.jpg)
Leaders In Payments
Leaders In Payments
Women Leaders in Payments: Tiffany Johnson, Chief Product Officer at NMI | Episode 339
Our latest episode of Leaders in Payments focused on women leaders in our industry, takes you through Tiffany Johnson's inspiring path, characterized by resilience, empathy, and a relentless drive for innovation. Tiffany uncovers her role at NMI, comparing it to an "air traffic controller," where she orchestrates everything from market insights to technical solutions.
We dive deep into Tiffany's core leadership principles, emphasizing the critical importance of empathy and relationship-building. Hear about her unconventional career path, likened to a rock wall, and how it prepared her to tackle challenges with a "yes" mentality and curiosity. Learn about the supportive women's professional network at her company, and get practical advice for young women aiming to break into the payments industry. From maintaining confidentiality to fostering professional growth, Tiffany's insights are invaluable for anyone looking to navigate and thrive in the ever-evolving payments landscape.
In conclusion, Tiffany’s leadership principles, emphasis on mentorship, and commitment to building a supportive professional network provide valuable insights for anyone looking to thrive in the payments industry. Whether you're a young professional or an experienced leader, Tiffany's experiences and advice offer inspiration and practical guidance for navigating and succeeding in the ever-evolving world of payments.
Thank you for joining us during this special series running throughout the month of July, focused exclusively on women leaders and payments. We've got great content this month, focused on mentorship, career advice, getting out of your comfort zone, having your voice heard and much, much more. A special thanks to our contributing sponsors, Stacks Payments, Nuve and MAP Advisors, and to our episode sponsors, NMI, DailyPay, G&D and Ingenico. As we continue our month dedicated to women leaders in payments today, I welcome Tiffany Johnson, the Chief Product Officer at NMI. We've got a great episode ahead, so let's get started. We've got a great episode ahead, so let's get started. Hi, Tiffany, thank you for being here and welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast and, more specifically, thank you so much for participating during Women Leaders in Payments Month.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Great, 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.
Speaker 2:Sure. So I was born in Texas, grew up in North California and then I moved out of state to Arizona where I did my undergrad and MBA at Arizona State, and not long after that I got married to an Air Force pilot and have moved all over the world about eight moves in the last 15 years and we finally settled down somewhat recently in Phoenix, arizona, where we live now with our three kids and two dogs.
Speaker 1:Oh, awesome All over the world. That's fun. Well, tell us about your role today and a little about NMI.
Speaker 2:Sure. So NMI is a leading global embedded payments platform. What that means is we serve our partners and software platforms with a white label payments acceptance solution that they can embed in their software or they sell to their merchants or small businesses as part of their overall offer Within NMI. As a CPO, I get to wear a lot of different hats. I love my job and Vijay, who you know, is our CEO he likes to call me the air traffic controller for NMI because I get involved and touch all of it. You know everything from market insight to customer engagement, to technical solutioning, to even organizational alignment, so I get to wear a lot of different hats in my role today.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So before we dive into the meat of the conversation, we're going to do a little icebreaker type exercise and I'm going to ask you a few this or that questions, so basically like, do you prefer early morning or late night? And you just give the quick answer and we move on to the next one. So we have 10 of them that we're going to run through real quickly. Tell me when you're ready to start.
Speaker 2:The pressure, it'll be fun. Let's jump in, okay.
Speaker 1:Do you prefer summer or winter, summer, dogs or cats, dogs, apple or Android, apple Coffee or tea, coffee, books or movies, books, beach or mountains, mountains, chocolate or vanilla, vanilla Texting or calling. Texting the city or the country.
Speaker 2:The country.
Speaker 1:Last but not least, pizza or pasta Pasta. Awesome, all right, thanks for doing that. That was awesome. Great to break the ice a little bit and get to know you a little bit more. So I appreciate that, all right, well, let's get into the meat of the conversation. So let's start talking a little into the meat of the conversation. So let's start talking a little bit about kind of your life. So let's rewind a little bit and talk about, if you don't mind, what your life was like growing up.
