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Leaders In Payments
Leaders In Payments
Mudita Tawari, Head of Developer Experiences at PayPal | Episode 301
The digital payments landscape is rapidly evolving, driven by innovative technologies and a pressing need for more personalized customer experiences. In episode 301 of the Leaders in Payments podcast, we had the privilege of diving deep into these developments with PayPal's Mudita Tawari, who heads the company's developer experiences.
The episode provides a glimpse into how PayPal continues to shape the future of transactions. With over 400 million consumer accounts and 35 million merchants worldwide, PayPal's influence on the market is undeniable. Tawari’s discussion about PayPal's commitment to enhancing checkout experiences and supporting a global developer community underscores the company's focus on continuous innovation.
Mudita’s experience working on early IoT applications for hospital beds, to engaging in transformative app development, and eventually making strategic partnerships at eBay and PayPal, illustrates a journey characterized by growth, versatility, and a deep-seated desire to make a meaningful impact.
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast, where we talk to C-level leaders from across the payments landscape. We'll be discussing the products and services that impact the payment space today, as well as trends and predictions for the future of payments. We will also hear stories from our guests about their journeys to the top. If we think about our small businesses.
Speaker 2:They need all the data capabilities and the personalization abilities almost out of the box and they need help in gaining future customers through the personalization approach, through better self-service on the customer support side, etc. So that's where we think there's truly transformative gains that can happen through data technologies and AI investments.
Speaker 3:That was Mudita Tawari, head of developer experiences at PayPal, and she is my special guest on this episode, episode 301 of the Leaders in Payments podcast, and I'm your host, Greg Myers. Paypal has been around for 25 years, services 400 million consumer accounts, has 35 million global merchants in 20 markets across the globe and processes 25 billion transactions each year. The developer experience team that Mudita leads focuses on improving checkout experiences and making sure data is king and queen in all that they do, as well as working on platform modernization. We also go into her fascinating background and her steady and fleeting passions. We've got a great episode ahead, so let's get started. Hi Mudita, Thank you for being here and welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast.
Speaker 2:Hey, greg. Thank you so much for the opportunity and it's so good to be here with you.
Speaker 3:Great. So how did you get started? So tell our audience a little bit about yourself, maybe where you grew up, where you went to school, where you currently live, a few things like that, and we'll circle back to your professional career in just a few minutes.
Speaker 2:That sounds great. So actually my name is Mudita Tawari and I lead the developer experiences for PayPal and I've been in this role for about two or so years now and it's been a very exciting journey for me here at PayPal, leaning in and solving problems for our developer community. My own journey actually started as a developer early in life where I was very interested in the concepts of computer science but information technology in general. I completed that work in the East Coast, in Cleveland, and post my bachelor's training I completed my work in epidemiology, biostatistics and public policy because I was very gravitated towards solving technology problems but at scale.
Speaker 2:The genesis, I would say, of my story, leading some of this work, has been the journey my parents started as first-generation immigrants actually to this country. I moved to the US as a teenager, lived on the coast quite a bit. So initially our journey started in good old Buffalo where my dad, being a mechanical engineer, started his life and my mom as a homemaker. But that journey gave such a view into the American life and the American dream and the desire to contribute back to make sure that we frame our careers and the work that we do in service of, obviously, the great opportunities that we have gotten as immigrants, but at the same time thinking about the transformative technologies that have come since the 1990s and have changed the American landscape quite a bit actually. So it's been a true joy to write that right and see it from a multicultural perspective. So that's been my journey so far, but I'm happy to talk about the work that I'm leading in your next questions as well, rick.
Speaker 3:Okay, great. Well, let's discuss PayPal now. Our audience is going to kind of know what PayPal already does, but maybe, through your words, tell us what PayPal does and maybe what differentiates PayPal from your competitors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really appreciate that question, actually because at PayPal we are such a mission-driven company. We've been here in the technical ecosystem for about 25 years now and back when PayPal started its Genesys story, it was truly a game-changing innovator in the space. We now see digital payment systems as an on and off, pretty much like switching on your lights and turning on digital payments. But imagine way back then when PayPal was in its infancy and then eventually in the womb of eBay very different sort of a company and a game changer in the way it approached the massive number of transactions that now are processed through PayPal's system. So if you think about how PayPal is a differentiator, actually, the sheer volume of transactions that we process and the number of consumers and merchants we support.
