Latest / Leaders In Payments / Paulette Rowe, CEO of Integrated & Ecommerce Solutions at Paysafe | Episode 25

Transcript

Paulette Rowe, CEO of Integrated & Ecommerce Solutions at Paysafe | Episode 25 · Leaders In Payments

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the leaders in payments podcast, where we talk to C level leaders from across the payments landscape, we'll be discussing the products and services that impact the payment space today, as well as trends and predictions for the future of payments.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: We will also hear stories from our guests about their journeys to the top.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: I hope that these events have a wider access, a wider catalyst for diversity and inclusion, and that companies will act not only to think about racial equality, but we'll also work to improve gender equality as well.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: [inaudible]
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Paul at RO the CEO of integrated in eCommerce solutions for Paysafe she's our special guests this week as we celebrate women leaders and payments month sponsored by Paysafe I'm your host Greg Myers.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: And in this episode, I talk with Paulette about her unique background from engineering to forming a startup to Facebook and to a few stops in between.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: She also shares her insights and perspectives on racial and gender equality.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: The events going on in the world today are putting a spotlight on this topic from main street to the boardroom politics experience and wisdom are certainly things we can all learn from.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: So let's get started.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: [inaudible]
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Hi, Paulette, thank you for being here and welcome to the leaders in payments podcast, and more specifically thank you for participating in the women leaders and payments month.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much for inviting me and many thanks to everyone who's taken the time to listen it.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: All right, so let's just dive in.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Tell our audience about your role today, and then we'll rewind and talk about your journey to where you are now.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: So I'll keep the introduction brief.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: My title is CEO of integrated eCommerce solutions that pay safe pay safe is a leading specialized payments group company.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: We enable businesses and consumers around the world to connect and transact via our payments processing, digital wallet card issuing, and a cash solutions.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I, my bit of that puzzle is the integrated and eCommerce space.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: So pretty much everything that's called, not present running a team or teams that stretch from Europe in Vienna, UK to Canada, and to the U S as well.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, great.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, go ahead.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: If you have more.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Well, no, I was just saying, if you want to know a little bit more about my journey before Paysafe I was at Facebook heading up payments and financial services partnerships, which was all about enabling payments across the family of apps, including WhatsApp and Instagram.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: And prior to that, without going too far back, I ran the second largest merchant payment processing business in, in Europe, which is called Barclay's payment Barclay card, I should say payment solution.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: And in fact, Barclaycard was my first proper payments role.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: So up until then, I would probably describe myself more as a retail banker covering, you know, the usual stuff, loans, mortgages, savings, current accounts, and small business.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: We'll dive a little bit deeper into each of those in just a minute.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: Let's start with where you grew up and what was your life like when you were growing up?
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: So I'm a Londoner, there's two of us.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I'm the eldest two sisters.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed going to school.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: My 17 year old nephew who lives with me.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I'm his guardian, doesn't say the same.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: We have interesting conversations.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed school and I was probably a bit more of a cost SWAT.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: You know, I was reasonably academic, which was sort of fun because, you know, it was a tall black girl.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: It took a while.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: I think for the teachers in my school to realize that I was terrible at athletics, um, that wasn't, you know, that sort of, I wasn't going to fulfill their stereotype, but actually until I was about 16, I was very much into writing.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I read lots of books.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed writing.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about pursuing an acting career, but then at 16, I think I surprised everyone by deciding to study maths and sciences, which meant I had to transfer to a boys school and plus I needed to, but I needed to.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: And then after, you know, when you take those sorts of subjects, I went on to read mechanical engineering at university where I ended up being the only woman in my class.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: So I guess you could say I've been adapting to being, you know, adjusting to holding my own in a, in a male environment from a pretty early age.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Certainly sounds like it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: So back when you were growing up, would you say you were more of the lemonade stand builder or more the planner organizer of the friends night out?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a little bit of both know, given my early passion for the arts, I do recollect writing and producing plays and encouraging my friends to perform in my place.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: So I did charge for tickets.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: I guess I was a little bit of an entrepreneur, although I was also very good child.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: So I raised the money for a, for good causes.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: And then at university, I was by that time I was an engineer as opposed to doing the acting and stuff, but I was pretty interested in business.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: So, and really into which is not quite the organizing nights out with the friends, but certainly a massive passion for travel.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: So I joined a, an international student business network and that allowed me to travel to all sorts of places across Europe.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: And I did end up becoming vice president of my local committee.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: So I guess I always had that sort of, you know, being the planner organizer to some degree.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: It sure.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Sounds like it.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Let's start
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: Talking a little bit about your professional experience.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: So what did you do prior to getting into payments
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Quite a lot?
