Placement Spotlight
IMPACT Payments Recruiting has been connecting top talent with growing companies in the payments, cards, and fintech industries since 2000! With nearly 3,000 placements made we are proud to shine a spotlight on one of our favorites:
What is the current focus of your work?
I work with gateway products for independent sales organizations (ISO) and direct sales, but my primary focus is to develop payment solutions for independent solution vendors (ISVs) and value-added resellers (VARs). In short, I am building solutions to accept payments for companies that have built a software product that performs a specialized task like run a golf course operations or a restaurant reservation system and need to incorporate an equally great payments engine. This is a newly-created role within iPayment and I am very excited to find such a rare opportunity to be on the ground-floor of building something special!
What first led you to the payments / fintech industry?
I was born in Massachusetts and earned my undergraduate degree at the University of Southern California’s Film School. My plan was to be a Hollywood movie director! After graduating, I took a job with Bank of America’s merchant services group. I figured I would be there for 3 or 4 months until my film career started. I ended up staying there for nearly 20 years. In 1996 the payment processing was still very young and not very technologically advanced. I spent 8 hours each day pulling staples out of stacks of paper statement drafts and filing them. From there I had an opportunity to move around the Bank and develop a well-rounded background in merchant processing.
I worked in the Merchant Help Desk, as a Portfolio Manager, then I Managed the point-of-sale Field Installation Team and, ultimately, became a Product Manager. This was at the same time when e-commerce and the Internet was changing the industry. This is also when I found my passion. I was very fortunate to be on the Project Management team when Warner Brothers asked BofA to help them develop the first commercial turnkey online shopping cart.
What perspective would you share with a young person considering the payments / fintech industry as a career direction?
Personally, I have found the payments industry to be a unique blend that satisfies both my creative and technical aspirations very well. I have mostly enjoyed the opportunities to build something unique from scratch that satisfies a very real business need.
The opportunities for a young people in this industry are big. Even during the toughest economies, the payments industry has continued to grow and evolve at an impressive rate. One game-changing technology after another like mobile payments, cloud technology and block-chain technology keep things from getting stagnant. There is also a tremendous amount of globalization happening right now. I would think a young professional would find the International business aspect of the payments business very exciting.
How would you describe your experience working with IMPACT Payments Recruiting?
I had been aware of IMPACT for several years, but not as a job-seeker. I had seen mention of IMPACT regularly in publications like The Green Sheet and I have taken advantage of the Payments & Fintech Salary Guide. Marc Keller with IMPACT first contacted me in my final days with Merchant e-Solution. The company had been sold and my work was wrapping up. I had not begun actively searching for my next opportunity and was pleasantly surprised when Marc called. The timing was perfect. While working with Marc, IMPACT introduced me to 5 or 6 different and interesting opportunities that I would not have known about otherwise.
Initially, it didn’t look like iPayment was going to work out due to the location. I live 65+ miles from their headquarters and it would have meant a multiple hour commute every day. iPayment wanted this position to work in their headquarters full time. Marc Keller, understanding the great match otherwise, introduced the idea of me working remotely part time. In the end, it is was a great solution for both iPayment and for me. I am very excited about the work I am doing now and I would not have had this opportunity if not for IMPACT!