped Adyen scale.

INSIGHT

Win Big Customers To Prove Product Value

Adyen targeted large merchants first because small merchants couldn't measure marginal improvements in authorization rates.
Focusing on customers who value performance enabled the company to prove its product and scale rapidly.

INSIGHT

Authorization Rates Are The Competitive Edge

Improving authorization rates and reducing false positives was a core differentiator for Adyen.
They combined AI-driven fraud detection with least-cost routing to boost acceptance and reduce costs.

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Adyen has scaled from an Amsterdam startup to a global fintech by building every layer of payments in-house and focusing relentlessly on merchants. Pieter van der Does, co-founder and co-CEO of Adyen, joins Clif Marriott, co-head of Technology, Media and Telecoms in EMEA at Goldman Sachs, to discuss Adyen's origin story, the strategy that helped Adyen scale to roughly $900 billion in annual processed volume, and a winning company culture that fosters global collaboration. This session was recorded in London on November 5, 2025.

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