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: So what are the highlights?
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe sort of just explaining the bridge between engineering to what I do today.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: I wasn't ever really a hundred percent souls, I think on becoming an engineer.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: I was lucky enough to be a, what they call the sponsored students.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: So I had the company that was paying me a scholarship when I went to university and I got to work on placements with them in the UK and in France.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: So whilst that was an excellent opportunity to gain experience very early.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Usually I was the only woman engineer and pretty much I think typically the only black person on site.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: So I got to see quite early, you know, just what a battle it would be in the engineering sector.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: And I guess I was realistic that in order to do well, I would have to really, really be passionate about the job and need to have an incredibly tough skin.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: So I actually ended up starting my own company, an engineering design and marketing consultancy straight out of university.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: And as I did the consulting work, I realized that I really enjoyed the business strategy side.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: So I found myself a business partner.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: We, we had employees, so it was a, it was a proper little set up.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I started to pivot more towards the business and marketing side of things and the technical design.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: And so when the economy started to go into recession and we decided that actually it made sense to wind the business up.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: I went off to business school.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: I went to a school called NCR in France and coming out of that, I went to the U S to work for general electric and they assigned me coincidentally to they're a financial services or coincidentally, but, you know, it was sort of randomly, I guess, to their financial services division.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: And I guess I haven't looked back, I really enjoyed financial services and the impact you could have working in that space.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: And so, for example, when I was at RBS NatWest, I was responsible for products and marketing for 10 million retail and small business customers.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: So yeah, up until then, I just found the whole retail banking and consumer finance space.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: Really interesting.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: So it's an interesting path and we haven't even gotten to payments yet.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: Um, I think it's interesting putting on plays then becoming an engineer and then going into business for yourself and then into financial services.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: So that's, that's quite a path early on, right.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: And I'm working internationally as well at GE energy is what it used to be.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately for those who've been sort of following the fortunes of the company, but it was a really good place to learn about business.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: It was a very ambitious company, but it had lots of really good processes and training and yeah, I still use some of my GE training even today.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: So it was a great place to kick off my career.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: So then you,
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: I ended up as a managing director at Barclay card merchant, I guess, payment solutions.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: And that would be your first interest in payments.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: So what was intriguing or why did you lean towards getting into payments at that time?
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so like a lot of people, most of my career moves have not been carefully planned out, but in the case of payments, it was a lot probably for the first time I kind of made a decision that I wanted to try to move into payments and I have to give full credit.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Cause I do think it was the right move at the right time to a really good friend of mine from my business school days.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: He was an early adopter.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: If you like, he was a pioneer, he'd worked in PayPal and other payment companies before, you know, payments was as hot as it is now.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: And every time we would meet up, he would just keep talking to me about the opportunity and payments and, you know, I couldn't help, but listen.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: And he sounded a lot more excited about the things he was doing as much as I loved retail banking and digging into it.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: I did do some research and, you know, you could start to see in 2012, when I, when I joined Barclay card, how things were changing, you know, the rise in E commerce and mobile was leading to new business models.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: You had these new gateways that were entering the market and starting to disintermediate the banks and the space felt really innovative and increasingly international.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: But the one thing, it seemed to lack where I thought I could bring something and we're going way back as a lot of the companies, you know, the leadership had been in place for quite a long time for some of the legacy players.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: And so I thought that my experience working internationally working in a different set so that I could perhaps bring the additional leadership to the payment space.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: So at least that's what I hoped.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: And so you were there about six years and then that's when you left and went to Facebook, correct?