Speaker 2:So, just to ground ourselves in some of the numbers, I would say that excite us every day when we show up to work are close to 400 million consumer accounts that we service, over 35 million global merchants around 200 markets.
Speaker 2:So that's quite a sizable landscape that we service. In addition, close to 25 billion transactions that's about a quarter of the world's more than 6 trillion processed in the e-commerce space each year. So truly, the brand is based on servicing in a very diverse format, thinking about our global consumers, our global merchants, global businesses, all the way from the enterprises to small businesses and, in my area, very much leaning in and solving for developers, who are a very important segment as well, and that's where I see the huge sort of differentiation that PayPal brings. In addition, if we think about the core of our business, which is ensuring payments transactions checkout experiences are stellar. We saw our leadership unveil major six product initiatives that we're undertaking, actually, and are already on our way to delivering for the market through the innovation event, and we're very excited to continue to serve our merchants and our consumers through these revamped personalized experiences that should further drive cost savings. That's where I go.
Speaker 3:Okay, do you want to talk a little bit about your team?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we on the developer experience team constantly think about the global developers that we service through our developer portal. So about two-ish plus minus years ago, when I took on this team, we bootstrapped this team from ground up and we take immense pride in bringing attention to this ecosystem through amazing sponsorship from our leadership. And the reason for us leaning in in the space is, of course, we are in a technology-oriented economy. Therefore, the role of the developer becomes very important when we think about the merchants that we're servicing, when we're building out the next generation of checkout solutions and when we are showcasing all of these great products that we build to the technical community. So it's not only about obviously building the right tool sets, but it's winning with our customers, our technical customers, to ensure we're doing the right things for our technical brand as well.
Speaker 2:The big things that my team is focused on is, of course, making sure improving our checkout experiences. That's absolutely front and center for us. So you will see, and our users will see, a lot of improvements that are upcoming in our checkout experiences delivered via the developer channel. In addition, making sure that data is king and queen and we really lean in with data-oriented product rollouts to really understand where is the friction in experience when developers are integrating with our solutions. We are working quite a bit in modernizing our platform as well so that, as the leadership is growing and helping take the company at a much faster pace, we are absolutely keeping up with that momentum and rolling out future products at a much faster pace.
Speaker 2:In addition, keeping in mind the first principles that absolutely need to work for developers, our integrations should be easy. We should be API first. Our SDKs should absolutely be robust. When developers come to our ecosystem, they should be treated with dignity and grace and we should be front and center in allowing them support for when they need help. In addition, building a very strong community for them so that they learn about the best technologies we are developing and some of these examples like crypto, the work that we're doing in the AI space. We want to build together with our developers, and that starts by giving them a nice professional community where they can lean in with us and work with us together.
Speaker 3:Okay, where do you see the payments industry as a whole stepping back and looking at the broader industry? Where do you see it going in the next, say, two to three years, and then maybe even beyond that in the next ten years?
Speaker 2:So what I would say is actually it's fascinating to watch all the innovation happening around data security and AI transformation. So we work very closely, obviously, with thinkers in the space, leaders in the space, who are looking at broader macro economic trends and also micro changes that are happening in any ecosystem for technology, and some trends that I'm very curious about and watching is obviously how AI enables our work, how AI is able to transform productivity gains, essentially not only for product managers, our engineering leaders, our UX leaders when we do customer research, etc. And the last mile, making sure our customers are serviced more promptly and faster. So when we think about the payment space, we're not just talking about payments processing. We're talking about an entire ecosystem that has to come alive in order to support merchants, consumers and developers, and the fundamentals of the journey still continue to remain, but where the opportunity, I believe, really lies is improving productivity across all of these areas to make sure everybody feels like they're having the best experience with our ecosystems. So that, to me, is truly exciting, and there's a lot of experiments that we are running. In fact, our team is working very closely with our technology partners to put out AI based search models for developers, but then also thinking about how do we improve tech based troubleshooting etc. For our developers. So that is work that we are actively thinking about.
