Join us for this episode of the Payments & More podcast, where Nico, CEO of Allyiz, interviews Rossini Zumwalt, co-founder and partner with Allyiz. This podcast works to bring views from various professionals in today’s payment industry as they look toward the future. In this episode, Nico chats with Rossini about how to deal with payments in complex markets, why having the payment function and finances is not a bad idea, and how to manage multiple stakeholder relationships in payments. With Rossini’s various background experiences in leadership positions, she has a lot of wisdom to offer.

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Nico starts off discussing Rossini’s passion for traveling and how she’s seen Silicon Valley change over the years. He offers a minute of praise for her works, then jumps right into her role in managing a global presence for Symantec as Head of Treasury. She speaks about the great challenge that this was from a payments perspective and how it was all about financial transactions, moving her from managing payments in the corporate world, to the digital world. Learn about the differences with e-commerce business and how she worked to optimize the cash flow.

 

Rossini then shares about the call she received from the Norton business to dig through chargeback information. She emphasizes the value of having dedicated people to look after payment and fraud within every business. Learn about the often-forgotten side of the costs of payment until margins are considered, and how this is dependent on whether payments are considered from a financial or sales perspective.

 

Nico inquires about how it looks to manage multiple payment providers and what her journey to creating such a large organization looked like. Rossini chats about how there were millions of transactions being processed daily and how she considered them to be a revenue center, rather than a cost center. Learn about the types of people she recruited, the diversity that she looked for, and the rigorous training program they created. She goes on to talk about Symantec’s cost structure and the multi-billion-dollar figure she dealt with. Taking a break for the box game, do not miss out on the hint Nico gives Rossini and take your chance to win one week in Ibiza for 2 persons from anywhere in the world.

 

Back to the interview, Nico discusses the optimal set-up from Rossini’s perspective. Find out more about her own purposeful decision to move from the CFO department to the e-Commerce business division. People should want to align their roadmap to the business’s vision, not just the short-term benefits for their department. Rossini challenges listeners to think about acquiring more customers and retaining those they already have. As a payment provider, she’s seen it all. Listen to Rossini’s opinion about the shape of the market today as she considers the past and looks forward to the future. She sees innovation with payment providers to ease merchant connection, but the challenge is their lack of attention to merchants. What drives attention away from the merchants? Learn more about the emerging markets, convenience, and accelerating trend to “pay later”.

 

In wrapping up this episode, Nico finds out what Rossini sees as the “game-changer” for the industry in 2021 with the mindset shift towards offering payments that consumers prefer.  In the Golden Minute, she praises those who are courageous, especially those who are willing to try and fail, and try again. We find out a little more about Rossini personally of when she “failed” by not continuing to press forward and try new things. Also, find out about her first credit card in college, her blog about mixing payment and food from her travels, and her dream present. Finally, do not miss her final reminder that it is all about passion to really continue to drive innovation in this space and industry!

 

Please like, share and subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts!

 

 

Timestamps

0:48 Guest introduced

1:33 Rossini welcomed

4:10 Minute of praise and her time at Symantec

9:03 Call from Norton

13:23 Multiple payment providers

17:22 Symantec and cost structure

21:05 Optimal set up and her move

24:42 The shape of the market

27:15 Emerging markets, convenience, and pay later

30:50 Game-changer for 2021

32:59 Golden minute

34:32 Personal questions

39:17 Final reminder

 

 

About Rossini Zumwalt

Rossini, co-founder and Partner at Allyiz is a dynamic and results-driven Financial Services Executive. 

She is the former Senior Director of the e-Commerce Payments and Fraud Prevention for Symantec. Her role included setting the strategy and direction for payment and risk professionals to enable the growth of the B2C, B2B and Enterprise businesses. She was responsible for the direct development of payment gateway and billing engine to maximise one-time and recurring success. She also developed compliance and risk programs to minimise business risks and losses due to fraud. At a later stage of her career, she joined Emergent Payments so to expand business operations into new markets and grow payment offerings on a global scale. She manages cross-border and alternate payments portfolio, defined payments roadmap, collaborated with strategic partners, built merchant servicing capabilities, and was the advocate for customers. Rossini is the former Global Board of Directors Chairman of the Merchant Risk Council (MRC) and is a Certified Treasury Professional.

 

Connect with Rossini on LinkedIn

 

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About Allyiz

Allyiz (pronounced allies) is the “go-to” company for payments experts for businesses who want to source knowledge, time or people. Allyiz distinguishes ourselves from consultancies by bringing the expertise and experience of professionals who have successfully run the function on the business side and have done it well many times. We run short projects and deliver actionable results.

 

Connect with Allyiz on LinkedIn  or at www.allyiz.com