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: And it's fair to say that in the time that I was at Barclays, in fact, we used to say this all the time to clients and at events that we live through more innovation in those six years at Barclay card than Bartley carbocat card had existed for 50 years before then, you know, so in 50 years at Barclaycard, we had seen less innovation combines than in much shorter periods.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: So it was just incredible because we were enabling and simplifying commerce built for businesses and consumers, and it was just a highly innovative and it remains.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: So I think, you know, it hasn't changed.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: There continues to be a really exciting space.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about Facebook a little bit.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: What did you do there?
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: So Facebook, I was in heading up the payments, sorry, and financial services.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Aren't the ship's area.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: So as I mentioned, we were working on bringing payments solutions to the, the family of apps, WhatsApp and Instagram and Facebook marketplace.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Facebook is a merchant in its own rights.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: So we also wanted to enable payments for businesses buying ads.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: And we also stood up donations.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: So now you can go on to Facebook and to make his own nation on the platform, which was incredibly successful.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: So yeah, there've been some announcements more recently about WhatsApp payments going live in Brazil, there'll be other announcements to come.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: And I wasn't, before you ask, I wasn't part of the Libra team, but obviously there was a bit of a crossover with payments.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: And so it was nonetheless really exciting to be at Facebook during that launch.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: So then
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: From Facebook to pay safe.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: So how did that connection happen?
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Well, I knew Philip McHugh, who's the CEO of the group from Barclaycard's.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Uh, he, I had reported to him for a while at Barclaycard and I think both he and I always felt that we'd made a really good team and had achieved quite a lot in our time working together.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: And so he reached out to find out if he could interest me in pay safe and, you know, given the relationship and given the story around Paysafe it was very compelling.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Having said that, you know, Facebook was an incredibly exciting and interesting place to be in the end, along with the positives of working for Phillip again, the, if you like the push fights for on the Facebook side was really more to do with location.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: You know, I had originally intended to move to California and then my 17 year old nephew who figures large in my life, he made it very clear to me that he wasn't going anywhere.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: So,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: So that decision was made
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: For me.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And actually I'm really pleased, you know, that was probably just that final little push that I needed to say, okay, let's go for it.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Let's go be part of the Paysafe adventure.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: So that brings us to today.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: And obviously you've been very successful throughout your career.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: What would you say are some of your guiding principles?
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Well, I do speak in about my nephew earlier.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: I do say to him that I'm always really glad that I went the mass and engineering route because it hones your ability to not only problem solve, but to connect dots.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a, not so much a guiding principle, but that's something that I feel I do really well.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: And when you're working in a group that has all of the sorts of assets that we have at Paysafe, you know, the variety of assets you feel already, I can sort of see ways in which I can help bring those assets together to ensure that we have even better solutions for our merchants and customers.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: But I said also that my time at GE was just a great training experience.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: And GE we always used to talk about the four E's that came from Jack Welch.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Who'd been the CEO there and they are energy execution, energize, and edge.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And anyone who knows me or has worked with me will know that I always talk about the first E's and the four E's sorry.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: The first two are pretty obvious, you know, in terms of energy and execution, but yeah, people sometimes forget, you need to be able to energize others so that they follow your vision and energize them to make things happen for themselves, you know, energized people so that they're empowered to move things forward.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: And edge is all about making those tough calls at the right times, you know, in business we're always faced with having to make decisions with imperfect data.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, you always need to do this with integrity, but sometimes you've got to make a call.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: It could be a people call.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: It could be a really important business decision or, or working around a, a difficult work situation.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: And it's really important to, to be bold, which is actually one of the pay safe values, you know, be bold and seize that moment, make that call.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's just to share a quick example in one of my roles, when I was at, when I was at RBS, we were talking about repricing the product and I was on the ESCO there.