First, please give us a little background about your career as a woman and a person of color in a high-profile leadership role in the financial services industry?
My career journey has given me a strong grounding in payments and technology and the opportunity to experience financial services from many perspectives. Building on my educational background in business and engineering, I gained experience across a range of business, technology and industry sectors before becoming a partner with Bain and Company. I later held a variety of leadership roles with Dell Inc. and American Express. Most recently, I served as CEO of Worldpay’s U.S. business before joining Fiserv earlier this year.
Attaining success is a tricky journey for anyone, regardless of background, requiring persistence and excellence. Various unconscious and conscious biases can be at play for women, people of color, or frankly, anyone. It is time — in business and in technology — to move beyond all kinds of bias and pursue critical opportunities rapidly with the best people.
The focus must be on understanding what’s important for the customer and consistently being the absolute best at delivering on these expectations in order to win in the marketplace.
When you put people – customers and team members — at the center, you tend to bring together the best talent to create the best ideas and enduring relationships. That has been my guiding objective throughout my career.
I joined Fiserv in April in time for Forum, our annual client conference, in Las Vegas. One of the largest sessions of the event was our inaugural Leading Women Summit, intended to accelerate the conversation about attracting, engaging, developing and inspiring people at all levels to become effective leaders. I look forward to remaining a part of this important dialog.
Why did you decide to join Fiserv?
Many things attracted me to Fiserv, with clients and opportunity at the top of the list. First and foremost are our clients. Those of us in financial services know the importance of the industry in people’s lives. Financial services help people achieve their dreams, save money and buy homes. I am honored to provide technology and solutions to the financial institutions that help people manage their financial lives more easily and securely.
Second, is the huge potential of Fiserv. Financial services, deposits, lending and payments are advancing at the speed of life. And our products and solutions must keep pace with rapidly changing consumer expectations. Fiserv has a strong organic technology base and we will continue to acquire relevant technologies. This is demonstrated by our recently announced agreement to acquire the debit and ATM processing business of Elan Financial Services, which will further extend our scale and client value proposition. It’s a company like Fiserv, with dedicated associates, exceptional partners and clients, and innovative technology that can move in step with the way people live and work today. I am hugely excited to be a part of that.
Can you tell us a little more about what Fiserv is and does?
Money is very personal and emotional. And when it comes to moving and managing money, people prioritize accuracy and security. For more than three decades, Fiserv has been a trusted provider of technology solutions to help financial institutions and companies serve their customers.
Fiserv empowers more than 12,000 banks, credit unions, thrifts, billers, mortgage lenders, brokerage and investment firms, and other businesses to create financial experiences that enhance the way people live and work today.
We process more than 30 billion digital payment transactions and move more than $75 trillion annually. A global organization with more than 24,000 associates, Fiserv has been named among the FORTUNE Magazine World’s Most Admired Companies® for five consecutive years, recognized for the strength of our business model and innovation leadership.
Fiserv is transforming financial services leveraging our unique strengths – our scale, our expertise and our ability to serve as a connection point for myriad capabilities for our clients and consumers.
Informed by the way people live and work today and inspired by the way they will live and work tomorrow, Fiserv is uniquely positioned to provide winning innovation in the fintech arena that moves in step with people’s lives.
What are you primarily focused on in your role as President of Cards Services?
The Card Services business at Fiserv continues to seamlessly and securely create and grow networks through innovation to enable people to access and manage money any way they choose. Fiserv capabilities authorize and settle point-of-sale and ATM transactions, monitor and drive ATMs, provide nationwide switching of debit, credit, prepaid and ATM transactions, and we operate the Accel® Network. Our proven solutions enable clients to maximize profit, reduce costs, and mitigate risk.
Each day, thousands of our clients process more than 1 billion debit, credit and ATM transactions, manage 28,000 ATMs and our debit network is accessible at 3.6 million point-of-sale locations and 535,000 ATMs.
Financial institutions play an important role in our financial lives. People trust them to hold their assets, and we are a trusted financial institution partner in moving these assets for consumers. To do that well amidst new competitive entrants, advancing technology and changing consumer purchase behavior, we must continually innovate and develop breakthrough products.
Our quarterly consumer research studies and ongoing surveys allow us to gain insights into people’s preferences, enabling us to shape the solutions that matter most. For example, consumers increasingly want transaction alerts with credit or debit cards both as a security safeguard and to conveniently manage spending. Our CardValet solution lets consumers set preferences and alerts to monitor account activity and quickly detect and act to prevent fraud.
We also see strong market demand for cardless ATM withdrawals, particularly for use in an emergency (e.g., a forgotten wallet), to prevent fraudsters from accessing a PIN, or for times it’s inconvenient to carry a debit card. CardFree Cash from Fiserv provides accountholders convenient, easy access to cash at thousands of ATMs nationwide with no card required.
Our history, size, and trusted client relationships allow us to help financial institutions serve consumers in secure, modern and convenient ways. Throughout my career, I have experienced financial services through the lens of the consumer, financial institution, and merchant and acquirer. I am honored to play a role in providing technology that empowers financial institutions to help people improve their financial lives.
