Page 11 - Pay Magazine

volume 10 • spring 2017
Patty Watson loves technology gurus. Although she’s not a developer herself, she’s been
leading groups of them for nearly 20 years.
“Developers are a really interest- ing group of people,” Watson says. “What they do at work, they also do for fun. They have a passion and quirkiness I came to fall in love with.”
The feeling is mutual. It didn’t take long for Watson to win over her seven-person development team at Bank of America, where she began her civilian career as senior technology executive. She credits her nine-plus years in the United States Air Force with giving her the leadership chops to be successful in that and subsequent roles.
“I’m really more of a business per- son who happens to understand technology,” she laughs. But it’s her investment in her team members that has made her a sought-after leader. “I’m passionate about men- torship. I think that’s why people have wanted to come work with me again because I put so much time and energy back into my people.”
After stints at Bank of America and the Brinks Company, Watson, her husband and ve kids moved from Dallas to Columbus, Ga., so she could take on her current role as chief information o cer at payments technology behemoth TSYS.
Experience Matters
In the new generation of payments, Watson says the keys are data and
mobility. “It’s about creating real- time experiences, being less reac- tive and more predictive,” she explains. “We’re putting a lot of emphasis on data analytics and machine learning, so we’re not just responding to requests.”
That analytical prowess is a must for security as well, according to Watson. “We’re investing a lot in what I call adaptive security, using predictive and behavioral analysis to stop security issues before they happen.” In reality, Watson says, security breaches often happen because people who have the appropriate access “choose to do bad things.” Changes in behavior can be a sign of a problem.
“We used to think about security as protecting the four walls, but the walls crumble as we move
to the cloud. This shift completely
What technologies Will change payments most?
“We have to adapt to how the customer base is changing. The call center is a big area of change where we’re implementing robotics to be able to handle transactions for the younger generations that don’t want to talk to a person.”
changes what information security does. I believe that keeping the open source, cloud or software- as-a-service environment safe and secure is key to enabling the business of the future.”
But technology aside, the most im- portant shift Watson has seen has been from a focus on transactions to a focus on people.
“Historically in payments we focused a lot on the transaction itself. What’s really exciting now
is that our focus is on the experi- ence,” Watson says. “We’re looking at di erent ways and di erent technologies that can make the experiences of merchants, con- sumers, nancial institutions and their cardholders better. It’s really about people-centered payments, which is one of the reasons TSYS was so appealing.”
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