Darrell Winfield is enthusiastic about the future of the payments industry. As a leader of large-scale IT transformations and an agile methodologies evangelist, Darrell has an established record of bringing new products and services to the marketplace. He now sits as the Chief Information Officer at Paya.
Titania Jordan, one of Atlanta’s best-known media personalities and tech expert host of 3CiCONNECT, sits down with Darrell, to talk disruption and innovation in the payments industry.
“I love that name, Paya” Titania begins, “tell us about Paya!”
“That’s an interesting story,” Darrell explains, “today, it takes a tremendous amount of effort, and financial costs honestly, to try and find a name, because a name today has to try to do so much more than just try and identify the company, represent your brand, and leave some sort of impression. It also has to have real usability, it can’t be too hard to type into a web address, and it can’t have too many letters, and you don’t want it to be somebody else’s name, and all of that. It’s a big challenge, and we were really fortunate to find a name that is not only easy to say and remember but triggers further questions, like the one you have just asked me.”
Darrell has had a long and interesting professional journey, from being a Major in the U.S. Airforce, to an assistant program manager for large-scale NASA projects, to his current role implementing efficient processes and retiring legacy platforms.
“The Airforce part of it, the flight research part of it, the NASA part of it, those were natural progressions, and very much intended. I didn’t stumble into it, I focused on it. The payments part of it goes back to the Airforce days.” Darrell recalls how, through a former pilot buddy with a computer science background, he was able to transition into Global Payments, formerly National Data Center. “That’s how I ended up here – it meandered a little bit.”
Much in the same amorphous nature, the payments industry is also constantly evolving. “It’s a fast-paced story, and it’s moving quicker all the time” affirms Darrell. From knuckle-busting carbon copiers to nine-key manual entry receipts, to modern consumer-driven opportunities around biometrics and mobile payment acceptance, he explains how payments have evolved to center around one thing: an integrated payment experience.
“We have to be slow, we have to be cautious” Darrell encourages “but it’s all gaining traction, and we’re excited.”
Watch the interview below and discover the science-fiction-era capabilities arriving in the future of payments processing.