Speaker 2:Wow, I had a great childhood great family, very supportive parents. I have my brother and my half sister, and we were busy growing up. You know, I was a competitive gymnast for a long time and then transitioned in high school to other sports like diving and volleyball and things like that. I was very involved in student government and athletics and community service and my dream growing up was to go to Stanford and so I was very committed to doing all of the things to try to get into Stanford, including I started taking my first college classes Shoot, I was maybe 11 or 12. So it was busy, but a lot of fun, a lot of travel. We'd love to spend our weekends on the lake and in the winter we'd go snowboarding in the mountains, because in Northern California we were pretty close to Tahoe.
Speaker 1:Nice. So when you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Speaker 2:I actually wanted to be what I am today and I know that sounds a bit silly but in my sophomore year of high school so this was back in flip phone era I don't even think I had T9 text yet I actually wrote a scholarship essay about a phone that could also be your bank account, and nothing like this existed, but it was just in my mind, something that I thought we would be moving to. And here we are I don't want to completely age myself, but two and a half decades later and working with digital banking and payments, and so it's pretty fun to reflect back on that early essay.
Speaker 1:So you're a true visionary.
Speaker 2:I don't know about that. I think I got lucky.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, what was your very first job?
Speaker 2:I guess my first kind of community job. I used to do the gardening for one of my elderly neighbors when she had an accident and couldn't care for herself, so I don't know if that counts. But my first kind of payroll W-2 job was in high school. I was a lifeguard and then I also coached volleyball.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, so let's continue with your career. You mentioned going to college. Maybe walk us through after college, your first job, and then bring us up to today.
Speaker 2:Sure so, even in college, your first job, and then bring us up to today Sure so, even in college I was pretty fortunate to have landed a number of good consulting internships. So I got to try direct sales. I got to work at Morgan Stanley. I got to work in a number of different areas so I could try some things on Pre size, and my first official job out of college was with PricewaterhouseCoopers as a litigation analyst for financial crimes.
Speaker 2:So I got the chance to investigate very high profile Fortune 50 companies on things like stock option backdating or IP theft or eminent domain cases, and it really I've always loved payments and the complexity of finance and getting to kind of start out at the ground floor. There was just a great, great space to start out my professional career. And then, after my MBA I got married and, like I mentioned before, my husband flies F-16s for the Air Force and we moved overseas and I was all excited Price Waterhouse was going to move with me. But then we realized that at the time unemployment was so high overseas that military spouses couldn't get visa sponsorship. So I ended up working for the Air Force Base and then when I moved back, I just applied for jobs at our next station and got hired on by a processor and have been in payments and specifically payment acceptance and transacting payments ever, ever since Okay great.
Speaker 1:Well, that brings us to today. So obviously you've been very successful throughout your career. So what are some of your guiding principles?
Speaker 2:and it's so important to learn fast and often, and never settle for the status quo. There's nothing you can't do if you're curious. My second guiding principle would be always be customer obsessed, especially in product. It's really easy to be solution driven, but unless you're solving real customer problems, none of it matters. My third principle would be always be outcome driven. Outcomes matter more than output. It doesn't really matter how hard you work and how many new features you push out. It's important that those deliverables really resonate and solve real world problems. And then I'd say the fourth one is be a team player. It absolutely takes a village. Surround yourself with unique perspectives and people who push and inspire you to really be the best version of yourself. And I've been pretty blessed with incredible mentors in my journey and am very fortunate at NMI to be surrounded by such great talent.
Speaker 1:Great, great. Well, let's talk about your journey to becoming a leader. What were some pivotal moments or experience that helped shape your path to becoming a leader?
Speaker 2:A lot of people think about career path as being a ladder, where you know you just keep climbing up, up, up, and I feel like my career has been more of a rock wall, where sometimes it's been up, sometimes it's been down, sometimes it's been sideways, and some of that was almost forced by being in the military and moving so much and having to work within that personal constraint. But within that I had the opportunity to work for publicly traded companies, vc backed, pe, backed startups, big companies. I got the chance to try on a lot of different environments and products and perspectives that I think have really come together and given me a strong and very diverse background to be able to be a leader and be empathetic to my team and understand their perspectives and what they're coming from, because I was able to see so many different perspectives growing up in my career.
