Women Leaders in Payments: Paulette Rowe, Jenn Reichenbacher, Lisa Roberts of Stax | Episode 337

This special episode of the Leaders in Payments podcast offers a wealth of knowledge and insights from three trailblazing women leaders at Stax Payments —Paulette Rowe, Jenn Reichenbacher and Lisa Roberts. 

Paulette Rowe, the CEO of Stax, provides a compelling narrative of her career journey, from consumer banking to leadership roles at PaySafe and Meta. She emphasizes the importance of mentorship and professional development, sharing her experiences of stepping out of her comfort zone and taking on significant leadership roles. Paulette's journey is a testament to the power of mentorship and the impact it can have on one's career trajectory.

Jenn Reichenbacher, the Chief Marketing Officer, brings her extensive experience in the payments space to the table. She discusses her journey through various companies like Merchant Warehouse, EverCommerce, and her current role at Stax, where she focuses on driving growth through innovative marketing strategies.

Lisa Roberts, the General Counsel, offers a unique perspective from her 25-year legal career. She highlights the importance of understanding the broader business context and the role of legal compliance in the evolving payments landscape. Lisa’s insights are particularly valuable for those looking to navigate the complexities of legal and compliance issues in the fintech industry.

But it's not just about payments and technology; it's also about people and relationships. Paulette, Lisa, and Jenn open up about the power of mentorship and professional development within the industry. From building a "personal board of directors" to stepping out of one’s comfort zone with initiatives like executive rotation programs, discover how these leaders foster growth and collaboration at Stax. Whether it’s through lunch and learns or workout groups, they emphasize the importance of maintaining a growth mindset and creating a supportive community. Tune in for an enriching conversation that promises to leave you inspired and enlightened about the possibilities in the payments industry.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Thank you for joining us during this special series running throughout the month of July, focused exclusively on women leaders and payments. We've got great content this month, focused on mentorship, career advice, getting out of your comfort zone, having your voice heard and much, much more. A special thanks to our contributing sponsors, stacks Payments, nuve and Map Advisors, and to our episode sponsors, nmi, dailypay, g&d and Ingenico. Hi everyone, welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast. I'm your host, greg Myers, and on today's show we have three great guests Jen Reichenbacher, lisa Roberts and Paulette Rowe from Stacks Payments. Jen Reichenbacher, lisa Roberts and Paulette Rowe from Stacks Payments and one of the reasons I wanted to have Stacks on the show is they have one of the most diverse leadership teams in all of payments. In fact, 53% of their executive leaders are women, so thank you all so much for being on the show today.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Thanks for having us. Thank you, Greg. Yeah, excited to be here. Definitely Thanks for having us.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Absolutely. So let's go ahead and jump in, and, jen, we're going to start with you. Tell us a little bit about your career journey, a little bit about yourself and a little bit about your role at Stacks.

Speaker 3: 1:14

Thanks, greg. I joined Stacks in September of last year as the chief marketing officer. I've been in the payments fintech space for about a little over a decade, began that part of my career with Merchant Warehouse, which then became Cayenne, then moved on to iPayment, which was later acquired by Paysafe, and then I spent the last year and a half before joining Stacks at EverCommerce. So all kind of in the SaaS slash payment space. The early part of my career, which was also all in marketing, I worked across a variety of different industries, some of which definitely have lent itself to relevance in the payment space. But two highlights from that were time with Remax and then Keurig as well. Okay, lisa, over to you.

Speaker 4: 1:56

Hey, Greg, I'm happy to be here. I've been practicing law for about 25 years, 15 years of the last years in the payment space, with leadership roles at WorldPay, NCR and SunTrust Bank, now Truist. I joined Stacks about a year ago and I am the general counsel responsible for the legal and compliance function.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Okay, Paulette over to you.

Speaker 2: 2:16

Hi Greg. So I'm currently the CEO at Stacks. I joined last year in August. I'm from London. I joined last year in August. I'm from London, but I've spent pretty much all of my career working or traveling and being involved in the US market. I was at PaySafe just before joining Stacks as the divisional CEO for e-commerce and integrated payments, but I've also worked in payments at Barclays, running the merchant acceptance division there, and also at Meta previously Facebook, where I ran financial services and payments partnerships. And I guess the only other thing I would mention is sort of big turning point in my life was when I became the guardian of my nephew, who was 12 at the time and is now 21 and counting. So it's been an interesting few years.

