May 3, 2022 -- Sherman Oaks, California
After extensive payments expertise on emerging markets in Latin America and Asia Pacific, Mr. Jacob Gaddis joins payment processing startup, Payverse as Head of Business Development & Strategy.
While attending West Virginia University, Jacob Gaddis successfully established the social fraternity Delta Tau Delta (Gamma Delta Chapter), for which he also served as President where he had an opportunity to meet with George B. Bennett, Co-Founder of Bain & Co., a fellow alumnus of West Virginia University and Delta Tau Delta. Mr. Bennett offered some post-graduation advice on choosing your first career job that significantly impacted Mr. Gaddis' trajectory. His recommendation was simple but wise; “Focus on three objectives for your initial career job. First, make sure it is an Inc. 500 Company or fast-growing startup for a hands-on experience across variety of tasks. Second, make sure it is within an innovative industry, so that learnt skills are relevant. And finally, seek direct mentorship from senior executives to learn from their successes and failures.”
After graduation, Mr. Gaddis did just that by pursuing a career with an Inc. 500 start-up in his hometown of Pittsburgh. This Fintech company, Dynamics Inc., coincidentally began what would be a $70M C-Series funding round led by MasterCard and CIBC with existing backer Bain Capital Ventures. At the company, Mr. Gaddis Initially cut his teeth in credit card modeling on total spend and share of wallet analyses by utilizing his logic background from an Analytical Philosophy degree. He soon expanded his role at Dynamics Inc. and began acting as business development manager in the Latin America market. In the fast-paced environment of a Fintech startup, Mr. Gaddis traveled to cities such as Medellin, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Mexico City on a monthly basis, working on card issuing partnerships with major banks. Once business was established to locally hire for the Latin American market, Mr. Gaddis transitioned to developing banking partnerships in Asia-Pacific, regularly traveling to business hubs such as Beijing, Taipei, Melbourne and Auckland to replicate previous successes.
After becoming acquainted with the emerging market in Asia-Pacific, Mr. Gaddis was presented an opportunity to work with China UnionPay, the largest global payment network in the world by purchase volume ($17 T USD in 2020) and cards issued (+9 B in 2020). The objective was to build UnionPay card acceptance in United States for the benefit of U.S. merchants and Chinese consumers. Serving as Director of U.S. Institutions, Mr. Gaddis was able to accomplish key milestones for UnionPay by emphasizing the value of trust, cooperation, and compromise. After nearly five years with UnionPay, Mr. Gaddis established key partnerships with the likes of JPMorgan Chase, Fiserv, Square, Worldline, Elavon, PNC, Truist, U.S. Bank, Citizens Bank and many others.