Speaker 1:So do you think being asked to move to all these different places played a role? Because, I mean, as a child I moved around a little bit, not a lot, but I think it, you know it teaches you how to adapt, it teaches you how to meet new people, make friends, whatever I mean. Do you feel like some of that kind of made you who you are today?
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%. It forces you to learn empathy and learn relationship building skills, and I think that's definitely transferred over into my professional life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would think so. So what are some of the biggest challenges you faced as a female leader and how did you overcome them?
Speaker 2:My biggest challenge is time and I don't know if that's being female or not, but just many leaders. And it's time at work. There's always more to do than there are hours in the day. It's time out of work, it's making sure the kid and the family are taken care of. And you know, especially post COVID, where the lines have really blurred between work life, it's really less about work life balance and now it's more work life integration with so many people working remotely. And I would say that my coping mechanism, how I've overcome the challenge of time, is by asking for help and having the confidence to say it's okay to ask for help driving kids to activities or cleaning the house or doing the groceries, so that I can be present for my family. And I don't have that guilt because when I am off work I'm 100% with the family.
Speaker 1:Okay, and can you share some experiences maybe where you had to step out of your comfort zone to grow, and we just talked about the whole military and moving. I mean that in and of itself is a lot of stepping out of your comfort zone, especially if you're moving to strange places or overseas, but is a lot of stepping out of your comfort zone, especially if you're moving to strange places or overseas. But when we talk about getting out of your comfort zone, what impact did that have on your professional development? Do you think?
Speaker 2:I think moving definitely forces you out of the comfort zone, especially in that journey. I was the only one remote, you know. I was one of the only female leaders. I was one of the only ones on the phone trying to force my presence and my seat at the table and trying to do it in a way that, again, was still empathetic and building relationships with the team. So I think moving definitely forced me out of the comfort zone. I would say another experience that I recollect being out of my comfort zone.
Speaker 2:Earlier in my payments career I was fortunate to work with companies like Uber and Apple and Walmart and Intuit and just these notoriously fantastic product teams and they write books about the way these people do product.
Speaker 2:And I remember sitting around the table and I would just get really intimidated and had a hard time finding my voice. And there was one session I was flying home from and I remember being at the airport calling my mom saying I know I can contribute, I know more about payments, I know I can add value. I just have a hard time finding my voice. I'm suffering basically from imposter syndrome. I didn't know what it was at the time and I remember my mom saying you know it doesn't matter who's at the table, just remember, everyone puts their pants on the same way, one leg at a time, and ever since then. It really helped put into perspective and to kind of force myself to get over that intimidation and focus more on being data-driven, empathetic, aligning on outcomes, because it doesn't matter who they are, where they came from, as long as we're headed to the same place. It helps overcome that imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and appreciate you sharing that. I think most people, when they look back on their careers, they've had at least one, if not more, of those kind of occasions where they were forced to get out of their comfort zone and maybe it wasn't easy, and it's often having a seat at the table and being courageous enough to get your voice, to have your voice be heard. So I think that's kind of a common one that a lot of people have to kind of learn from and go through. And you mentioned something earlier about mentors, so let's talk about that a little bit. Did you have mentors or do you currently have mentors, and how important do you think mentors are to emerging leaders?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think mentors are critical for emerging leaders and I've had different mentors at different stages of my career. I'd say early on, even growing up, my mom was a mentor. She was president of our company. I learned a lot from her and seeing how she handled work-life balance. I had mentors with some Lauren Bailey and Brian Etheridge. They were internship directors and scholarship directors that I worked with, and in my career I've had Steve Street, daniel Ecker, now Vijay Sunde. I've been blessed with a lot of very strong leaders and I think it's critical just in the example we just talked about, greg, about finding your voice and gaining momentum and having a mentor that gives you the confidence to speak out in that first meeting and then it becomes a snowball effect and you gain that momentum and it's hard to do that on your own and that's where I think mentors can really help get you started.
Speaker 1:So these mentors that you mentioned, were they sort of parts of, like, standardized programs within companies or were they more? You went out and found them, reached out to them? Maybe talk about how you built that relationship, because I think that's also something that people struggle with is, you know, having mentors sounds great and it sounds easy, but how do you get them and how do you build that relationship with mentors?