Speaker 1: 3:13

I imagine so. Well, Paulette, let's stick with you. If you don't mind, tell us a little bit about your journey to becoming a leader and maybe talk about any pivotal moments that helped kind of shape your career path.

Speaker 2: 3:25

Yeah, I spent a lot of my early career. So straight out of business school I moved into consumer banking. But I actually started off as an engineer and I guess one of the pivotal moments very early on was a decision that I took to fund myself to go to business school. So I went to a school called INSEAD in France and that led me to working for General Electric in the US. And both my INSEAD experience and my GE experience were just so helpful because I just met people from a number of different countries, worked in a number of different markets as a result. So, for example, when I was at GE, one of the first things I did was be on a rotational program. So I got a chance to spend time in risk, in finance, in business development. They even took me on an M&A so one of the first big M&As they were doing in the financial services space and I ended up working in Japan. And whilst I was the most junior person on the team up working in Japan, and whilst I was the most junior person on the team, I was allowed into all of the meetings. So that was just great to get that exposure to senior leadership, get exposure to the whole M&A process so early on in my career.

Speaker 2: 4:35

And then I think another pivotal moment was after I left GE, I moved back to the UK and I joined one of the largest UK banks UK and I joined one of the largest UK banks and there I'd been there for a few years, I'd run marketing and products, I'd run a sales team, and then they decided to promote me to run the retail banking division of NatWest, which at the time was 1,600 branches, an organization of 20,000 people. And I always remember that moment when they approached me about the role and there was like this huge gulp because not only was it a big step up from what I was doing, but I was the only woman on the retail executive committee, a lot of the leadership was Scottish because it was a Scottish bank, a very Scottish bank at the time, and so on and so forth. So I felt a little bit like I was the outsider on that team and so to have them come and say, hey, we want you to do this massive job, yeah, it was a pivotal moment, a scary moment, and I tried turning it down for a little bit and then sort of well, I'm sure we'll talk about mentorship, but luckily I had good people around me who said are you nuts? Take the job.

Speaker 2: 5:47

And, as you can imagine, it was just a hugely, hugely important point in my career. I learned so much from that role, especially managing at scale, and that role has led on to all sorts of other stuff. So that was my life before payments. I won't go on and on about my career. I've been working a long time, but I think when I look back in terms of some of the key moments in my career, I would say that that was probably the biggest.

Speaker 1: 6:13

Okay, okay, so let's stick with you, paulette. So, as the CEO, can you talk about, maybe, the macro trends that are going on in the industry and then how, maybe connect the dots with those and how you're transforming what's going on at Stacks today?

Speaker 2: 6:30

Yeah, I think there's sort of three things that I'm really focused on in terms of my leadership role at Stacks, the first being just the growth in integrated software. So you know Jen's had a ton of experience in this space. So you know, jen's had a ton of experience in this space. I've sort of got more and more experience over time as the space has grown at PaySafe and certainly here at Stacks, and it's not going anywhere. I mean, I'm always amazed at how niche it's becoming, not only how big it's become, but there's specific software to run your business, no matter what you do. You could be in pet care and there'll be specific software that helps you manage the sort of specific nuances of your sector, and so embedding payments within that software is just so logical. It's so logical for a small business to say I don't want to have a separate payments provider and a separate software provider. I want a solution that helps me run my business end to end and it just provides a better experience all around for the merchant and also for their customer. So that's something that we are very highly focused on in Stacks. We've put a lot of resources into growing that part of the business. It's growing very, very strongly. We have over 100 brands working with us and I think, as I said, that's a trend that will continue to grow, not just here in the US, but it's growing internationally as well.

Speaker 2: 7:53

Another trend, I guess, in sort of buying behavior is subscriptions. I don't know, greg, do you have any subscriptions? I'm sure you do. Oh yeah, yeah, I think pretty much everyone now I think the official figures are something like at least half of us, but I'm sure it's way above that. And I'm not just talking about the Netflixes. You know there's my HP printer is on subscription. Now I'm not sure I'm getting the best value out of it, but you know it's super convenient and I really love it, and Stats has been a real pioneer in this space. I mean, first of all, offering a subscription billing service to our small business customers, our direct customers, which is hugely convenient for them.

