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Leaders In Payments
Leaders In Payments
Carlos Navarro, CEO of Corvia | Episode 333
In the latest episode of the Leaders in Payments podcast, host Greg Myers engages in a compelling conversation with Carlos Navarro, CEO of Corvia. Carlos takes us on an insightful journey through the company's strategic maneuvers and innovations. Discover why Corvia's focus on the SMB space and higher-risk areas sets them apart, and how their location in Austin, Texas, along with substantial investments in risk and compliance systems, gives them a significant edge. Carlos shares the company's impressive growth trajectory, robust partner ecosystem, and cutting-edge solutions for boarding and transaction monitoring, offering listeners a comprehensive look at what makes Corvia a standout player in a crowded market.
Carlos also opens up about his personal journey, from founding a small consulting firm to holding pivotal roles at industry giants like IBM and JP Morgan, ultimately leading him to Corvia's helm. With a passion for mentoring and talent development, Carlos provides invaluable career advice for new graduates eager to break into the fintech world. Listen as he recounts his tenure on the Junior Achievement board in Atlanta, his role as a high school football coach, and his love for college football. Packed with personal anecdotes and professional wisdom, this episode is a treasure trove for anyone keen on understanding the dynamic landscape of payments and fintech.
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.
Speaker 2:We will also hear stories from our guests about their journeys to the top us and I think puts us in a league or a category with larger players is we've invested heavily in that behind-the-scenes capability, really in areas like risk and compliance. So I've brought in industry leaders to run those areas and have over-invested in solutions that will enable us to have really top five risk platforms underwriting and boarding, as well as transaction monitoring.
Speaker 3:That was Carlos Navarro, the CEO of Corvia, and he is my special guest on this episode, episode 333 of the Leaders in Payments podcast, and I'm your host, Greg Myers. Corvia offers modern, secure and seamless payment experiences that support both specialized commerce and traditional small and mid-market business. Carlos and I talk about what makes Corvia unique in the marketplace and where he sees payments heading in the near future. We also talk about his personal and professional passions. We've got a great episode ahead, so let's get started. Hi Carlos, Thank you for being here and welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast. Thanks for having me. Totally appreciate it, Absolutely. So let's dive right in. 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.
Speaker 2:Sure, I live in Atlanta quite possibly one of the largest payment ecosystems in the world and I've been here on and off since the late 70s. I went to Georgia Tech and received my degree in industrial engineering from there and then to ensure that I was totally confused I went off and got an MBA from the University of Georgia, so that made my Saturday football seasons quite hectic. But I live here in Atlanta with my wife and our two children.
Speaker 3:Okay, awesome. Well, let's talk about the company. Tell the audience what Corvia does.
Speaker 2:So we are a full service provider for payments companies. We are based out of Austin, texas, which is a great place to be. It's a place that allows us to take advantage of a lot of significant high tech talent as well as some great young talent out of the University of Texas. So we provide payment solutions for a few key areas within the United States. We focus in on the commercial or the SMB space and then also in the what I call specialty acquiring or higher risk areas of our world, and we deliver that both in a card present capability as well as an e-commerce capability. So we give those areas to our merchants. And then we also built out a huge solution because we go to market through our ISOs and ISV partners. So we've built out a pretty significant partner channel allowing them, giving them tools they need to really run their business board and manage their merchants and deliver solutions.
Speaker 3:Okay, and you said high risk. Can you give some examples of what that means?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of things that are high risk, which really means a little bit more on the chargeback side, but we focus a lot on the affiliate marketing area, things of that nature. There are things that we don't do, but we do a lot there and we have built the systems internally to make sure that we manage those correctly for ourselves, for our submission partners, our ISOs, but also for our bank partners as well.
Speaker 3:Okay, and how big is the company?
Speaker 2:We are going to grow almost 300% this year and we're a little over 55, 60 employees. So we're growing and hiring, which is great, and we're going to triple our volume and our revenue this year. We're privately held, so we don't disclose that Right, gotcha.
Speaker 3:Okay, and are you just in the US or expanded outside of the US?
Speaker 2:We are just in the US. There's plenty of business to go around in the United States and plenty of customers to go please?
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah, absolutely, especially if you're serving the small business segment. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I've grown international businesses before. Are there certain verticals that your ISOs?
Speaker 3:and ISVs and bank partners seem to kind of you know focus on, or is it basically any small business?
Speaker 2:It's basically any small business. I would think we'd have the normal focus on small retail, which is really the backbone of the American economy, as well as the restaurant space, which is really the backbone of the American economy, as well as the restaurant space, really not in that large world. Ie we're not going after some of the larger retail merchants. Those are really served by the larger acquiring partners, companies in the United States. So I'd say retail and restaurant are big. We have a relatively new but significant and growing focus on the unattended market space, whether that be vending machines, parking lots, things of that nature. It's just stuff that our API structure and our people and our solutions are really well geared towards. So we've been focusing in on that as of late.
