ETA CEO Jodie Kelley: Growing Together

By Jodie L. Kelley, CEO, ETA.

I’m still measuring my tenure as ETA’s CEO in weeks rather than months – weeks that have been filled with excitement, ambition, and a lot of learning about this remarkable industry. What’s abundantly clear to me is that I joined at exactly the right time.

This industry is growing exponentially and changing at a breathtaking speed. The impact on commerce and consumers is profound and exciting. The changes in our industry affect not only the way we transact, they affect the way we live.

Although we take it for granted, the way we conduct our daily lives is fundamentally different today than it was only a few years ago.  When we need to get from one place to another, we no longer have to hail a cab, we can order and pay for a car on our phone.  If we’re driving, we can find and pay for a parking spot with an app.  When we want to purchase virtually anything, we can order and pay online and have it delivered straight to our home.  And when we hire a babysitter, or painter, or other service provider, we can pay them directly, again from an app.

These kinds of experiences, unimaginable even a decade ago, are replicated every day, all the time, in our daily lives. And that is only the beginning. We continue to progress. Commerce is becoming easier and faster every day, and it is ETA member companies driving the evolution while ensuring that the ecosystem is safe and secure.

At ETA, we are proud to be the voice of this complex and dynamic ecosystem, to be the place where the industry connects, and where it comes for education, advocacy, and thought leadership.

And I’m so proud to be at the helm. While it’s only my 5th week at ETA, I’ve already seen the incredible impact this association has on our industry. During my second week, we hosted a member fly-in on Capitol Hill to advocate for a national privacy law that would allow our industry to continue to use data to fight fraud. We also hosted a policy forum where legislators, regulators and industry leaders spoke about the pressing policy issues facing the ecosystem.  Last week, I joined hundreds of payments executives in Boca Raton for the Strategic Leadership Forum, where we discussed and examined the trends that are fueling this new era of payments technology.

I come to ETA from a technology trade association that focused on software. Coming from that background, I understand how quickly this world is evolving, how technology and consumer demand are combining to push changes in the industry forward at a breathtaking pace.

I also know just how important the right trade association is in that climate.  As a trade association, our job is to make you successful.  Everything ETA does is in service of that mission; we exist to enable your success.  And we must be as nimble, and forward looking, and dynamic as the industry we serve.

I look forward to leading that charge and telling your story. We’ll focus on the importance of this industry and our impact on the future of commerce. And we will work every day to expand the value we provide to our members.

I’m starting by listening.  I’m looking forward to meeting you and hearing directly from you about your business, what you need, what ETA is doing right and what we can do better. I’ll be traveling quite a bit over the next few months, and look forward to connecting with you. Please feel free to reach out to me directly to introduce yourself – shoot me an email, give me a call, flag me down at an industry event. Together, we will grow the association and our industry.