Speaker 2: 8:31

Anyone listening to this call who knows anything about payments that probably dreads the word interchange plus and everything that goes with that. You know you're running your small business. Do you really want to have to figure out what Interchange Plus means? So going out and offering a kind of all-you-can-eat monthly subscription which grows as your company grows, that is both a trend that we're seeing and one that we offer to our customers. But we're also providing the tools for those small businesses to turn those single points of payment into recurring revenue for them. So that's, I think it's a smart way for businesses to grow. I mean, we've got a client that's about to go live in the car wash space and you know, normally you'd go and just pay for your single car wash. Well, no, why not have a subscription and, you know, maybe get a little extra value?

Speaker 2: 9:22

And the last thing I'd mention is just the whole consolidation in the industry. So this is more of an industry trend where, look, consolidation is a natural thing to happen in any market. But there comes a point and I think, quite honestly, we're there in the payment space, regardless of which front end you're using, you lift the hood. Everyone is using pretty much the same rails of the same, the few large players that have consolidated through acquisition, and there are benefits to that. There's scale benefits.

Speaker 2: 9:55

But I think we've reached that tipping point where now it's become so consolidated that it actually risks stifling or reducing innovation, because you end up everyone's kind of, you know using the same few providers. They're big, they're very focused on their larger clients. A lot of them are not outdated to technology and so the ability to respond very quickly, for example, to a software vendor that is in a niche space, that becomes, I think, more and more challenging for those bigger players. So you know, at Stacks, that becomes, I think, more and more challenging for those bigger players. So you know, at Stacks, that's something that we see ourselves as that kind of modern, agile alternative to those larger solutions. And so we're spending time not only producing really good software at the front end of our business, but also investing in being a standalone processor and joining that very small number of companies that can actually make a stake in that part of the market.

Speaker 1: 10:50

Okay, Jen Lisa, do you have anything to add to that?

Speaker 4: 10:53

I would just reiterate the trends that Paula identified, and the ability to provide software providers with recurring revenue to me is just a huge benefit and what I see driving what's happening in the market right now, at least in our space.

Speaker 3: 11:07

Yeah, I don't think you can underestimate how much value payments is delivering for some of these startups and some of these mid-market SaaS companies I think also Paulette touched on it but the results of having a just more frictionless kind of embedded solution for their customers in the downstream, I think, our customer even coming on the heels of the pandemic. The expectations from the consumer perspective have changed drastically in the US from really a demand of being able to pay by the choice that you want when you want. Merchants need to be more versatile and I think through our integrations and through some of the innovations we're doing on our direct business, we've been able to meet the consumer where they want to be and help our merchants enable more opportunity to meet that customer the way that they want to pay.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Okay, and Lisa over to you, so maybe talk about some of your past experiences that are maybe shaping the future of Stacks and the future of the leaders at Stacks.

Speaker 4: 12:02

So when you've been in this industry a while, you kind of see these recurring themes. They're cyclical and so for me there's a very experienced leadership team and there's good and bad to that right. I mean, I avoid pitfalls that I've seen before. I want to duplicate successes that I've seen, but it also can be limiting when you're living in this past experiences. So at Stacks one of our core values is operating differently in this past experiences. So at Stacks, one of our core values is operating differently. So I think we look at, take our experience, look at that and see what it is that we can change from there. And so I think that's been really challenging ourselves to think and rethink some of the solutions that we've seen in the products out there. So I use past experiences in that way to kind of guide how I look at things going forward.

Speaker 1: 12:42

Okay, jen. Any thoughts on that I?

Speaker 3: 12:44

to kind of guide how I look at things going forward. Okay, jen, any thoughts on that? I'd echo what Lisa said. I think the biggest piece is and I've kind of learned this through having this happen in other organizations you know, long before, even long before, kind of getting into the fintech space is where you hire some executives and they come in and they think the blueprint that they have is just a lather rinse, repeat, with no gray areas, like there's no evolution, and I think that we all live in a business society today where you're always kind of iterating and working to improve and there's not a one size fits all, but we're able to really leverage the experiences and perspectives, because I think we've all had different journeys into the leadership community within Stacks and we try to really and we'll talk about this a little bit more later but we really try to infuse that, to combine innovation and experience, to really get a two or three X output from the collaboration that we have cross-functionally.

Speaker 1: 13:36

Okay, paula. Any thoughts on that?