Speaker 3:Okay, and I believe you said you relatively recently built a solution for your partners. Can you explain that, sure?
Speaker 2:We focused in on building a robust boarding engine so that they have an easy way that they either can consume our API directly into their solution or use ours and be able to board their merchants easily so that it's a relatively low touch direct to our bank partner, and we're continuing to invest in that and then also invested on the back end of this, so giving them a robust portal, giving them a robust training area for them and their employees, as well as a significant investment this past year really on an internal system, but rebuilt our entire residuals payment platform, which gives them the information they need, whether it is embedded into an iris solution or whether they're using it natively to pay out any sub or downstream partners they might have.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, what would you say? Differentiates your company from your competitors out there?
Speaker 2:That's a great question because, you know, the payment space can be very commoditized at times and there are certain areas that are 100% commoditized. So we've really tried to focus in on a few areas. So the first one is, as we've already talked about, is we've invested time in the capabilities that we're giving our partners so that they have a system and a company that's easy to use, flexible and robust. So whether it's our API stack or our internally built systems, they can use that for their solutions. From a merchant standpoint, we try to meet them where they are. Some of the larger ones and the e-commerce ones do want to consume APIs. Others just want industry-leading terminal solutions like Deja Vu, or want to connect into some industry-leading gateways like FluidPace. So we enable all those things.
Speaker 2:And then really, I think the part that is different for us and I think puts us in a league or a category with larger players, is we invested heavily in that behind-the-scenes capability, really in areas like risk and compliance.
Speaker 2:So I've brought in industry leaders to run those areas and have over-invested in solutions that will enable us to have really top five risk platforms, underwriting and boarding, as well as transaction monitoring, and really a lot of people think of risk and compliance as something that stops commerce, but the reality is, it's actually what enables us to go fast, because our people and our partners know that we have implemented industry leading capabilities that are going to enable them to go as fast as they can.
Speaker 2:It's analogy I like to use is it's you know, it's kind of like an F1 racing, if you like. If you like that sport, you know what enables those F1 cars to go at the incredible speeds that they drive at. And sure, they have an amazing engine and aerodynamics, but at the end of the day, it's the brakes. They have the most amazing brakes in the world, and the drivers know that they can push the car to its limits and that the car will stop or slow down, and so that's how we look at risk and compliance. It is an amazing system and with amazing people in it, and, if we do it correctly, we, our partners, know that we can go as fast as we can, and our bank partners know that we are over-investing in this and that our process, policies and procedures are there to protect them as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that analogy. That's really good. No one's given me that analogy yet about the risk side of payments, so that's really cool. So where do you see payments heading in the next, say, three to five years?
Speaker 2:Well, payments is ever-evolving, so I think it never stops. It never changes, and while I believe that the core of it will remain relatively similar, at the end of the day it's about processing transactions I think we're going to continue to see certain areas grow. First one is, whether you call it embedded finance or banking as a service, that's going to continue to grow because people want not only to do payments with companies but also utilize that income stream for other things. So we're rolling those things out throughout our entire ecosystem in this year and that's going to be an area that I think is going to continue to grow. I think you'll continue to see growth in areas like buy now, pay later, although I think that needs to be more regulated because that could become an economic issue for folks who use that incorrectly. But I also think you're going to see a huge growth in different payment types, whether it's instant payments or P2P or things of that nature. Those are going to continue to grow. We're seeing that. We're seeing pay by bank. Those areas, I think, are going to continue to expand and that will be good for consumers, it'll be good for merchants, it'll be good for processors, because it gives folks another way to consummate the transaction.
Speaker 2:I think the other thing you're going to continue to see is the use of AI, and that's a bit of a buzzword because no one quite knows what that means yet at the moment, but we're investing in that through partnerships. We're using some AI capabilities from active technologies to help us in our boarding environment and we're looking at some AI-based technologies on the retention side with companies like Arkham and we're looking at them for the future. So I think areas like that, where you can bring AI in, are going to be future. So I think areas like that, where you can bring AI in, are going to be critical. But I think the differentiator there is going to be combining AI with the human touch, and I think that's going to be the differentiator. The companies that go full-blown AI and don't have that human intervention don't have a way for people to talk to human beings. That's going to be tough. We feel that combining those things together are going to give us another competitive advantage.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like that. I think AI is definitely going to affect the industry in a lot of different ways and I think people are still trying to kind of figure out what is it really? Like you said, what is the definition, what does it mean, how do you use it to increase efficiencies and things like that? And I think eventually it'll move to where it's more customer-facing, but I think in the short term it's going to be more sort of the back office things. At least that's my thought.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I agree. I think AI and using that capability to spot things as fast as you can is critical, whether it's retention and you spot it a month early, right where someone might be leaving or, just as important, on the front end, if you can utilize AI to spot potential fraud issues, that'll be key.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, great. Well, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about you, so tell us about your journey there to your role as the CEO.