Speaker 2:In addition, if you think about PayPal overall, from the merchants perspective, personalization becomes very important, not only obviously for enterprise merchants and their consumers, but especially for so for the SMBs. If we think about our small businesses, they need all the data capabilities and the personalization abilities almost out of the box and they need help in gaining future customers through this personalization approach, through better self service on the customer support side, etc. So that's where we think there's truly transformative gains that can happen through data technologies and AI investments, and that's what I'm very interested in seeing in the payment space to see how that landscape is changing. In addition, I would say businesses, understanding deeply about shopper habits is going to be quite interesting to watch. What are the incremental gains that we can provide to our shoppers, protect them in their purchasing, protect businesses in their day to day operations and bring it all together again as like an entire ecosystem with the help of technologies is quite interesting. This year. It's certainly going to be quite a transformative few years for us in the payment space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it certainly aligns with what I hear pretty much across the board. I don't think I've had a podcast in the last I don't know six months without AI being one of the topics this discussed. So no surprise there. I think the added thing that you talked about that's interesting is it's data and AI and its shopper experiences. I mean, to me those are all trends that we're just going to see change and improve over the next, you know, five, ten years, yeah, and Greg, I'll add to that.
Speaker 2:I think during COVID, we saw very interesting trends around omnichannel buying behaviors, where we were forced as humans to, let's say, buy online but pick up in the store, or pick up in the store and try to figure out other ways to return the product or service ourselves in myriad of ways, and that was a huge game changer, actually, and a massive change in technology and the way we service. Thanks for watching our merchants and customers. And now add to that the next big innovation with AI. It's been truly transformative to sort of see how much the e-commerce space but also every other space for that matter, I mean, whether you take the example of digital payments, whether you take the example of digital health, whether you take the example of other types of businesses I think it's been quite a transformation all across human kind over the past three to four years for us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, completely agree. Well, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about you. So tell us about your journey to your role there as head of developer experiences at PayPal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this has been a very interesting journey, so I think the audience might have to just bear with my story for a little bit. And the goodness that'll come out of this story is that you know, when you put your mind to something, there are things that you can move in your career and there's opportunity for people with cross functional skill sets to get into technology. So that's the aspirational bit here. I started my journey actually as a developer because, you know, I had no idea what I wanted to be when they, when I would grow up. I just knew that the internet age is booming and everybody told me you should be in the internet economy. So I took that as advice, started my journey as a developer myself, and actually I just laugh because my first this is when I was in the in the Midwest, in Cleveland. I worked for a very small startup company and they used to design hospital beds, so I won't name the manufacturer, but when we go to hospitals and the beds go up and down, it's powered by a smart chip on your on C at that time, and of course, there's many other smart chips that have now since come, but this was back in the day, so my first software gig was programming this neuron seed chip and, trust me, it took me some time to figure out what that meant. But IoT, or intelligent devices, have now taken off in such a meaningful way and it's fascinating to see where my own journey started and where the economy is now. In addition, after doing some of that hardware programming, I started doing a lot of app development, so database engineering, just front end application development, etc. And it was actually a lot of fun and I truly realized the potential of what this could mean for all of us and we all wrote that boom actually, and also that strange bust with Y2K. So people who've been around remember all the shakeups that have happened in the internet age and you know we survived a lot of economic turmoil, but still tech continues to grow and showcase in many interesting ways.
Speaker 2:I think the big inflection point that came in my career is when I really needed to do some soul searching about what do I use my technical talent would be like too much of a like you know thing, but let's say just any experience that I've gained, how do I put it to good use and what would be the most impactful way to drive change. And I took about a year off and actually volunteered all across the US and then went to India and volunteered and just realized the need for technology to scale, for often what is referred to as bottom of the pyramid essentially it's folks who need a lot more technical innovation, but the technology needs to be cheap enough to be adopted. So oftentimes what is interesting is we solve for one to five percent of the world and we keep milking that technology cycle. But it's really fulfilling when you're able to solve for the rest of the pyramid, which is majority of the world actually. So with that passion I actually went back to school to learn what public policy means and how do you use technology policy and can drive bigger programs, and that became a true passion.