Speaker 2: 13:38

I definitely think the sort of be humble which is the thread in both what Lisa and Jen have said is really important. So you come with experience, but there's so much that we can still learn and there are always those unknowns that are going to come out and hit you if you're not careful. So, keeping an open mind about things operating differently, as Lisa said, and I think we've got a nice blend of a lot of payments experience. We've brought in more people like ourselves who've got a lot of experience in payments, but that started off with more of a software mindset and I think that blend is very, very powerful and it's down to the culture in terms of how we are able to make that blend work, but I think it's working pretty well for us right now but I think it's working pretty well for us right now.

Speaker 1: 14:24

Okay, so, jen, question for you. Let's talk about getting out of your comfort zone. So how do you encourage people within the company to get out of their comfort zone, for them to grow? And talk a little bit about, from the getting out of your comfort zone perspective, what Stacks does to help their employees and their leaders.

Speaker 3: 14:44

I mean at the macro level. I would say that we really do encourage people and kind of live by the growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. It's hard, some roles are just different and they are a little bit more repetitive and they're a little bit more succinct in terms of like how much flexibility you have. But we really have tried and this is all under Paulette's leadership to build a leadership group and a company that's focused on trust but also focused on opportunity in terms of if you see something, say something, let's bring that up. We are always looking to improve our processes and drive incremental efficiency and I think every business can do that and we really foster an environment where that's welcomed and applauded and appreciated. It's not put in a box or kind of looked down upon. I think specifically and our HR team has done an incredible job on this We've done a lot around lunch and learns. We've implemented and Paulette was a big advocate for this some workout groups where we're just getting more cross-functional people into an environment where it's badges off and it's like bring your ideas, how can we work together to improve or solve for a challenge that we're having, and you get to A people are really excited about having their voice heard in a different way. They're learning a ton as a result of this and we're getting to solutions much quicker than we would have. And part of that is we have a transformation team, which I think is critically important for a company of our size and what we're embarking on. We also have we do weekly all hands with the full company. That's something that Paulette started when she took the helm as CEO. Again, lots of change, lots of transformation happening. It keeps people connected, it allows us to showcase key projects and key initiatives and it builds excitement and we do a whole culture segment around that as well. And then one of the programs I love that we just implemented.

Speaker 3: 16:33

And again, another thing that Paulette brought to the table is we have an executive rotation.

Speaker 3: 16:35

So Paulette was talking about when she got that M&A experience early on at GE and this actually stemmed from us having an open role for kind of an executive chief of staff and instead of replacing that with a single person, we actually have team members from across the company that apply to be in that role and they get to spend three to six months with us having insight into all of our executive meetings. They have board access. They're part of our board meetings M&A activities, lots of strategic projects and strategic discussions. We're just completing our second rotation M&A activities, lots of strategic projects and strategic discussions. We're just completing our second rotation and it's just been widely successful in terms of watching people continue to grow that are kind of in our young leaders, our future leaders, and just getting great perspective. I mean it's great to see these young leaders comfortable sitting at the executive table and initiating ideas or challenging one of us, paulette included. I mean we challenge one another and it's great to see them have that platform.

Speaker 1: 17:30

Okay, so Lisa anything to add there?

Speaker 4: 17:33

Yeah, I would say I love the collaboration and I really like the idea.

Speaker 4: 17:38

I mean, the rotational chief of staff was just critical for me. I mean, I think of what I would have liked to know earlier in my career and Paulette had that experience which is, how does my business fit into the bigger picture? How do we operate? What are all the stakeholders? I mean all of that context is really important to the why we do what we do, how we do what we do, and I think that's really important from a learning perspective, that you're not kind of focused on this very narrow experience and it only helps you grow professionally. So I think those kind of instances are really helpful and I know when I interact with junior team members or people who haven't been in the industry, I always try and provide that piece of education, that context, the why so that hopefully they have that earlier in their career and can take advantage of that. I think it's just you just have to understand where you fit in this bigger picture, I think, to really add as much value as possible.

Speaker 1: 18:30

Yeah, Paulette, you want to add something there?

Speaker 2: 18:32

Yeah, sorry I was going to say well, the two rotations we've had so far have both been women from the company. So I just love the fact that they're able to sort of, if you like, see a female CEO and a very female executive team in action and can sort of start to imagine themselves in that kind of role in the future. But I'm also a big fan of reverse mentoring no-transcript those roles.

Speaker 1: 19:26

So that's great, all right. So, paulette, this is one of my favorite topics, and I think one of yours probably too is mentorship. So can you talk about maybe mentors that you've had and maybe the importance of mentorship overall in developing a culture?