Speaker 2:Well, my journey began longer than I will ever admit in public, but started back at IBM and IBM, and when I joined IBM it still had something which is today people don't understand. But when you were hired back at IBM in the late 80s, early 90s as a salesperson or as a systems engineer, they invested over a year in you of training before you ever really were out there with a quota carrying bag, and that's just something that doesn't happen anymore. So at IBM, I really learned how to be a business person still in its infancy, but learned how to do that, how to act, how to talk, how to walk, and that was huge. And I met some of the most amazing people there when I started off in Orlando and to this day many of those folks are CEOs of companies and we keep in touch and so I learned a lot there, and from there I really went into small business. So I helped build a small consulting company that focused on CRM and business analytics, and that was really where I took my first step into senior leadership or P&L leadership, if you will and that was a great learning experience, again surrounded by amazing people, and that was one of the things I really took away from Enforte, which was surround yourself with the best people you can find and that you can afford, because those people will work well together, they will demand excellence from each other and they won't settle for anything less. So that was a great entryway into small business. I think it was employee 13, and understanding what that really means.
Speaker 2:And then combining that with what I learned at IBM and that combo really led me to my first introduction to payments, where I was hired, ironically, by one of the folks that I met at IBM years earlier at Elevon, which is obviously part of US Bank, and came in there to really focus in on, initially on sales and sales operations, which was, given my background in CRM, made sense and helped to run the install base here in the United States, which is a huge portion of Elevon's business, and then was given the opportunity to take on some truly different roles. I was the chief marketing officer for two or three years and then got to really do something different, which was, as Elebano was expanding into Latin America, was given the opportunity to take that leadership role by Mike Pasilla, then the CEO, and Simon Hasselman, who was running international out of Europe, and we built out Brazil, we built out Mexico, puerto Rico, from scratch. So it was an amazing experience to build an international company or companies and that led to being recruited away to JP Morgan to do that and that was wonderful because it was Asia. I'd never done that, so that was wonderful and got to really be around amazing leadership from Jamie Dimon on down and understand how do you run a big business and how do you focus on those clients that are global in scale, which present an entirely different problem set than the commercial or SMB space does. So those were wonderful experiences.
Speaker 2:But I really yearned to get back into smaller business and to have a bigger leadership roles so I was able to go over to priority payments and become their chief revenue officer and get back involved with small businesses as well, as it was really my exposure to that specialty acquiring space and then that led me here, that led me to Corvia as a CEO and I think that all those different jobs whether it was a sales rep, a sales manager, a SVP of sales, a CMO, a president of an international division all led me to where I am today and it's given me a good view, kind of a good 360 degree view.
Speaker 3:Okay, what was it about Corvia that attracted you?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, on a personal level, it was a shot at being a CEO that I was ready to be, and so that was an intrinsic issue for me and a big motivator, and that intrinsic really drives me more than extrinsic.
Speaker 2:From a company standpoint, I saw a company that to me was a diamond in the rough, in that the skills that I'd acquired either in building a small company, in a forte or in payments, through all those payment companies, I looked at the issues that Corvia needed to overcome. Like any company, there are good things and there are bad things, or there are opportunities for improvement. And when I looked at the opportunities for improvement, I looked at it and thought, well, first of all, I know people who can tackle those areas and can be amazing leaders there. And then I thought also about what markets they were going after and how could I affect those no-transcript the company. So I looked at it and said it's just a great challenge and one where I knew it would be. You know it's never instantaneous success, but you know it falls into that gradually but suddenly category if you follow Seth Godin at all.
Speaker 3:Right, right, great. So what are some things you're passionate about? Maybe one work-related passion and one personal passion.
Speaker 2:I think, from a work standpoint, what I'm really passionate about is working with people and helping their careers grow, whether it's at the company I'm at or somewhere else. And nothing brings me more joy than seeing somebody grow and become a leader and hopefully they're working for me and with me. But I have a lot of friends that I've worked with that have now gone off to other jobs at competitors or in different industries or started their own business, and when you see that, you realize that you have helped them and their family and the families that work with them and for them, and that's a lot to put on your shoulders, but I really like it and I think it's an incredible thing to do, and so I've learned that from other servant leaders and that's a passion of mine, so it's something that I truly take to heart.
