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CoverStory

In October 2022, the organization

Holliday thanked PTW corporate partners for investing in officially rebranded to become
diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and for encouraging
male allies. PayTech Women has doubled its male advo- PayTech Women, a fresh new image
cate membership and has seen more men engaging in lo- inspired by the organization's
cal chapters.
membership and partnership growth
"As much as we empower and support women, women and expanded focus.
cannot do it alone," she said. "We need allies throughout
the industry to sponsor and support diversity, equity and
inclusion. Research has shown companies with more di-
verse senior leadership and board members endure trying Holliday noted it's also important to set goals and build
times more effectively and are stronger overall." for success by getting team members' perspectives on or-
ganizational goals for implementing DEI. She suggested
More companies are embracing DEI, Holliday added, not asking colleagues what leading indicators will impact
only because it's the right thing to do but because it's a their goal attainment. Also consider a multilevel leader-
fiscally responsible and company-centric leading indica- ship opportunity, and allow people at all levels in the or-
tor for success. ganization to lead initiatives that address each goal, she
added. Most importantly, she emphasized, decentralize
Diversity, equity, inclusion the implementation to ensure it is part of everyone's re-
sponsibilities—then reflect and repeat annually.
When asked how companies can support PTW's mission
to help create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive pay- Coming full circle
ments industry, Holliday framed the process as a long
game. Targan stated that PayTech Women has come a long way
and there is more work to be done. "We started out with an
"I see the opportunity to improve diversity, equity and initial gathering of maybe 30 women at an industry confer-
inclusion as a journey," she said. "No organization has a ence," she said. "The focus has always been on networking
magic solution and each organization will have employee and leadership development—that has not changed. But
and situational differences that must be taken into con- the offerings have become more sophisticated over time."
sideration. So, give yourself and your organization a bit
of grace and consider what can be done now, what can be Society has become more attuned to DEI in corporate set-
done in the near term and what is next?" tings, but it appears the numbers haven't moved signif-
icantly in the past 20 years, Targan noted. Thus, we are
Holliday encouraged industry organizations to look ahead constantly polling our members and corporate sponsors,
to improve approaches to DEI and to foster environments she said, to see how we can help women meet their ca-
that support authenticity and transparency. There must be reer objectives, and this has led to the robust organization
buy-in from the top, she added, with true authentic out- we have today, with local chapters, insightful webinars, a
reach and access to organizational metrics that provide mentoring program, and the resoundingly successful an-
real data about the organization. This data can be used to nual Leadership Summit.
track successes and failures and report back to the team
while resisting the urge to sugarcoat any setbacks. Perry agreed that PayTech Women has enriched many
professional careers, including her own. PTW founders
Noting that people support what they help to create, she came from different areas of the payments industry, she
encouraged companies to get team members engaged in noted, but became more than customers to each other and
the following initiatives: formed lasting bonds in the process. Out of this experi-
ence, it seemed only natural to want to help other women
• Recruitment, hiring, training and retention prac- in their careers, she added.
tices
"I had a wonderful career in payments, working for three
• Establishing an internal employee resource group banks and finally Visa for 17 years," she said. "My position
at Visa, senior vice president, acquirer relations, enabled
• Utilizing nonprofit services, such as PayTech Wom- me to interact with women in all sectors of the business. I
en's mentoring program, coaching services and felt and still feel those relationships and the network the
Leadership Academy.
job provided were very valuable to me as a person, and to
• Boosting morale to help make team members feel enhancing my industry education and job skills."
that they matter Dale S. Laszig, senior staff writer at The Green Sheet and founder
and CEO at DSL Direct LLC, is a payments industry journalist and
• Incorporating inclusiveness in the employee manu- content strategist. Connect via email dale@dsldirectllc.com, LinkedIn
al and internal policies
www.linkedin.com/in/dalelaszig/ and Twitter https://twitter.com/
DSLdirect.
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