Speaker 2:I was very fortunate to travel back to India. I worked for UCSF, for Gates and World Bank Foundation projects and was specifically interested in financial literacy, financial empowerment and making sure we can influence savings behaviors for people who may not have the iPhone to really help them sort of do the transactions but who need digital financial services through a simple Nokia phone, for example, that is very prevalent, or an Android phone that might be very prevalent but may not have all the bells and the whistles that are used to in the West, and that was a very transformative experience for me because it teaches you not to take resources for granted, to make the best out of the resources you're given in your current role and still drive meaningful change for your customers by really embedding yourself, using ethnographic research approaches, etc. So it was a really humbling experience for me to work off and on in India for about three years and actually from there also seeing what was happening in research in Bangladesh and Nepal, in Africa as well, where a lot of triangulation of research was happening around. Hey, when we build products that have the right product market fit for our customers, regardless of their income levels, we actually can win. So that was a good set of experiments that we launched.
Speaker 2:And then, once I completed that journey, I came back, started my work with startups again. Eventually, ebay called and had a very exciting time leading technology initiatives there. And then PayPal called and have been having a great time building the developer team, but doing it in partnership with some of our really awesome technology providers. To name a few GitHub has been a great partner for us, microsoft has been a good partner, google as well. Postman, open API have all been leaning in with us and helping PayPal win, so it's been a real joy to not only build the platform for PayPal developers, but then do it in a way that we can scale with our technology partners as well.
Speaker 3:Okay, great Thanks for sharing that story. I really appreciate it. Well, what are some things you're passionate about? So they could be work-related or maybe non-work-related.
Speaker 2:I'll say this, and I wonder if this resonates with our audience as well. You know there's fleeting passions that come and go, and then there's like real steady passions. So my steady passions are a little bit geeky. I love traveling. I think it's nourishes my soul, it teaches me how to connect with people and learn from them, and if there's an opportunity to contribute back, it's a win-win.
Speaker 2:So, for example, when I was traveling to India, I had a very lucrative opportunity to actually partner with women in my mom's community from way back, where women needed an opportunity to do entrepreneurial work. And you know, I came in knowing or thinking that during my travels I can just share all this amazing knowledge that I got from my Gates Foundation research around financial literacy. And I unloaded all of that knowledge on our wonderful women entrepreneurs and literally all they had to say is that, hey, all your knowledge is great. If you can't give us an opportunity, let's not even have a conversation, because we know how to take care of ourselves economically, but we need opportunities. And that's actually a moment of transformation in your own pot process, because people will be able to find knowledge but at the same time, people need the opportunity to grow in their lives, and so that led to a passion project of mine making scarves hand embroidered scarves and hand printed scarves and HouseOfAlvacom and it's a shameless pitch, but all the proceeds go back to these women. It's a little shop that we created on Etsy and it truly empowers entrepreneurs back in India. So those are types of passion projects that have been amazing for my soul. But I also want to learn from women entrepreneurs who are doing this very well. So L of S is, for example, a startup that I'm closely watching. I have been watching for some time Tala many other microfinance institutions that actually invest back in the community. I really find their work fascinating and hopefully, you know, at some point in the future this could be something I hope I lead as well. Similarly, I think this concept of a community led innovation that many companies in the Valley have done very well. So I'll name a few Salesforce obviously did this very well with Trailblazer program that they have, and also I'm seeing Notion, for example. I'll just pick on one. There are many others who do a very good job, so I'm not just concluding ill the other partners, but Notion did a great job with actually setting a very community oriented product structure in a community led growth initiative that we're learning from, so it's so great to watch our contemporaries do this well and then get inspired by their story.
Speaker 2:You said also personal passion, so I it would be unfortunate if I don't mention this. I have recently developed a huge love for Italian luxury cars, which I just found out. A lot of them have been now, as part of acquisition, have gone to German ownership. However, the former Italian luxury cars and had a great opportunity to travel and see a lot of these cars and how they're made, and Lamborghinis and Ferrari's and Pagani's stand out. So I've become absolutely obsessed with them and I have a teenager at home who has driven this passion and I will say that it's that finesse and beauty in what you produce for your customers is what's fascinating to watch with these amazing car manufacturers, and their legacy continues. So it's it's it's been a joy to develop this fleeting passion.
