What inspired you to enter the Commercial Payments industry, and how has your journey evolved since then?

My background was in accounts payable — I had been in that role with my company for about 10 years when they announced that the company would be splitting into two separate legal entities. My manager offered me the opportunity to take on the position of program administrator of the new company’s recently established Commercial Card program (half-time in addition to maintaining my AP duties the other half). This decision was made sometime in July, and the split became official in November, which gave me about four months to undergo a crash course in learning absolutely everything top-to-bottom about Corporate Cards from the existing administrator, plus the whole process of establishing, configuring and testing the systems for the new program.

In a nutshell, I would say I was inspired to go into Commercial Payments as a matter of necessity: They needed somebody to assume that position, and I stepped up when asked. But since then, I really settled into it. Joining what was then called the NAPCP (now IOCP), and qualifying for the CPCP certification, certainly helped. I embraced the challenge and found it enjoyable working with my manager and other teammates (including our internal audit department) to refine our processes, make them more efficient and user-friendly, while also developing better practices for communicating various notifications and reminders, audit controls, etc.

 

How do you stay ahead of emerging trends and technologies in the Payments space?

Membership in IOCP and regularly attending the webinars they offer has been a great educational tool for keeping up with new developments in the industry. 

 

What's the most innovative project you've been a part of, and what made it stand out?

Around the time we split into a separate company, and I found myself leading a new card program, I worked closely with our Internal audit team to identify common issues. This included missing receipts, potential duplicate transactions, potential split transactions and a list of keywords that could possibly indicate prohibited or noncompliant purchases. Eventually, they used these points to develop a report that would run monthly, breaking each issue or potential issue into a series of tabs on a spreadsheet, giving me and my department a great amount of insight into uncovering possible violations that may otherwise have been impossible to detect without manually looking into the details of every single transaction.

 

Who has been your biggest mentor or influence in your career, and what did you learn from them?

My former AP manager, to whom I had reported from the time she brought me in as a temp more than 17 years ago, until she retired earlier this year. She had extensive experience in accounting and accounts payable, so over the time we worked together, I absorbed a lot of knowledge based on her subject-matter expertise, such as best practices and standard operating procedures, and why we do certain things the way we do. But even more than that, I gained plenty of meaningful advice on how to be a better employee and coworker, on topics ranging from communication methods to conflict resolutions to the importance of a work/life balance.

 

Any current challenges?

Earlier I mentioned splitting apart from our former parent company into a new separate entity. Well, last year—after about five and a half years—we were reacquired by that same corporation, so everything that we had worked to build out separately we have now been working to reintegrate. Not to mention both entities had evolved under different leadership and in the intervening years we both had made numerous changes to our cultures as well as the software systems we were using.

It has been a bit of a challenge but also interesting, to see a few familiar faces as well as a whole bunch of new ones and to learn from each other all the new techniques and ideas we had developed while separated, through our own divergent evolution as well as each of our companies having been reshaped by various M&A activities over the years.

 

What are you passionate about outside of work?

One of my biggest hobbies outside of work is birdwatching. I find that time spent in nature in general can be very calming, especially after a long day or a particularly stressful week of working. I will go out for a walk in my local woods on many afternoons and visit state or county parks when I find free time on weekends. And searching for (by sight or by sound) nearby feathered friends really enhances the experience.

 

What is a fun fact about you?

Another hobby, one which I’ve been engaged in for most of my life, has been playing music.  Some of the instruments I’ve dabbled with over the past 40+ years have included piano, baritone horn, tuba, sousaphone, synthesizer, guitar, bass guitar, mandolin and drums/percussion.