Speaker 2: 19:42

Yeah, look, mentorship. I think I've mentioned to you on one of your podcasts before, greg, the sort of the pie model and performance image exposure, and I always go back to that because it was such an aha moment for me that of course, performance is so critical. But I think many of us underestimate, particularly earlier in our careers, how much that exposure piece matters and how opportunities open up, either because people are mentioning your name and you're being talked about, or because they're suggesting things to you that perhaps you hadn't thought about doing and they're giving you the confidence to try things. And that's happened to me a lot in my career. So I've you know whether it's been clients, other colleagues, bosses these are all people who've turned into mentors for me as my career has continued and it's not always been a formal hey, we're going to talk every week and we'll have a conversation and there's an agenda. I mean, yesterday I phoned one of my previous mentors to ask him some advice on something that I'm grappling with. He's in the payment space. It's being able to do that, it's being able to pick up the phone and speak to someone who's perhaps got a different perspective or has experience in something that you're going through for the first time and be able to make that connection. But, as I said, what you'll find is, if you develop this sort of mentoring relationship and, as I said, don't just pick one, have lots of different mentors that you speak to. They can be very influential in your career. Have lots of different mentors that you speak to. They can be very influential in your career.

Speaker 2: 21:21

I remember being approached about joining a board, a charity board. I knew nothing about it. It ended up being a very high profile board. Boris Johnson was the patron Hopefully people know who Boris Johnson is, former Prime Minister and that opportunity came through because somebody who was a mentor to me. She heard about the role In fact, she heard that they were hiring a chairperson for the role but said well, if you're looking for any other board members, you should know about Paulette. This is what she could bring to the table. So I'm a huge, huge advocate for it and, as I said, you know, don't think it has to be that one relationship. Get out there, talk to as many people as you can, take advice from wherever you can and build those relationships, and particularly in payments. We're such a small industry as international, an industry as we are, I find all the time I'm running into people that I've worked with before or have been clients before, and it's lovely when you can reach out to some of those people and use them as a sounding board.

Speaker 1: 22:16

Yeah, okay, lisa. Any thoughts on that?

Speaker 4: 22:19

Sure, I call it my personal board of directors. So I've been lucky to have committed mentors, not just for my professional growth but my personal growth too, whether it be reaching out to someone about a parenting issue, reaching out to someone about a job opportunity, a position on a board, but having those substantive relationships which take work. I think it's really incumbent on the mentee to develop those relationships and put the time in so that they are significant, so that when they do give advice these people they know me, they know what my goals are, they know what my boundaries are, what I'm looking for personally and professionally. And so that advice sometimes while hard to hear the 360 return of advice is sometimes hard to hear, but it's just critical for growth. I would say invest in those relationships. It's up to you to develop those relationships. They're meaningful throughout your life, not just in your career but otherwise as well.

Speaker 1: 23:12

Jen some thoughts on mentorship.

Speaker 3: 23:14

I'm going to take it a little bit left and just continue on something that Paulette mentioned. She mentioned that the payments industry is small. I think it's funny when I meet with people that are maybe new joiners into our organization or networking at an event and they're new to the payment space, I'm like you found something really special. I mean, I've worked in many, many other industries, as I know Lisa and Paulette both have. I'm constantly inspired by the payment space and how connected it is and how supportive it is of one another.

Speaker 3: 23:45

And it's beyond the associations. It is these relationships that we cultivate where you can reach out to someone, whether it's via LinkedIn, whether it's via email, whether it's a text, and say, hey, did you see this or do you know this person? We're interviewing this person. I think you might have worked with them. Just that sense of community, I do think is and it sounds a little corny, but I really believe that it's very different in payments and we have something really special and that's one of the things I encourage people, new joiners, is make those relationships. Take time. To Lisa's point, invest in those relationships, because this is an industry where your network is really an extension of yourself and you need to give as much as you get, but it pays out in spades.

Speaker 1: 24:29

Yeah, totally agree. Well, Jen, let's stick with you. Let's talk about professional development. So how is Stacks investing in professional development?