Speaker 2:It's a really good question. So the one primary mentorship program I was a part of was a program called Rise Up, sponsored by Money 2020. It's a very prominent program in the fintech payments space and I applied for that was selected. That has been a phenomenal group of women to be a part of and to encourage each other. The other people I sort of listed off were in. They were bosses, they were CEOs, they were leaders, either in my group or tangential to my group, that I reached out to and said, hey, I know we work together, but would you mind spending some time with me on the side and giving some coaching and counsel and direction? And they all said yes and took a chance on me and invested their very valuable time and it paid off. But it did take me going out of my comfort zone to reach out to them.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, and let's talk about NMI specifically, and correct me if I'm wrong. You have a group within NMI, within the company, that's sort of a women's group. I'm not sure the exact name of it, but maybe tell us about that group, what's its mission and any details you can give about that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. We call it our Women's Network at NMI and we have about 120 women who participate in it, which is pretty incredible given our company's about 500 people strong. And the purpose of our Women's Network at NMI is to uplift the women of NMI and to create opportunities for enrichment, mentoring and support of women by creating really a safe space to seek counsel and provide a forum for guidance and advice and then finally, to build lasting, meaningful and supportive relationships between the women of of mine. So that's the purpose that we rally around. We have some organizers, kind of a rotating group of organizers, and it's everything from, you know, sponsorship to training. We'll have women who maybe apply to something like Rise Up that I mentioned, that I was a part of a few years ago, and we'll sponsor them to those kind of events. We'll bring in training. We'll have speakers. We'll review each other's applications for outside. It's just. It's been a really great forum to learn and grow together and support one another.
Speaker 1:Okay, and is it like a formalized group? Do you have like a head and a secretary and all that? I mean, is it really formal or is it a little more laid back and maybe tell about sort of the tactical side, like how often do you know companies like NMI that have something? How can other companies who want to or aspire to have something, how can they learn about what you're doing? So if you don't mind going into a little more kind of tactical detail about what the group does and schedules and those kinds of things, Sure, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So. You asked how casual or formal, and we don't have a secretary and a treasurer. We're not that formal, but we're fairly structured. So I'm actually the executive sponsor and I think it's super important to have somebody on the executive team who is sponsoring a network like this, Because if there's things like budget asks or you need time off to go do something, having that support from a leadership perspective is really important. And then we have six women who are the organizers and they help groom these product principles where we kind of stack rank ideas. We'll do quizzes and we'll ask what do the women want to work on?
Speaker 2:So one of the topics that came up in our last survey was contract negotiation. You know, not everybody in the company is involved with that, but there's a lot of interest in better understanding how to negotiate contracts, how to negotiate salaries, how to negotiate just in general, and so now the organizers will go out and either find an external speaker maybe a course or a training or somebody internally, like from legal, who can come and give a talk on that area. So it's a lot of seeking perspective and input from the participants and what they want to work in to better develop their professional career and mixing that with trying to match that with opportunities for enrichment.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you mentioned having an executive sponsor is very important. Are there other sort of maybe pieces of advice you would give someone if they reached out about the group and they wanted to start one in their own group in their own company? Is there any other advice you'd give them?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I would say start small and iterate. Don't try to boil the ocean. It's easier to gain momentum with an object that's in motion than it is to try to push a big old boulder down the hill. And once you have momentum, it's incredibly important to maintain confidentiality, respect and make sure that conversations are fit for purpose. It's not a place to come and just air your complaints or your concerns. It's a productive place to grow and grow together both in your network and your professional skillset.
Speaker 1:How do you judge that it's working? What do you see as success?
Speaker 2:It's a great question. We measure success mostly by participation how many people are engaging. We have a Slack channel where we share insights, we share articles, opportunities and then our monthly meetups. So every month we'll do a meetup and then every quarter is when we kind of bring in the outside if we want to do a session or training or an enrichment. So we try to do those once a quarter and finding the right balance between too much time and not enough time was hard. But that's kind of where we eventually landed, because it's really easy to put professional development on the back burner because it's not the squeaky wheel of your day-to-day tactical job. But making sure that you find that balance between okay, it's reasonable to invest in myself, invest in ourselves monthly, with a slightly bigger investment quarterly, seems to have been a good fit.