Speaker 2:I think, outside of work aside from, obviously, the betterment of my family and friends and making sure that we are doing everything we can within our community the area that I focus my time on outside of work is really around education. So I'm on the board of Junior Achievement here in Atlanta and I have been on that for over a decade and that's just amazing when you see what these young kids can do, have given some mentorship and some opportunity. And then I've also taken that passion kind of tangential to the education side and continue to be a coach a football coach at the high school where my sons went to so, as time permits, be involved there with a great group of men and trying to work with a bunch of sixth, seventh and eighth graders up through high school and working with them and leading them and mentoring them as well. So it's all about getting them ready for life, because we're going to blink and they're gone off to bigger and better things.
Speaker 3:Okay, you mentioned earlier college football, so I had to circle back to that as I went to Auburn. So, knowing that you're a Georgia fan, we should take some time offline and have some discussions about college football.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And, like I said, it's one of those things where I'm conflicted because I love what Brent Keyes doing at Georgia Tech. One of my good friends who I coached for, Tim McFarlane, is now on that staff there and Brent's doing some great things there and then you see what Georgia's doing. It's just it's a machine over there. So I root for Georgia Tech and Georgia and then on that unfortunate date, the moment, I obviously root for Georgia Tech and Georgia continues to get the better of us.
Speaker 3:Great. Well, obviously you've been around the payment space for a while, so I always like to get people's kind of view and opinion and plus your kind of passion around helping people. I think that'll be an interesting answer to this question. Let's say someone comes to you and they say hey, carlos, I'm graduating from Georgia tomorrow and I'm looking at the payments or fintech industry as a career. What advice would you give them to be successful in payments?
Speaker 2:Look, I think payments is a great space to be in because it's a combination of technology or fintech right, which people banter that around and financials, so banking. So it's a great intersection of the two. And my first advice that I actually give is to those kids who are in college, particularly those who are in Georgia, to take advantage of programs to learn about this industry. So if you're in Georgia, you can take advantage of that by being part of the Georgia FinTech Academy, which you can do as part of your curriculum at the University of Georgia or Georgia Tech or any of the state schools, and that allows you to really get exposed to the payments industry. And so that's the first place to start. But if it's a recent college graduate or someone who's trying to get into it, I'd tell them it's a great space to come in and learn about payments, but also about technology and about banking. And at the end of the day, those are really critical areas of our economy and they're not going to go away. They're going to change and so they're going to evolve and you're going to be in a fast paced environment to understand what's going on. But if I was giving someone advice, you know this would apply to payments, but I think it would apply anywhere. Which is, first and foremost, be curious. Understand what you're doing now, but be curious about things you don't know and you don't understand. If you have that curiosity, you'll always be digging into what's new, right. And so how do you be curious? Some of it is just your innate personality, but also you're curious by the things that you do, whether you continue to read and learn, whether it's books or courses you may take or people you follow on podcasts or TED Talks or whatever. That's incredibly important. Never stop learning, I guess, would be another way to put it. And then the other thing I would tell you is, when you get into a space like payments, which is going to afford you an area, an ecosystem that gives you a lot of different things you can do, take advantage of those.
Speaker 2:I started off in sales, I've done marketing, I've built P&Ls, been exposed to international opportunities, and I would say, take all of those, and they don't all necessarily need to be a step up.
Speaker 2:They can be a lateral, they can be maybe even a move down if you want to go down into a particular area that you don't know anything about. You want to learn, but rounding yourself out, and so to me, it's just a great industry where you don't need to be pigeonholed into one job type or career path, and that it'll lead itself to other areas so outside of the payment space. In fact, I was talking to a young man who started off in payments, really doing project management within it, but was exposed to so many things and the work he was doing was really payments focused, but within the healthcare industry, and that then led to discussions with the actual providers, ie hospitals, but also consulting companies who were looking for people to help them in the healthcare space, and the fact that they had capabilities in payments was critical to them and then really helped them get a leg up. So I think it's a great place to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you kind of hit on it. It's so important when you think about payments in fintech and banking. I mean it's commerce, right, and the whole world operates around commerce, so it's such an important part of just the world we live in?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Look, and there's going to be change in all industries, but I think we can agree that change is the constant in the commerce world and we're going to continue to see changes in the commerce world and so if someone wants to get into something that is in that space and is evolving and changing and providing opportunities payments is an amazing place to be and it's going to give you those opportunities to grow and expand what you know and what you do and where you do it.
Speaker 3:Right, right. So, Carlos, we've covered, obviously, about the company, about you and your background, about the industry as a whole. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up the show?
Speaker 2:Look, I just want to say thanks, greg, for giving us the opportunity to be part of the podcast today, and to anyone listening out there. If you're considering a role in a payments world, I think it's a great place to be. I'd ask you to consider Corvia. We're hiring and growing and be part of our infrastructure and our company and our family, so I appreciate the time Absolutely Well.
Speaker 3:Thank you for being on the show. I know your time is very valuable, so I really appreciate you being here. Likewise, 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.