Speaker 3: 24:38

We're doing a lot of different things but I'll highlight a couple and again, a lot of this credit goes back to the leadership team and the investments that we're making from a human resource and human capital perspective. We did launch this year a leadership and I think many companies, our executives, are established. They have their own community. Our senior leaders have kind of reached that point where they've got one or two things that they want to work on to get them to the next level. But our middle tier, our future leaders I said it earlier is such an important group for us and it's hard. There's so many different personalities, there's different kind of career paths via role. So one thing that we launched this year was actually a third-party leadership program. We have about just over a dozen of our middle managers and future leaders participating in that program. It's been amazing. We've also taken four of our SLT and put them into more of a personal development coaching program. So we're making that investment on behalf of our staff. We are looking also at launching a more formal kind of mentorship program for those that want it. But I echo what Lisa and Paulette and we mentioned earlier, which is the informal to me is just as valuable because it's really about the relationship and building trust and having confidence in your confidence that the people know you and they can help guide you down that path. We did not have a former mentorship program at my last company and someone had asked me to mentor someone and I've still carried that through. I'm still working with her today and it's been fun. She's gotten a promotion. I've helped her put reviews together and have difficult conversations or think about her org structure. Now she's about to go on maternity leave to have her first baby and it's just exciting to watch someone after two years just growing into. This person came from a junior level individual contributor and now as a director she's managing a very large budget with a team of four people and it's just it's. It's so rewarding. I get more value out of that than I do so many other things that I kind of that I have going on.

Speaker 3: 26:34

I think the other thing I wanted to call out is team members. We've got some team members and I know Lisa will probably touch on this in a second. The ATPC is a great organization. We've also done some work with ETA. We had some team members recognized as 40 under 40, and then we have team members participating in the ATPC formal future leaders program. Two of our team members were at the fly-in on Capitol Hill a few weeks back. It's just amazing to think about them developing this community and sense of network, and I had people when I was with Paysafe participate in this program and they still are connected to this kind of subgroup of people they've met through the ATPC and being a part of this program. So we love that, we applaud that and we want to get more of our people involved and engaged, not just in our programs but in programs that are available across the space.

Speaker 1: 27:23

Okay, Paulette. Thoughts on professional development at Stacks.

Speaker 2: 27:26

Yeah, I think Jen's done a really good job of describing what we do. But sort of generally, yeah, having curiosity, making sure that you're out there, you know you can learn from your peers. We've touched on that Sometimes. Getting outside of your comfort zone, go work on a project, go help another team, be part of a workout, be part of a hackathon we had a hackathon recently. These are ways in which some of our customer services people were the most interested in getting off the phones and going and being part of working alongside engineers to go solve some problems within the business. So, yeah, we try to engender that sort of culture where people continue want to continue to grow, and that has to be true at senior levels as well. It has to be true of the three of us that we're staying in touch with the market, that we are learning about some of the other innovations that are happening in different parts of the world. Even so, yeah, it's super important.

Speaker 2: 28:17

If I can just pick up on one thing that Lisa said in terms of mentorship, but it kind of applies, I guess, in terms of personal development too. Yeah, I've used my mentors to help me. I mentioned becoming the guardian of my nephew. That was a huge personal change for me and I thought it was just a really important point that sometimes the advice or the education that you need is not necessarily specifically to do with your work and your role, but it's about you as a person. It's about learning, if you become a single parent, how to manage your time and, you know, still manage to stay right way up with your job. So these are all things that I think, if you have that curiosity, if you continue to have the right connections and network, people are always around to help you, to help you grow both personally and professionally.

Speaker 4: 29:08

Okay.

Speaker 1: 29:08

So, lisa, question for you. So, as we've been talking about networking and education, where do you go to find that for yourself and for your teams?

Speaker 4: 29:18

Well, as a lawyer, I'm required to have continuing education to keep my license, which I read a ton, and I rely on external counsel on their advisory notes. Then I get to meet lawyers who practice in the payment space too, that I end up negotiating deals with. So it all is one of those things. Like Jen said, it's a great industry. In that way it's collaborative, even though we compete for some of the same business. So that's how I stay up to date on what's happening.

Speaker 3: 30:08

I think Lisa has summed it up I read a lot. I read a lot of newsletters. I get a lot of information passed. I try to read and stay abreast of what's happening in the M&A and the investment market as well, and then I lean in. I lean into the regional shows, I lean into ETA. I participate in a committee there that I've been a part of on and off for over 12 years now All 12. And it's amazing, I think, that there's a lot of openness in this space. And then, working with different research firms, we do some work with TSG. It just helps me stay abreast and keep our finger on the pulse of the things where we have to go deep versus where I need to be wide. We're all kind of advisors in that and certainly from a marketing perspective, I work and I help lead our storytelling in the market and I want to make sure that what we're saying is resonating and that, quite frankly, we're solving problems and challenges that our customers are facing.