Speaker 1:Okay, what advice would you give someone say they're coming right out of college, young woman joining the workforce, and they look at the payments industry or FinTech and they say, hey, you know, this is a space that I want to build a career in. What kind of advice would you give them to be successful?
Speaker 2:So first, I would say payments is a great place to be. So first, I would say payments is a great place to be. It is never boring. It's like the Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole the more you think you know, the deeper the hole gets. And the really cool thing about payments is you are your consumer. I mean we all transact, we all buy things. So when you think about understanding your customer, understanding your user, we all buy things. So when you think about understanding your customer, understanding your user, we are the user and it's pretty unique to have a high tech industry that you are your own persona and user. So I'd say, first of all, great choice choosing payments. In terms of advice, getting started professionally, I would say lean in and have a yes mentality, especially when you're starting out, whether that's volunteering to take meeting notes for a client meeting or stepping in to help somebody on a project that you have nothing to do with. It's those kind of activities that are going to open doors or open a path on that rock wall, of activities that are going to open doors or open a path on that rock wall.
Speaker 2:I reflect on one of the processors I worked for early in my career. I mentioned picking up meeting notes for somebody else. I remember a particular week where I was swamped and just stressed out and my boss came up and said hey, so-and-so is out of the office. I need you to step in. Can you help solution this new thing? Customer flow all the way out here for this meeting. So sure, office, I need you to step in. Can you help solution this new thing? Customer flow all the way out here for this meeting.
Speaker 2:So sure enough, I stepped in. I took the meeting, I worked late, I did it, I learned a lot and two years later that customer ended up buying the company I worked for and I landed very well with a pretty pivotal role in that acquisition. All because I said, yes, the more doors you open, the more opportunities you give yourself. That path will become more clear and I'd say, if fallouts fails, just be brave, be curious, be yourself. It's payments is a roller coaster and it's a lot of fun and it's payments is a roller coaster and it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would totally agree with you there. Well before we wrap up, one final question who or what inspires you to keep pushing forward in your career?
Speaker 2:I would say my family. I have my three kids and my husband who's so supportive. I could not do this without them. But having we talk often with the kids like, hey, are we still okay that both mom and dad work? Are you guys doing okay in school and with your friends and with your health and your upbringing? Because family comes first. And they keep saying yes and they love hearing stories about customers and stories about, oh, this fraud event and oh, how did they use AI for this? And just the questions and the interests that they show in what I do. And when my daughter looks up and tries to see what she wants to be when she grows up, you can kind of see that reflection in her eyes and that's definitely very inspiring and keeps me pushing forward long days and long weeks.
Speaker 1:Well, great, well, you mentioned something that kind of out of this conversation that really resonated with me and I think hopefully will with a lot of people is kind of the corporate ladder visual versus the rock wall visual. I thought that was really interesting and certainly, you know, taking steps sideways and maybe even sometimes backwards just to get further up is kind of an interesting topic. So I really appreciate you bringing that up and I think that visual is very strong. But before we go, I just want to give you a final opportunity. Is there anything that you felt like we didn't cover, that you wanted to cover, or any other topics you wanted to touch on before we wrap up?
Speaker 2:I think your questions were very thorough, Greg. It's been a pleasure talking through this. It's a topic I'm very passionate about and just seeing how the payments industry has evolved in the two decades that I've been a part of it and I love that we're doing programs like this.
Speaker 1:We're doing podcasts like this and excited to see where it heads next, where we're not just talking about the latest and greatest things happening in payments. So I want to thank you so much for being on the show and sharing all of these insights, and I know your time is very valuable, as you mentioned, so I really appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1:And to all you listeners out there. I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story, a special thanks to our sponsors for helping make this month possible, especially our contributing sponsors Stacks Payments, nuve and MAP Advisors, and to our episode sponsors NMI, daily Pay, g&d and Ingenica. To learn more, visit wwwleadersinpaymentscom. Bye.