Meet The Merchant Board

Merchant Board

The PaymentsEd Merchant Board of Directors is made up of payments experts from some of the most recognizable brands in the world. This all volunteer based board all share the same dedication and love for the payments industry and the organization and are key drivers of the success of PaymentsEd. Are you interested in joining this amazing group?

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MELISSA SHIELDS

Chairman - PaymentsEd, Starbucks

MELISSA SHIELDS

Chairman - PaymentsEd, Starbucks

Melissa Shields is a senior payments executive with extensive knowledge in subscription, payments, and product verticals. With a passion for innovation in the space, she has led initiatives to expand and simplify recurring transactions as well as evolve new acceptance strategies with Fintech partners. As the Director of Payment Strategy and Operations at Starbucks, Melissa and her team of experienced partners are charged with providing the payments strategies for both card present and card-not-present experiences throughout Starbucks.

SHARON DRABECK

Treasurer - PaymentsEd, iHerb

SHARON DRABECK

Treasurer - PaymentsEd, iHerb

Sharon Drabeck is Senior Director, Treasury & Risk Management, for iHerb, an ecommerce retailer that delivers health and wellness products to 185 countries in 86 currencies, utilizing over 40 payment options. She is responsible for the strategic management of iHerb's corporate treasury, risk management and payment processing relationships.

JONATHAN LEE

Vice-Chairman - PaymentsEd, Netflix

JONATHAN LEE

Vice-Chairman - PaymentsEd, Netflix

Jonathan Lee is on the Payments Operations team at Netflix in Los Gatos, CA. His team works to ensure that subscribers have a seamless experience by maximizing authorization rates and minimizing payments-related churn. Jonathan works closely with strategic market leads, finance, and engineering teams for global initiatives and optimizations.

MAGGIE CHEUNG

Secretary - PaymentsEd, Spokeo

MAGGIE CHEUNG

Secretary - PaymentsEd, Spokeo

Maggie Cheung is the SVP of Operations at Spokeo in Pasadena, CA. She leads the Payments and Fraud, Customer Care, and the B2B teams. She is responsible for ensuring a frictionless payment experience and providing top-notch customer service for the subscribers. Her team works closely with the engineering, product, and finance teams, as well asvendors, to drive customer satisfaction and to reduce subscriber churn. She understands the critical role that payments and customer service experiences play in the customer journey and is committed to providing a secure, convenient, and seamless payment experience for all the customers.

CATHY MCGARRY

Northwestern Medicine

CATHY MCGARRY

Northwestern Medicine

Cathy McGarry is Director of Treasury Operations at Northwestern Medicine, a premier academic health system in Chicagoland area. As a strategic business leader, she has established a proven track record of driving organizational transformation through successful system implementations that enhance working capital effectiveness and streamline processes. With her extensive experience, she leverages her expertise in Banking Solutions, Payment Processing, PCI Compliance, and Risk Management. As an influential voice in the treasury community, Cathy has held several leadership positions, including President and Board Officer positions with Treasury Management Association of Chicago, Regional Officer for the Association of Financial Professionals as well as leading healthcare treasury roundtables. With her passion for payments, she continues to drive innovation and operational excellence.

STEPHANIE MEYERS

CommonSpirit Health

STEPHANIE MEYERS

CommonSpirit Health

Stephanie Meyers brings over seven years of expertise in healthcare payments to her role as System Manager for CommonSpirit Health's Treasury Payment Card Team. In her current position, she oversees the day-to-day processing of both patient and non-patient payments, ensuring operational excellence across the organization's vast healthcare ministry. Her responsibilities also include managing critical vendor relationships and spearheading payment-related projects that drive innovation and efficiency. An active leader in the payments industry, Stephanie serves as a Special Interest Group (SIG) leader with the Merchant Advisory Group, where she contributes to advancing best practices and fostering collaboration. She is also recognized as a leader within the Women in Payments network, reflecting her commitment to mentorship and industry engagement. Stephanie is eager to bring her expertise to her new role on the Merchant Board, collaborating with PaymentsEd sage leadership to further the association's mission of advancing payments innovation and education.

