Leaders In Payments

This is episode 42 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and Denelle Dixon, the CEO and Executive Director of The Stellar Development Foundation is our special guest this week.  Before joining Stellar, Denelle served as COO of Mozilla. During her tenure at Mozilla, she led the organization’s business, revenue and policy teams including the ongoing fight for Net Neutrality. A lawyer by trade, Denelle previously served as a general counsel and legal advisor in private equity and technology.The Stellar Development Foundation is a non-profit and non-stock entity that focuses on shepherding the code base for the Stellar Network which is an open source global decentralized network very similar to the underpinning of the Internet. The network is similar to a blockchain but without the history or challenges that some people might think exits with blockchain. Stellar is hyper focused on making money fluid so people all over the world who don’t have bank accounts, can for example use their mobile phone to make payments or send money anywhere in the world. Denelle provides several use-cases that help bring this mission to life and has some great advice for those just starting their career in payments or fintech. www.stellar.orgwww.leadersinpayments.comwww.podcast609.com

This is episode 41 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and Chad Anselmo, the President of F1 Payments is our special guest this week.  Chad grew up in southern California went to school in Utah and today lives in Austin, Texas. F1 Payments is a leading merchant processing company that targets those verticals that are tougher to board such as nutraceuticals or the health and beauty vertical. They work closely with banks to make sure these merchants are approved. F1 Payments processes payments for roughly 2,500 accounts and has grown from 8 employees 2 years ago to 35 employees today.  Chad has some great thoughts on the future of payments as well as some great advice for those just starting their careers in payments.  www.f1payments.comwww.leadersinpayments.com

This is episode 40 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and Chris Brunner, the CEO of Authvia is our special guest this week.  Chris grew up on southern California went to University of Arizona and today lives in Las Angeles. He has a professional passion for the creating a great customer experience and typically enjoys golf, sailing and travelling but being the father of two teenage daughters he spends his time today with his family and running the business.  Authvia is the leading text to pay platform on the market today. It is contactless, secure and simple and runs over all the major messaging channels. There are no links, no passwords and no apps, the platform simply runs a transaction, a payment, or a donation over of the existing messaging channels.  The company started working with recurring billings merchants 4 years ago but is now in 20 plus verticals. Beyond just payments the platform can help manage scheduling, calendaring, and more. Authvia is connecting into 2 dozen payment processors and gateways and 4 of the top 6 largest payment processors either refer or resell the platform. www.authvia.com www.leadersinpayments.comwww.podcast609.com

This is episode 39 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and Lenny Crotty, the President of Metrics Global is our special guest this week. Lenny was born in a small town in Ireland called Ennis where the local airport has the claim to fame of having established the world’s first airport duty free store. Lenny was named President at Metrics Global at the end of August after spending the last 20 plus years in payments. Metrics Global is a global payments and fintech company that has been around about 15 years. They are headquartered in Las Vegas and have built a unified commerce and payments platform that connects both merchants and technology and payments partners to a global marketplace. They support international multi-currency acquiring in about 170 countries and currencies and have local acquiring capabilities in 59 markets.   Lenny has a passion for payments and fintech and a personal passion for self-development, wine, travel, reading and running.  www.metricsglobal.comwww.leadersinpayments.comwww.podcast609.com

This is episode 38 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and our special guest this week is Danny Shader the CEO of PayNearMe.  Danny was born and currently lives in Palo Alto, California but in between he lived in New York and LA. PayNearMe is a payments CRM company that manages the customer financial interactions between a biller and their customer. They process all the payments, run the payments portal, the mobile experience, the IVR, the software the customer service reps use, and much much more. They process the cash too – through their proprietary cash network where they have integrated into the point of sale systems at 27,000 retail locations including CVS, 7-11, Family Dollar and others. A bar code is issued to the customer and then scanned by the clerk behind the counter and they pay their bill just as they would for a gallon of milk. And this is all done in real-time so before they even reach their car in the parking lot the bill has been paid.    Their perfect customer is one that is managing recurring billing where they don’t want to custom code their own customer relationship management system or cobble together a solution of outside vendors. Ideal customers are those handling recurring billing through multiple channels and want to increase their payment volume, decrease their customer service calls and spend their engineering resources on things that will move their business forward. Danny provides some sounds advise for those starting their careers in fintech or payments. He suggests to find something you are very interested in, work with people you really like and work hard – do those things and you’ll do well.  www.paynearme.comwww.leadersinpayments.comwww.podcast609.com 

