Leaders In Payments

That was Meidad Sharon, CEO of ChargeAfter and he is our special guest this week. This is episode 54 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and I’m your host Greg Myers Meidad was born and grew up in Israel. He spent half of his time in Isreal and half in the U.S. and recently decided to make the U.S. his permanent home. He started his career in management consulting and then to the mobile industry and then to payments 10 years ago. ChargeAfter is the market leading point of sale financing or buy now pay later platform enabling consumer to have the choice of which solution is best for them. They serve markets with high average order value such as furniture electronics, luxury goods, and travel. They collect four data points from the consumer, and then match the consumer profile with the most relevant buy now pay later solution and only display or offer up those where the consumer will be approved. ChargeAfter has an approval rate of 85% which is higher than most single lenders which typically have a 30-40% approval rate.They help the merchants because the merchant can integrate to one solution not multiple lenders – which gives the merchant’s customers a simple customer experience.  This is a great episode about point-of-sale financing or buy now pay later which is a growing segment of our industry. www.chargeafter.com www.leadersinpayments.com

I’m honored to be joined on this fifth episode of our special series about diversity and inclusion by Joe Carella. In fact, this is actually part two of my interview with Joe. If you missed the first part just visit leadersinpayments.com or any of your favorite podcast apps and search for episode 50. Joe Carella is a Professor of Global Strategy and the Assistant Dean for Executive Education at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. He has over 20 years of experience in helping executives and corporations in talent development, inclusive workplaces, managing change, strategy formulation and execution. His academic and research engagements have seen him focus on strategic decision making, corporate strategy, talent development and business performance with a variety of corporate clients including Hershey's, Chevron, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, Intel, BBVA and Microsoft. He is also responsible for designing, developing and delivering successful executive education programs for global corporations. Joe has also been a contributor to Money 2020, a keynote speaker on the state of the industry at the annual congress of the Forum of European Technology Professionals, the Society for the Plastics Industry, the Association for Talent Development and Disrupt HR. Joe has been a contributor to the Harvard Business Review focusing on the challenges of leadership.Joe’s specialties include organizational change, talent development, diversity, business strategy, innovation, business intelligence, facilitation, coaching, leadership development, executive education and global business.

This episode is part of our special series on The Digital Payments Tipping Point. In this three part series I will talking with executives from WEX who in the summer of 2020, partnered with the research team at The Economist to look into the state of business-to-business payments in financial services, financial technology companies or fintechs and technology companies. The study found that companies that have grown during the pandemic are almost all accelerating their evolution away from slow, manual, paper-based payments into secure, data-rich, real-time digital payments.This 3-part series digs into the issues surrounding this rapid evolution in digital payments including building, partnering or both, interchange realities, and the shape of payments to come. Our first episode features our special guest Greg Sassone the SVP of Business and Partner Growth at WEX. He’s been in payments and financial services for 20 years.  WEX is a B2B Payments Technology Company. Their Corporate Payments division focuses on innovating digital payments solutions for financial institutions and fintechs as well as large corporations that need to modernize their AP processes.   

This is episode 51 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and our special guest this week is Tom Lineen, CEO of West Town Payments. Tom was born in Brooklyn NY, grew up in New Jersey  and attended North Carolina State University in Raleigh He has lived in multiple cities including LA, Charlotte, Tampa, New York City, and now to Park Cities Utah. Tom is the CEO West Town Payments which is a joint venture with West Town Bank and Trust. The bank has its roots in agriculture and as there’s a shift from tobacco to hemp the bank is there to help these merchant. So naturally hemp and CBD businesses are big opportunities for the bank from a deposit and treasury services perspective.  West Town Payments now allows the bank to also offer merchant services to these hemp and CBD businesses as well as others in the bank’s portfolio. The bank takes a compliance-first approach to board these merchants and Tom explains some of the unique compliance factors in this space. This is a growing and interesting industry and is expected to reach $26.6B by 2025. 

This is episode 50 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and this is the fourth episode in our special series focused on Diversity and Inclusion. In this series I will be talking with leaders in the payments industry (and maybe some experts from outside of the industry) about diversity and inclusion. It has been proven that a diverse workforce and diverse management team leads to increased creativity, better decision making, reduced employee turnover and increased profit – as well as many other benefits that we will be talking about. This special series is brought to you by the Wnet and Paysafe.The Wnet or The Women's Network in Electronic Transactions is celebrating 15 years of helping women achieve greater personal success, influence, and professional parity in the payments industry. Wnet is a not-for-profit organization with a mission of creating a stronger and more diverse industry by empowering and investing in women. Learn how at www.wnetonline.org.Paysafe is a leading, global specialized payment provider. They’ve been driving innovation in and around payments for over 20 years all over the globe for both businesses and consumers. Paysafe believes Diversity and Inclusion is not just a checkbox, but rather a journey in which they are fully committed to being on around the world. Learn more at www.paysafe.com. I’m honored to be joined on this fourth episode of our special series about diversity and inclusion by Joe Carella. In fact, my interview with Joe was so full of incredibly useful information that we decided to break it into to two episodes, so this is the first of two with Joe Carella. Joe Carella is a Professor of Global Strategy and the Assistant Dean for Executive Education at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. He has over 20 years of experience in helping executives and corporations in talent development, inclusive workplaces, managing change, strategy formulation and execution. His academic and research engagements have seen him focus on strategic decision making, corporate strategy, talent development and business performance with a variety of corporate clients including Hershey's, Chevron, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, Intel, BBVA and Microsoft. He is also responsible for designing, developing and delivering successful executive education programs for global corporations. Link to research mentioned in this podcast:  www.executive.eller.arizona.edu Joe’s email: carella@arizona.eduwww.leadersinpayments.com