Speaker 1: 31:01

Well, one final question and, Paulette, I'm going to start with you and it's one of my favorite questions that I ask in almost all of my interviews, because I think everyone brings kind of a unique perspective to it. But let's have a scenario where someone's fresh out of college and they look at the payments or fintech industry and they say, hey, I want to build a career in this space. And they come to you, Paulette, and say, hey, what advice would you give me to help me be successful in payments? What would you tell them?

Speaker 2: 31:27

Well, first of all, I would say welcome, welcome, welcome, because, as Jen said, it's a fantastic industry. I've had so much fun, there is so much innovation, there's so much transformation, so you chose wisely, good choice, you will enjoy your time. I think also, if we're talking specifically about a woman joining the industry, I would say that, whilst there are still times when and I have this frequently where you might be, whilst there are still times when and I have this frequently where you might be the only woman on a virtual call and in a room, it is changing. I had a call recently with another company and it was like five of us and we were all female and we were like, oh, this doesn't happen too often, but this is a sign of you know it's becoming more inclusive and more women are choosing to be part of this industry. But in terms of like specific advice I think we've touched on it all Get out there, be proactive about joining some of the industry groups, making sure that you've got plans, that you can always be reading and listening to your podcast. I mean, I think you do so much, greg, to help people sort of stay abreast of what's happening across the industry, listening to all sorts of companies, leaders, et cetera. It's so easy these days to access that kind of information. But, yeah, be confident, but also be confident enough to ask for help when you need it.

Speaker 2: 32:51

I think for me, the learning came mostly from actually observing and listening to my colleagues asking for help on particular projects and really trying to get into the detail.

Speaker 2: 33:02

One thing about payments there's a lot of detail to what we do. So making the effort to go a bit deeper, to really understand how the technology works, regardless of what part of the company you work in and I think Lisa is a fantastic example of someone who yes, lisa is a lawyer, but she has really spent a lot of time understanding exactly how the industry works I think that will put you in really good stead to then continue to grow your career. And if you can don't always think about it being a linear you know I've got to go from here to here to here Try to get some broader experience. Might not be a permanent move, but at least give yourself some exposure. Like I said, if you're in customer services and you can go to a hackathon with the engineers, do it, because that's going to give you a much broader perspective on how everything fits together. So, yeah, that's my response, greg, but I'm excited. I'm excited for this individual.

Speaker 1: 34:00

Yeah, it's interesting. You mentioned that because I recently did another interview for this series and she painted this visual of you know, there's this corporate ladder right. So everyone comes into the industry and they think they have to go up this ladder. And she said think of it more of a rock wall, like you might go sideways, you might go down even, but eventually you know you're doing everything to go up. So I thought that was an interesting, really good way to visualize it. Yeah, I thought it was great, so Lisa your thoughts on that.

Speaker 4: 34:29

Like I said, we've talked about a lot of it, which is continuous learning. Get involved, and I would say, get involved in a meaningful level. That's where you make the deepest connections. Get on a committee, don't just go to the networking dinner, because that's where people will really get to know you and you'll get to know other people and they really see what you bring to the table. It's a small industry, so keep that in mind with respect to your personal brand always. What is it that you want to be known for? Because while it seems big when you start, it is very small.

Speaker 4: 34:55

The other thing I would say and this probably isn't that popular but be in person as much as possible. That's where the opportunities arise, that's where the conversations happen, that's where you may get the opportunity that you wouldn't otherwise to either listen to conversations, be pulled into something that's even outside of the lane that you're working in. So I think it's critical, early in your career, to be as visible as possible and to be physically present with people around you as much as possible.

Speaker 2: 35:21

Can I just jump in there a second? Because Lisa just reminded me I was in New York at a tech conference and they had one of those cocktails and because you know I obviously need to follow my own advice. I went to the cocktail and I stood around for a long time and there were lots of people in groups and I was there, you know, sadly having a really bad cocktail by myself, and I thought, oh, I'll just leave. You know nothing's happening here. And then there was a gentleman sitting by himself who sort of looked pretty similar.