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: And my colleagues felt that we should just increase the price, you know, going from five pounds to six pounds, 50, roughly.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we may have got, I may have got the price slightly wrong.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: So from six pounds to seven pounds, 50, but I wanted to introduce some news, statistically based methods for repricing.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: It was all a little, you know, new and trendy as far as they were concerned, but, you know, I stuck with it.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And in the end was able to revamp the product, using the data from the statistical testing that we did.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: And rather than being moving to seven pounds 50, we moved to nine pounds and that allowed us to generate an additional 45 million pounds a year for the business, but also have happier customers it can be done.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: And that's where you, you have to, I think displayed quite a bit of agile, you know, sticking with your vision and just being really determined, sometimes digging your heels in the problem.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I think we can fall into, particularly as women with age is obviously edge doesn't work without integrity, but I think with women, or maybe more so with men edge is seen as being more expected and acceptable.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: And so it can be hard for women to perhaps display the same behaviors, but B be perceived in the same positive light.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: I'm sure like most people you've had a few eyeopening moments in your career.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: I would think, especially being often the only female, or maybe even the only black female in the room, maybe talk about a few of those eye opening moments in your career.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: And so by open you mean sort of moments where you think, what the hell
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Which are typically learning moments.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: But definitely,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I mean sort of picking up on your theme about diversity.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: First of all, I remember I was working in, in France at GE and working for a female leader, awesome woman.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: And we were supposed to go and present.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: It was kind of the final stage of an RFP process and presenting to some of the boarder at an important French company.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: And I was obviously excited to be accompanying her on this presentation.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: And she called me first thing in the morning at home to say, maybe I should take one of the guys, you know, one of your male colleagues on the team.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: And one of the French colleagues on the team, because she was not French herself either.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: And you know, she had a concern that we might lose the deal because we were going in as two non-French women into this pitch.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: And I sort of agreed with her and we had the chat and I put the phone down and she, as far as I knew, went to phone, one of my colleagues to take him along.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And then about half an hour later, she called me back and said, what the hell are we doing it?
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: We're doing this to ourselves.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Well, do we have, you know, and so, yeah, that was a real learning moment in terms of, you got to, if you can't bet on yourself, if you don't have that self belief that yeah.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: And also in some ways believing that the other side, you know, believing in positive intent on the, you know, as far as those board members were concerned, why did we assume that they wouldn't give us the time of day?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Because we didn't look like them or we weren't from, you know, we weren't French.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: And in fact the whole presentation went really well, but that stayed with me because there was that it was almost that if you've seen the film sliding doors, but it felt like a sliding doors moment where, you know, the outcome could have been so different.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Had she, and I not, you know, if we had made that call to say, Oh, we need one of the guys to come in and bail us out of this presentation.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Any other examples?
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, well, I can think of two more, but maybe one where I was at GE and I hadn't had the chance on surprisingly to meet Jack Welch.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: And so I was in the U S and I was invited to an event.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: I was actually working in France at this time where Jack was speaking, it was an internal event.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And afterwards, everybody was queued up to, you know, do the, the, press, the flesh with the, with the CEO.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: And I sort of thought, well, I'm not sure this is for me, it's a really long line.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: And then I thought, well, you know, you're probably the only person who's traveled as far as you have to be at this event.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: So why not?
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: And so when he got to me and asked me where I was from, and I said, I was working in France, he was, I guess, you know, I was a little more interesting than some of the other conversations.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And he started firing questions about the business and my thoughts about what could be done.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: And so I answered the best way I could.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: And at the end, he said, you should go work for this guy that I've just hired.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: And it was just a crazy moment.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: And I said, you know, thank you.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: And I finished my business in the U S and I flew back to France and I was sat in my office in France thinking, should I call this guy?