This is episode 49 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and Ron Israch, the Chief Marketing Officer for Tipalti, is our special guest this week. Rob has been at Tipalti for over 6 years ad runs marketing and all alliances for the company. He grew up in south Florida and moved up and down the east coast and then finally to the west coast where he’s been for the last 20 years. His family is originally from South Africa. Tipalti is a comprehensive, global payables automation solution that automates all manual supplier payment processes. Its customers typically wipe out 80% of their payables workload, enabling them to focus on mission-critical initiatives. Tipalti helps strengthen compliance and financial controls, avoid future AP headcount requirements, accelerate the financial close by 25%, and employ AP best practices. Rob differentiates mass-pay workflows which you would see in gig economy, online marketplaces, internet, gaming, and more modern economies versus the more traditional accounts payable workflows like you would see from software companies, manufacturing, healthcare, etc. Tipalti excels at both solutions and serves customers across all verticals.  www.tipalti.com

This is episode 48 of the Leaders in Payment podcast and this is also our third episode in our special series focused on Diversity and Inclusion.In this series I will be talking with leaders in the payments industry (and maybe some experts from outside of the industry) about diversity and inclusion. It has been proven that a diverse workforce and diverse management team leads to increased creativity, better decision making, reduced employee turnover and increased profit – as well as many other benefits that we will be talking about. This special series is brought to you by the Wnet and Paysafe.Give yourself a present! Receive holiday coping strategies from the Wnet. Unwrap a Holiday COVID Survival Guide from the Atlanta Chapter on Wednesday, December 2. Celebrate mindfulness and reduce your stress with the North Texas Chapter on Thursday, December 3. Everyone is welcome to these free online LinkUps. Register at wnetonline.org on their events page. Paysafe is a leading, global specialized payment provider. They’ve been driving innovation in and around payments for over 20 years all over the globe for both businesses and consumers. Paysafe believes Diversity and Inclusion is not just a checkbox, but rather a journey in which they are fully committed to being on around the world. Learn more at www.paysafe.com. I’m honored to be joined on the third episode by Liz Pike.Liz Pike is President of Green Rhino Recruitment, with offices in Phoenix, Atlanta, Seattle and Denver.  She focuses her recruitment practice in the area of payment processing and fintech, with strong understanding of the payments ecosystem, players, and technology.Liz grew up in southern Idaho and graduated from Arizona State University. She managed Sales Recruiting at Heartland and also worked for 2 years at TSYS in Corp Recruiting. In the middle of her recruiting career, she worked at an IPSP and an ISO to get hands-on experience and understand payments.Liz is a Board Member of Wnet and currently lives in Phoenix with her husband. 

This is episode 47 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and Brian Dammeir, the president of North America for Adyen is our special guest this week. Brian is from Wisconsin and went to University of Wisconsin at Madison – he originally studied education. Eventually he got into fraud prevention which lead him into payments. Adyen is a payments technology company that empower some of the world largest brands. They focus on technology and online global players, in-store and unified commerce payments, and platforms and marketplaces.  They have approximately 1,500 employees globally and roughly 200 employees in the North America.  Adyen’s one platform philosophy, their global aspect and their direct connections to the networks are their true differentiators and provides a unique value proposition to their customers.   Brian provides some great advice for those just starting their careers in payments. www.adyen.comwww.leadersinpayments.com

This is episode 46 of the Leaders in Payment podcast and this is also our second episode in our special series focused on Diversity and Inclusion. In this series I will be talking with leaders in the payments industry (and maybe some experts from outside of the industry) about diversity and inclusion. It has been proven that a diverse workforce and diverse management team leads to increased creativity, better decision making, reduced employee turnover and increased profit – as well as many other benefits that we will be talking about. This special series is brought to you by the Wnet and Paysafe.Please join the Wnet for more discussions about Diversity & Inclusion with their Boston Chapter on Nov. 17, and their Tampa Chapter on Nov. 18. Everyone is welcome to these free online LinkUps. Register at wnetonline.org on their events page. Paysafe is a leading, global specialized payment provider. They’ve been driving innovation in and around payments for over 20 years all over the globe for both businesses and consumers. Paysafe believes Diversity and Inclusion is not just a checkbox, but rather a journey in which they are fully committed to being on around the world. Learn more at www.paysafe.com. I’m honored to be joined on the second episode by Afshin Yazdian.Afshin joined Paysafe as its CEO, U.S. Acquiring, in July, 2020, bringing over two decades’ leadership experience in payments. In his role, he is charged with bringing to life Paysafe’s vision of being the U.S.’s leading payments solutions provider.  www.wnetonline.orgwww.paysafe.com www.leadersinpayments.com

This is episode 45 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and Atif Siddiqi, the CEO of Branch is our special guest this week.  Atif grew up in Southern California and got his undergrad and MBA from USC and currently is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.   Branch is a challenger bank that partners with employers to help Americans grow financially. They offer financial wellness tools to employees, fee free checking accounts, early access to earned wages, budgeting tools and more. They have 90 employees today. Branch works with companies like Dominoes to digitally distribute tips to the delivery drivers onto the Branch wallet so the drivers can get paid right after they make a delivery. One of the core themes at Branch is to eliminate or reduce as many fees as possible – the solution is free to employees and employers.  They make a small fee when the debit card is used at a merchant.  Atif is very passionate about payments and learning about the technology behind payments and specifically blockchain. www.branchapp.comwww.leadersinpayments.com