Modern Treasury reposted this
Partner @ Bain | Global Wholesale & B2B Payments Expert | Advisor to Global 500 Banks, Payment Companies, and Corporations | Fintech Strategist | x Glenbrook Partner
Recently, one of the senior partners at Bain & Company asked me "why do you payment experts take such pride in calling yourselves payments nerds?" At first I was a little offended. And then I took the question seriously. I suppose it is an odd badge of honor. You don't hear other experts claim to be "op model heroes" or "cost optimization czars." As I reflected further, I explained that it is because payments are so fragmented: Retail vs. wholesale; domestic vs. x-border; cards vs. A2A; acquiring/getting paid vs. disbursements/making payments; plus all the country-specific variation. Those of us that have been in the industry for a long time tend to admire the depth of knowledge our fellow payment professionals possess. For example, I don't know a whole lot about card tokenization but I know that Colin Luce and the team at Basis Theory do. And when I want to geek out about the implications of the latest regulatory wrinkle, I call Konrad Alt, Michele Alt, and Adam Shapiro at Klaros Group. And my former colleagues at Glenbrook Partners know more about merchant ops than anyone out there. Similarly, to explore geographic nuances in payments my Bain colleagues around the globe round out my primarily U.S. based expertise. What kind of nerdiness do you proudly possess? (Sticker courtesy of Modern Treasury)