Speaker 3:Well, maybe that becomes a steady passion instead of a fleeting passion.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, hopefully with a, with a desire to write one of these or drive one of these cars someday.
Speaker 3:There you go, Well great. So I always like to ask this question because I think everyone brings their own kind of unique experiences to it. But what advice would you give to someone just starting out in the payment space?
Speaker 2:It's a great question and it's a question I ask myself every day as well, because each day, I do think we should learn something new if we can, either from others or by reading, and it's a great joy to be a human in that way, because we we get such good information now through sources where we don't even have to pay. Actually, quite honestly, it's just seeking them out. I would say, if anybody's interested in the payment space, I think they should broadly think about financial services space. There's the consumer angle, there's a merchant services angle, there's a developer angle, all of which are very interesting. Actually, I would say this that not only is it important to understand the systems and the technologies, but it's also good to think about the products that these systems and technologies produce. So, for example, savings devices or investments or charitable giving that happens through digital payment ecosystems.
Speaker 2:Here's what I would do if I was starting in this area and and I would love to hear back from the audience to see if this resonates but essentially, forums like xcom, linkedin, youtube are full of content that is very driven towards payment technology and payment spaces. So, for the technology aspect, I follow a newsletter, bite by go, actually bite by to go I'll say it again, a bit slower. And what I've really appreciated about that technology newsletter is it breaks down the tech stack for me. So if you're interested in that type of a breakdown, that's really great. Then there are thinkers actually in the technology space and they may not be speaking about payments in particular, but when it comes to servicing consumers etc. I think they're great. I would say Reed Hoffman is phenomenal. Also an ex founder of PayPal, andrew Chen thinks about these problems in a very interesting way. There's gold hackers who are talking about interesting things you can do actually with payments technologies, etc. So I think those are worth keeping an eye on.
Speaker 2:Casually, then I would say, if there's anything folks are interested in particular, start connecting with people in the industry. So PayPal hosts technology meetups. We would love to have everybody come in and join us on our, in our San Jose campus, in our Berlin London campus, in our Austin campus, chicago campus, etc. So please make sure you're able to sign up for the newsletter and see where we're meeting next. Similarly, many of our competitors do something very similar and our partners do various very similar activities. So please make sure you're connecting in person if you can, or at least virtually if you can.
Speaker 2:And one trick that actually my manager told me and is like a nugget of gold is getting used to monitoring the earnings season. That's when a lot of consolidated reporting is surfaced up to users automatically. So, for example, you know RNA when earning statements come out. There's like a PDF that'll be loaded up on the site For your favorite companies. Make sure you are double clicking on that. It'll give you so much information about the new products that are being launched and where the technology is going. I think that's a very smart way to keep awareness, or build your awareness, around FinTech and financial space.
Speaker 3:All right. Well, obviously we've covered a lot of ground so far about PayPal and the developer side of things, and obviously you and your background and career. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up the show?
Speaker 2:I would say that payments is, and financial technology is, such a fascinating space. What it has taught me is, as a person, to be a little bit bolder about my own financial choices and actually when we think about finance, when we think about money, there are two ways often that I've seen people process it. Either it's a little bit of like I don't feel comfortable talking about money, or I am absolutely bold about this. I got this and I wish there was a way we could normalize conversations around personal finance, payment technologies, how money moves, etc. Because it's truly an empowering superpower when we are able to help ourselves, our consumers and our merchants through better understanding of finance. It can be truly transformative, obviously, in our journey as capable human beings. So I think I really hope that we get to a point through our work and through, of course, work that our partners lead around, just normalizing finance and feeling joy in being strong financial stakeholders.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's a great way to end the show. So thank you so much for your time today. I know it's very valuable, so I really appreciate you being on the show today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Greg. It was absolutely a delightful opportunity to speak to you today.
Speaker 3:Great, and to all you listeners out there, I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in Payments podcast. Make sure you visit our website at leadersinpaymentscom, where you can subscribe to the show and where you'll find our show notes. If you enjoyed listening, please share on your social channels as well.