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I think his name was Dan and I called him and didn't get through.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: And I left a voicemail.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: I was like, Hey, Dan, you don't know me, but I met Jack Welch.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: And he said, I should come work for you.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: And kind of very long story short, he called me back and said, no, Jack, doesn't do this on a regular basis.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Obviously we need to meet you and interview you, but let's talk.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: And I ended up working in his office, not directly for him.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: I went to work because I wanted to work in a business rather than in head office.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: But yeah, as a result of that, I ended up moving back to the U S taking on a new role within, within GE.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: And you know, that the learning moment for me is, you know, those sort of career moments that you don't necessarily realize are at the time, but you know how important it is to seize those opportunities.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: It would have been very easy for me to, I think, you know, I sort of went back thinking, Oh, that was just a joke.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't follow it through, but again, it's back to betting on yourself and grabbing every opportunity you can.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Sure, absolutely.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: So let's dive into women leaders in payments.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: So specifically in the payments ecosystem, how do you think we're doing, what letter grade would you give us as an industry?
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: I think it's hard too as well.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure about a letter, but yeah.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: You know, when, when you're in a meeting where you're the only woman and, you know, there are 19 men, it is really hard to believe, you know, one chromosome or whatever.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: It is such a difference.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: And there are some seriously impressive women in senior roles in payments.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Many of them, I consider to be mentors and friends, but clearly if I were to give a great, it wouldn't be a very high grade because there just aren't anywhere near enough.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think some of it's to do with the way payments has evolved, there's been a lot of rapid growth.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: And so hiring has happened often through people's informal networks, which unintentionally unsure, has ultimately favored moving men into some of those top jobs.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: And of course, you know, there are simply fewer women in certain roles, especially on the engineering and product side because of, you know, more wider social factors.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I still think, nonetheless it's, even for women who are brought in to payments, it still seems too challenging to move up the ranks and, and really be given an opportunity to make the impact that I think they, they shouldn't could be making.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: So as an industry, what do you think we could do better?
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Or what should we be doing differently than what we're doing today?
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I think when, you know, it can't be left to chance.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: And by that, I mean, I think companies have to be purposeful.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Like they have to set goals, you have to listen to the women in the organization in terms of what are the challenges that they see, what are the things that are getting in the way, you know, training, talking about bias, unconscious bias, and also, you know, that's about sort of growing women from where then one of the things that we're doing at pace day for example, is making sure that whilst we, we also have fewer women at some of the more senior levels, you know, making sure that on training courses, we have equal representation, men and women, because that will help women start to fast track through the organization.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I think also it's about taking a chance on bringing women in from other sectors.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: You know, it's payments is complex.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, but it's not rocket science.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I, myself, as I've shared, moved from retail banking into payments, I hadn't worked in merchant acquiring.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: I hadn't, you know, I was new to the world of gateway, et cetera, but interestingly, I was hired by a woman and, you know, and I wonder how much that, that helps in my case that she was willing to take that.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: So some of these changes that you talked about, you know, being more purposeful training, taking a chance, those types of things, when and how do you think as an industry we make that happen?