ANTHONY MACCHIA

McAfee

ANTHONY MACCHIA

McAfee

Anthony Macchia currently works at McAfee in Payments Analytics. Prior to that, he worked at Save the Children for five years working in private revenue finance and payments strategy. Anthony has had a long career in payments spending an additional 12 years at the Synapse group managing teams, executing analytics, and implementing new processes to reduce risk and maximize revenue capture. He lives in Fairfield, Connecticut with his wife, two girls, and a menagerie of pets. Fun fact: I have triplet siblings *and* triplet cousins.

BRIAN CULLEN

Sony PlayStation

BRIAN CULLEN

Sony PlayStation

Brian is a senior payments strategist with over 15 years of leadership experience in global eCommerce, specializing in payment strategy, risk management, and market trend analysis. At Sony PlayStation, he has led transformative initiatives that enhanced transaction performance, increased incremental revenue, and shaped long-term payments innovation. Brian’s background combines deep expertise in payments built on a foundation in derivatives risk management, bringing a unique lens to data-driven risk strategy and optimization.

JULIE RANSOM

Ancestry.com

JULIE RANSOM

Ancestry.com

Julie Ransom is a seasoned payments professional with over 15 years of experience in payment strategy, fraud prevention, and risk management. As Senior Payment Operations Manager at Ancestry, she leads global payment initiatives, optimizing acceptance, reducing friction, and mitigating fraud. Julie has a deep understanding of chargebacks, network compliance, and payment vendor management, ensuring efficient and secure transactions at scale.

PETER KOVACS

Warner Brothers Discovery (HBO Max)

PETER KOVACS

Warner Brothers Discovery (HBO Max)

Pete has a wealth of knowledge in the global subscription and payments space. Over the past 10 years, he has worked to help brands build their global presence by strengthening their ecommerce and payment capabilities. As Sr. Product Manager at Warner Brothers Discovery (HBO Max), Pete is charged with providing payment capabilities that align with WBD’s growth strategy.

KRISTIAN HANSEN

Asurion

KRISTIAN HANSEN

Asurion

Kristian Hansen is the Director of Product at Asurion and leads their Payments Experience team. Previously he ran the payments at Crunchyroll (the world’s largest Anime SVOD company) and Levi-Strauss. When he’s not tracking authorization rates, you can find him trail running in Montana’s backcountry.

BOBBY WRIGHT

Zillow

BOBBY WRIGHT

Zillow

Bobby is a seasoned payments professional with over 15 years’ experience in the FinTech space. Having served roles on both the processing/acquiring side, as well as the merchant side, he brings a unique perspective into the world of merchant services. As the Director of eCommerce Payments at Zillow, he is responsible for providing strategic direction and operational oversight across all Zillow lines of business. Prior to joining Zillow, he led an enterprise implementations team at FIS/WorldPay, which allows him to provide strategic insight across a wide range of merchants (enterprise, government, utility, insurance, and FIs) and their common challenges.

Jennifer Putzbach

Hearst

Jennifer Putzbach

Hearst

Jennifer Putzbach, Director of Finance Operations at Hearst Newspapers, has held a range of Media industry roles in news, cinema, and music. Focusing on Order-to-Cash processes, Jennifer leads and develops collaborative teams that prioritize efficiency and drive effective results to grow business under challenging circumstances. Her efforts aim to empower Media organizations to access new opportunities and evolve quickly with consumers’ evolving needs.

Melanie Stout

McAfee

Melanie Stout

McAfee

In her role at McAfee, Melanie stays at the forefront of evolving payment trends, leveraging insights from the PaymentsEd community to drive safe and seamless payment experiences. She’s passionate about helping professionals tackle real-world challenges with actionable tools, a hallmark of PaymentsEd events. Melanie is particularly excited about the future of safe, frictionless payments and believes strongly in the power of networking to stay ahead in the industry. Her advice to newcomers? Attend PaymentsEd—it’s the best way to learn and grow! When she’s not navigating global payments, Melanie enjoys a true omnichannel shopping experience and draws inspiration from the Subscriptions Scaled podcast for insights into recurring payments.

Eagle Advisors

JENNIFER DAILEY-HELGESTAD

Visa

JENNIFER DAILEY-HELGESTAD

Visa

Jennifer is currently a Vice President of Innovation and Digital Partnerships at Visa. Jennifer has 10 years in the Payments Industry, previously leading the Consumer Payments organization at Cash App and as the Head of Third Party Partnerships and Global Payments Operations at Amazon.

