ETA Celebrates International Women’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day, a global day that celebrates the lasting and significant social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women across the world. The innovation that defines the success of the payments technology industry is powered by women. From engineering teams, to business development, to the C-suite – since its beginning, women at every level have made extraordinary and essential contributions to our industry.

For International Women’s Day 2020, ETA celebrates the women of our Hall of Fame. The ETA Hall of Fame was established in 2018 to recognize industry leaders whose contributions to the industry have been significant, substantial and long-standing. It is a testament to the contributions of women in our industry that half of the honorees are women.

Those members are:

• Diane Faro (2018) – Faro is a pioneer and leader in payments processing. Across 40 years in the industry, Faro has served as CEO of Chase Merchant Services LLC, CEO of JetPay, and in multiple executive positions at First Data, including President of Global Merchant Services. Faro is a recognized innovator in the payments industry, receiving honors for accelerating the electronification of payments and contributing to the industry through volunteer leadership. Click here to see Faro’s main stage discussion on mergers and acquisitions from TRANSACT.
• Debra Rossi (2018) – Rossi is an innovator of e-commerce and payments leadership. Across a decades-long career at Wells Fargo Merchant Services, Rossi led Wells Fargo to be the first bank to process a secure credit card transaction on the internet and oversaw the launch of the first credit and debit point-of-sale solution for grocery and quick-service restaurants in the United States.
• Donna Embry (2019) – Embry over 53 years of experience in the payments industry. Embry currently serves as Senior Vice President, Global Payments Strategy for Evolve Bank & Trust and as President of Embry Consulting, LLC. Across her career, she has held multiple leadership positions in the payments industry, including Chief Payments Officer for Payment Alliance International, Executive Vice President, Product and Marketing for Vital Processing, and Senior Vice President, Electronic Banking for PNC Bank. While at Vital in the 1990s, Embry led the team that developed and launched VirtualNet, the first network capable of processing ecommerce gateway transactions. Embry authored the first ETA publication, The Encyclopedia of Terminology for the Acquiring Industry, and developed and taught the inaugural introduction series of classes for ETA University. In 2016, she received ETA’s “Distinguished Payments Professional” award. Watch her nomination and acceptance speeches from the 2019 induction ceremony here.
• Mary Gerdts (2019) – Gerdts is founder, Chief Executive Officer and President of two companies in the payments industry, POST Integrations, Inc. and EboCom, LLC. Founded in 1991, POST Integrations provides credit card processing services exclusively to the hospitality industry, representing a pioneering force in the way hotels are served by the merchant acquiring industry. EboCom was founded in 2000 as a technology company providing full service back-office transaction processing, a venture that brought sophisticated automation and efficiency to back office processes. Gerdts has over 20 years of experience in the electronic transactions industry and has been an active member of ETA since 1991. She served on the ETA board of directors for 10 years and was President of ETA from 2002-2003. View her nomination and acceptance speeches from the 2019 induction ceremony here.
• Pam Joseph (2019) – Joseph is Operating Partner with Advent International. Prior to working with Advent, she served as President and Chief Operating Officer of TSYS and served for 14 years as Vice Chairman of U.S. Bancorp’s payment services division. At U.S. Bancorp, Joseph had executive responsibility for all electronic payment products, a business worth $5 billion and responsible for 30 percent of the bank’s revenue. Joseph joined U.S. Bancorp in 2001 through the acquisition of Elavon, where she was President and Chief Operating Officer. Joseph currently serves as a board director for Paychex, Transunion and Adyen. Watch her nomination and acceptance speeches from the 2019 induction ceremony here.
• Linda Perry (2019) – Perry is a payments executive with a career of impressive volunteer and executive leadership accomplishments and accolades. Perry retired after 17 years from Visa as Senior Vice President and Head of Acquirer and Processor Sales for the US. She established and developed the department that managed Visa’s relationships with its member-bank acquirers, third-party issuing and acquiring processors, software vendors, and independent sales organizations. Prior to her time at Visa, Perry was a Vice President at Citicorp in Chicago and held Vice President positions at Michigan National Bank. Watch her nomination and acceptance speeches from the 2019 induction ceremony here.

As the global trade association for the payments industry, ETA is proud to recognize and support our industry’s innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Click here to read more about the ETA Hall of Fame, and click here to read more about International Women’s Day 2020.