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Well, I think just given current events, you know, the horrible and killing of George Floyd and the protests that have followed, you know, that I think has compelled many companies to reassert their commitment to racial equality and diversity and recognize that, you know, we've not come as far as many people perhaps assumed.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: And, you know, I'm hopeful that this is an historic turning point in the fight for equality and the fight for equality for black people.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: But I am also obviously female.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: And so I hope that these events have a wider access, a wider catalyst for diversity and inclusion, and that companies will act not only to think about racial equality, but we'll also work to improve gender equality as well.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: And I think one of the things that has happened more recently in the UK, which is undoubtedly going to help, not specifically in payments, but I think payments companies should be looking at this is more women on boards.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: I serve on a footsie hundred board where I'm one of three female nonexecutive directors and we've actually got a good board and a great CEO, but nonetheless, you know, having women on the board means that we can, and we shouldn't be, you shouldn't have to have a woman on the board for this to happen, but let's face it.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: You know, if there are women on the board, they're more likely to hold the company to account and ask questions, but also, you know, we provide a lot of support and mentoring for some of the senior women in the organization.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: And I think in again, because payment companies, because of the speed at which companies grow, because they're often not necessarily under the scrutiny of, of large public boards, even without that scrutiny, I would love to see.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: And I know Paysafe, we're moving more in that direction as well.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Love to see more female representation at all levels, including that board level.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: And I think if you start to see that happening, the change will come.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: And I'm pretty certain, if you speak to any female executive, they will tell you that the diversity in their team is undoubtedly better as a result of them being in place than it typically was before.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: That's certainly been the case in my career.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: And as I said, you shouldn't have to rely on that to make the change, but it's definitely a virtuous circle.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: If you can get more women in leadership positions, you'll get more women moving through the ranks.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: And so this next question really goes back to people coming into the industry, you know, back when I started 15 years ago, you know, I sort of just fell into the industry, but now I think payments and FinTech has really become an attractive industry.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: And I think people coming out of college, especially young women, what would your advice be to them if they're coming out of college or maybe even a career change, and they're looking at the payment industry as a young woman, what would your advice be to them so that they could be successful and then to your point over time, move up through the ranks, but what would your advice to them?
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: What would it be?
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I, you know, I think there's some standard stuff about if you're trying to break a new industry either for the first time or changing, you know, do your homework.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: As in my own example, as I said, I, it was through conversations with a friend, but I, you know, I did spend some time reading, talking to more people and trying to understand how I might add value.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: So I had that if you like that little elevator pitch around why me, you know, what could I contribute?
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: So I think that that's important and understanding not just what's happening in payments, but understanding the trends that are affecting our clients, you know, the consumers and merchants, because as I said, where payments is a facilitator of commerce for the most part.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: And so having a really good grasp of the things that are the consumer trends that are changing commerce and the tech changes, digital changes that are affecting commerce is really important.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: But then after that, I think it's about finding, yeah, try to join a company that way you think the culture and the values are aligned with your own.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: And that's often more difficult to do from the outside.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: But, you know, looking back on my career, it's something that don't get me wrong.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I've, I've enjoyed.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: I've been lucky.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: I've enjoyed every job I have had, but at the same time, I, you know, like my engineering example, there are times when you're in a company where you realize this is more of a slog than it needs to be.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Um, I don't, I don't think you have to be a martyr.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I think you should try and find if not accompany, certainly a leader who, you know, you think is going to support and, and help you and coach.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And you know, another thing I picked up at my time at GE, which I always refer back to is PI and PI was performance image and executive sponsorship or exposure.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: You can sort of use either further II or at least I do.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: And what that tells me was what PI says is performance is not the only thing that matters.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: You know, there, there are lots of people who perform thankfully in, in businesses and, and once you're performing at a certain level, the other things kick in, so image and, and that exposure and my story about, you know, that chance meeting with Jack Welch really wasn't that chance.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: You know, I took the time to go vent to, you know, to network.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Now the outcome was unexpected, but you know, too often, I think I've done this in the past and I've seen female colleagues, we focus on outperforming everybody else or trying to outperform everybody else.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: And we forget about the other pieces, which are so, so important.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: So, and I think the other thing I would say is I've met, and this was particularly true.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: A company, not a payments company.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: I know a tech company that you find people that get in and then they have this imposter syndrome.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I've got him, but am I really good enough?