This is episode 37 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and Stephen Pair, the Co-Founder and CEO of BitPay is our special guest this week.  Stephen is a Georgia native and went to Georgia Tech where he got his Computer Science degree and currently he lives just outside of Atlanta.  BitPay was founded in 2011 with the idea of enabling companies to accept BitCoin payments similar to accepting credit cards. BitPay built an API similar to a common payments gateway for merchants to tap into so they could accept BitCoin – which at the time was the only cryptocurrency.  Their customers are traditionally in the IT services or cloud hosting space, electronics retailers or in the video gaming space. They also process transactions in the B2B space.   If you look at all of the cryptocurrencies and blockchains today there are hundreds of billions of dollars or wealth stored in these blockchains and by adding cryptocurrency into your payments platform you can tap into that wealth. When a company adds cryptocurrency as an alternative payment method, they see that 40-50% of those customers who pay with BitPay are actually net new customers.   Stephen tells an interesting story about how they got the domain name bitpay.com Stephen has a passion for solving difficult problems using technology. From a personal perspective he loves flying. He is a pilot and has his own plane and uses flying as an escape from the daily grind of running a business.  If you want to learn more about BitCoin, cryptocurrency and blockchain as it relates to the payments industry this is the episode you need to listen to. 

This is episdoe 36 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and Jeremy Almond, the Co-Founder and CEO of Paystand is our special guest this week.  Jeremy grew up in Stockton, California. He was one of the first people in his family to attend college and grad school and currently lives on the beach in Santa Cruz. Paystand is a b2b payment network. So, what Venmo does for consumers, Paystand does for companies engaging in large commercial transactions.   Paystand brings transformation in three areas 1. no paper – meaning digitization and automation, 2. no fees as they operate as a SaaS business model and 3. the value of an open industry. Jeremy has a fascinating story about how and why he started the company, including a turning point in his life driven from a family tragedy.  He provides some great insights about the future of payments and also provides some great insights for those just starting their careers in fintech or payments.    

This is episode 35 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and David Josephs, the CEO of DaVinci Payments is our special guest this week.  David lives just outside of Chicago, grew up in Queens and went to Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He worked on Capitol Hill for 6 years and has been in payments for 20 years. DaVinci Payments tries to do justice to their name by blending art and science and a quarter century of experience to provide corporate payments through virtual and physical means with prepaid cards and other form factors.  David has a passion for payments and a personal passion for reading. He provides some great insights about the future of payments and also provides some great insights for those just starting their careers.   www.davincipayments.comwww.leadersinpayments.comwww.podcast609.com

This is episode 34 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and Richie Serna, the CEO and Co-Founder of Finix is our special guest this week.  I’m honored to have Richie on the show this week. Richie was born and raised in California and was the first in his family to go to college. He received his bachelors degree in political science at Harvard and started his career in management consulting. Finix is a payments infrastructure provider that allows software companies to embed or integrate payments into their software which provides a better user experience and adds a new revenue stream – basically allowing them to transform their business models.  Richie has several interesting stories during the episode including things about the “hacker house” and the naming of the company. Richie has a great passion for people – from his customers to his employees. This is an episode you don’t want to miss.www.finix.comwww.leadersinpayments.com www.podcast609.com

This is episode 33 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and Keith Smith, the Co-Founder and CEO of Payability is our special guest this week.  Payability offers ecommerce sellers with friction-free cash flow and working capital solutions. These ecommerce sellers are typically on a large platform like Amazon or Shopify. Payability has a unique model and one I think you’ll find very interesting. Keith has a passion for his kids and being a Dad first. Professionally he loves to see how Payability helps small businesses and entrepreneurs live the American dream of starting and running their own business.  www.payability.comwww.leadersinpayments.com www.podcast609.com