Speaker 2: 35:51

I thought, well, let me at least just go and sit down and say hi to him. So I spoke to him and said, okay, if I join you, he's like yes, it turned out to be the best conversation, one of the best connections I could have made. So he's from the industry, we had a lot in common. He had tons of advice for me on all sorts of things, and then he was just a wonderful person. And it just reminded me especially Lisa's point of that wouldn't have happened on a Zoom call. That was because I was in the room and also because I did sort of just give myself that last little kick to say there's always someone at these events who you should spend time with, at least one person. So don't just leave, don't just go and tick the boxes that you've been, but actually make the effort to make a connection. Sorry for jumping in there, but at least you're in my opinion.

Speaker 1: 36:41

That was great, Great advice and Jen over to you.

Speaker 3: 36:44

I think we've covered a lot.

Speaker 3: 36:45

I would probably add just that curiosity that Paulette talked about and just asking questions, like relentlessly asking questions, and also looking within your organization.

Speaker 3: 36:55

It doesn't have to always be someone within your team that you're looking to to get inspiration from, make those connections, make those non-traditional relationships and deepen those relationships. I think the other thing we were talking about being in person at events is and we had a recent example of this we brought one of our future leaders with us to ETA for Transact. He had never been to an event, nothing like that. It's very overwhelming. I mean, when you're trying to coordinate and schedule things and we kind of had an informal kind of like okay, let's make sure we had a shared meeting calendar of making sure he's getting access to our meetings with the card brands, different vendors that he should start to develop relationships with, or certainly that would benefit him. And I think also just being conscientious as a leader when you're going to look for those opportunities to include someone else that maybe doesn't have the same relationships. Don't always make it about your relationships. Be more inclusive and more open and spread those connections and deepen them from making them wider, not necessarily deeper.

Speaker 1: 37:56

Okay, all right. Well, before we go, I just want to open the floor and see if there's anything else that you guys wanted to cover. We've talked about a lot, but just wanted to see if maybe in the last 41 minutes, you thought of something and wish you had said it. So I wanted to kind of give an open floor to see if there was anything else.

Speaker 4: 38:15

I would just say from my perspective, having worked a number of other places at a small company or I consider the small compared to the big ones the investment in our people is really, really different and impressive At the most junior level, mid-level, senior level. I just haven't seen that in other organizations that I've worked at. So I'm thrilled to be here and I'm thrilled to be part of that and pay it forward to the folks that work here.

Speaker 3: 38:38

It goes without saying just keep having fun. Have fun at what you're doing, regardless of the challenges. I mean, you can see, I think it's evident that all three of us love what we're doing. We love the company, we love the industry and we're excited about bringing more future leaders in general, but especially female leaders, into this traditionally male-dominated space. But have fun while you're doing it, you know, have some laughs. Make sure that you're making time for the personal, and that's a great way to deepen those relationships as well.

Speaker 2: 39:05

Paula any final comments?

Speaker 2: 39:07

Going back to the executive rotation, that we do.

Speaker 2: 39:11

I think it's Ursula Burns, who was one of the first black women to run a Fortune 100 company, who talks about her own experience when she had an opportunity to sort of be chief of staff at I think it was at Xerox, and she said when she could see the job, she suddenly realized that she could do the job of CEO, and I think that is so important.

Speaker 2: 39:32

It's one of the reasons that I believe in the rotation that we do, because I think what we've also found is there's so much more talent in the business that even more than we even realized and by bringing those people closer and working more with the talent that we have, they're being inspired to really drive their careers forward and understand that they can do so much more than perhaps they realize. And we're seeing it too, that they're ready for the next jump perhaps sooner than we had realized. And I think that's so important because in an industry like ours, which is exciting, enjoyable but very demanding, as Lisa says, focusing on your talent and understanding who are the right people, getting them into the right roles and getting fresh ideas is everything in terms of remaining competitive, and that's one of the reasons that we spend so much time thinking about how to grow the talent within the company.

Speaker 1: 40:24

Okay, well, I think that's a great way to close out the show, so I wanted to thank each of you so much for being here. I know your time is very valuable, so I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much, Greg.

Speaker 2: 40:33

I know your time is very valuable, so I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much, Greg. It's been fun. Thanks, Greg, Thanks.

Speaker 1: 40:36

Greg Okay, and to all you listeners out there. I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story. A special thanks to our sponsors for helping make this month possible, especially our contributing sponsors Stacks Payments, nuve and MAP Advisors, and to our episode sponsors NMI, daily Pay, g&d and Ingenica. To learn more, visit wwwleadersinpaymentscom.