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: You know, and I would say, and I coached a few women or acted as a mentor at Facebook and said, you are telling yourself every day you are more than good enough.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: You know, you got through the interview process, you are here, don't let imposter syndrome derail.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: You you'll be surprised at how confident some of your male colleagues are about their ability to deliver and they're not doing different.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a good thing.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: You should be confident.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, so those are the things I would work on.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: And if you're not sure, ask for feedback, you know, one to ones and getting feedback, you know, certainly people have said to me, often feedback is a gift.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: And in roles, when I've been in new roles or working for a new boss, I've really cherished.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: My one-to-one almost got to the point where I'm telling my boss that the one to one is going into the diary because I don't have that opportunity to connect.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: First of all, they don't get to know you, which is really important, more and more bringing your full self to work is an absolute must do so you need to connect as human beings, but also they need to know what you've done for them recently.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: And the ones who once give you an opportunity to talk about what you've achieved, but really, really importantly, it gives you that opportunity to find out what are they really thinking about you?
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: And if their perception is different from what you think it should be, then at least you can work on it and take me.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Gotcha.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: I think that's all really, really great advice.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: Well, let's wrap up with this one final question, and you've talked a little bit about this already, but talk about what Paysafe is doing to help foster that environment, where a woman can come in and really bring her full self to work and be successful.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot going on at Paysafe.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: And as I said, you know, choosing a company with the right culture is, is so important.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: And I really recognize that now that, you know, I've got a few years of working behind me, so we have a really clear commitment to diversity of all types, but in terms of gender, there are commitments around achieving a hundred percent equal pay for men and women, which is, you know, that's been a hot topic and I'm really glad to see that we're taking action in that direction, helping bring women together to talk about issues that, you know, in a safe place that specifically concerned women through a women's network, but also a family's network.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: And, and whilst this isn't just about women, you know, men have issues related to the family as well, particularly in payments.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: What I found is when I was at Barclay's, for example, we had some amazing women who were still young and wanting to grow their families who are nervous about, can I take a year out because things are moving so quickly.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: And so, and then coming back in and having that sort of, you know, risking that imposter syndrome, because they think they've, you know, that they're a year behind everyone else.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: So having the families network and providing specific support to maternity returners is something that we're doing as well, I think is really important, not just for the individual, but to retain amazing talent.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: You know, I had some incredible people and the same is true at Paysafe incredible women who wanted to have a family and contribute to the organization.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: And it was absolutely important to welcome them back and support them with that transition back into the workplace.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: And I think I mentioned earlier equal representation of men and women and all our development and training programs.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: So there's a, there's a whole of things that are happening.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: But the main thing I think is what we're talking about it.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: And we're inviting people to express when they think things are not working or, you know, come back to us and let us know how things can improve.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: And now those three women on a Phillips at SKO on the pay save at SKO.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: So, you know, we also have an important role to play, to just make sure that as a company, we continue to move in the right direction.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Well, we've covered a lot of ground today from your background and career to women in payments.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Is there anything that you haven't said that you really wanted to say or any final comments before we wrap up?
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for the questions.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: And as you could probably tell, I struggled to stop talking.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: They were great questions and lots of potential experiences to share, but in terms of getting more women to come into payments, I would absolutely say, yeah, go for it.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: It's actually super important.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I believe passionately in the fact that diverse teams lead to better outcomes for customers, for colleagues and, you know, helps the bottom line.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: So yeah, if you're thinking about it, do it network, find people who can help you in.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: It's actually been a long time since I've actually applied for a job.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: If you see what I mean for most of my role is pretty much my last, I dunno, three or four roles have come through people knowing me, knowing people and people knowing me and making those connections.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: So, you know, back to that pole model, yes.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: You know, your track record speaks for itself, but make sure people, you have those connections within the payments sector.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: And it's a fun career.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: And I hope to see many, many more women joining the business.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Well, Paula, thank you so much for being on the show today.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: I really do appreciate you being here.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you again, and to all your listeners out there.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: I thank you for your time as well.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: And until the next story,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us this week on the leaders in payments podcast, make sure you visit our website@leadersinpayments.com, where you can subscribe to the show and where you'll find our show notes.
• 34:42
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