CHANTAL GASPIE

JPMorgan Chase & Co

JOSH MATHERS

W. Capra/Rebar Technologies

JOSH MATHERS

W. Capra/Rebar Technologies

Josh is a value-driven executive leader with experience working at early-stage startups and has demonstrated the ability to shift gears and take high-speed turns with pinpoint accuracy. Josh has more than 15 years of digital subscription service expertise and has led teams in billing and payments, customer service, sales, retention, operations, partner onboarding, product management, compliance, and accounting. His wide breadth of knowledge enables him to see beyond the obvious and deliver a holistic perspective with a customer-first mentality

KEVIN SALERNO

Newfold Digital

KEVIN SALERNO

Newfold Digital

Kevin Salerno has more than 20 years of software development experience and is currently the Billing And Payments Architect at NewFold Digital. Over the past 15 years, he has worked as a development lead in designing and implementing enterprise business systems and applications. A key focus of his has been designing and building a billing and payments solution that could scale to support an evolving product catalog and maturing business models. Kevin plays a vital role in ensuring the payments solution minimizes organizational costs and customer friction while maximizing revenue and customer retention.

JAY MATTHEW

Yahoo

JAY MATTHEW

Yahoo

Jay Matthews has worked in the area of billing and payments for 20+ years. His areas of responsibility include payments and fraud mitigation strategy and billing process management. During his time in the industry, Jay has had the opportunity to view payments from three different functional areas, Finance, Operations, and Marketing, which has given him a unique perspective on strategy development. Jay holds a B.S. in Economics from Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

SCOTT ADAMS

FraudDeflect

SCOTT ADAMS

FraudDeflect

Scott Adams, CEO/Founder of FraudDeflect.com / CNPMentors.com is a veteran payments professional with 20+ years of experience in online business, the card-not-present financial community, and the affiliate marketing community. Scott founded CNPMentors to help merchants get out of chargeback monitoring programs, or better yet, reduce chargebacks and fraud before they happen with education and training plus consulting services. More recently, Scott co-founded FraudDeflect to provide chargeback management and VIsa Compelling Evidence 3.0 in an easy to use and transparent manner. Scott is a past VP of Friendly Fraud at Kount, Director of Fraud and Risk for Riot Games, a trained keynote speaker, a fixed-wing and rotor-wing pilot, and a purple belt and instructor in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

POLLY BAUER

Eagle Advisor and Founding Chairman

POLLY BAUER

Eagle Advisor and Founding Chairman

Founding chairman of the Payments Education Forum, Polly’s credit card expertise spans 45 years. She is past President and CEO of The Home Shopping Network Credit Corporation and best selling author of the award winning book The Plastic Effect. Her passion and commitment to helping merchants and consumers stay credit savvy, credit smart and payments profitable fuels her keynote speeches and drives her consulting business.

Fred Rodriguez

Eagle Advisor

Fred Rodriguez

Eagle Advisor

Fred Rodriguez attended his first annual forum in 1997 and quickly realized the value this organization brought to both himself as well as the various companies he worked for. An executive leader with a career spanning Payment Processing, Operations, and Technology – primarily focusing on both business processes and implementing technology solutions to streamline and support the growth of the organization. Fred joined the board in 1999 and held various roles including merchant board member, Secretary, Education Chair and Chairman and currently is an Eagle member dedicated to educating merchants in the ever-evolving payments landscape.

Executive Director

KAYLEE CHESTER, CMP

Kautter Wenhold Management Group

KAYLEE CHESTER, CMP

Kautter Wenhold Management Group

Kaylee Chester is an accomplished Association Director with over seven years of expertise in association management and more than a decade of proficiency in coordinating meetings and special events. She has demonstrated strategic thinking and implementation skills, excelling in navigating intricate issues and leveraging her talent for team building to overcome challenges while collaborating effectively with diverse constituencies. Her background includes substantial experience in designing and overseeing educational programs, certification initiatives, event planning, and administrative services. Kaylee holds a bachelor’s degree in Interpersonal/Organizational Communication from the University of Central Florida and is a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) recognized by the Events Industry Council.