The Executive Interview Series provides readers with exclusive insights from movers and shakers in the payments industry. The payments industry is under continuous transformation. This series offers diverse perspectives on everything from strategy to payments technology and the industry’s future.
In this interview between Davi Strazza, President of North America at Adyen, and TSG’s Morgan Murphy, Davi discusses the strategic importance of North America, Adyen’s unique in-house financial technology platform, and the benefits of their one-platform approach for enterprises and SMBs. He also covers the evolving payment landscape, the launch of Adyen Uplift, and the role of alternative payment methods and embedded payments in Adyen’s strategy.
Bio: Davi Strazza is the President of North America at Adyen, one of the world’s largest financial technology companies. He began his career at Adyen as a sales manager in Latin America and spent the following 10 years working across the Americas, including serving as President of Latin America, before assuming his current role in January 2023. Davi holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho.
Q. Morgan M.
What excites you most about leading Adyen’s North America business?
A. Davi S.
North America drives nearly 30% of global GDP and is home to many of the world’s most influential businesses, making it one of our largest opportunities and most strategic markets. We are privileged to call these businesses our customers and partners. In my role, I work closely with them to shape the future of the payments industry. North America is also a magnet for top talent. Over the years, we’ve built an exceptional team of nearly 800 people — and we’re still growing. Few things are more exciting than working with brilliant people on very challenging and ambitious projects.
Q. Morgan M.
How does Adyen differentiate itself from competitors?
A. Davi S.
We’ve taken the hardest path in our industry. While most competitors have grown through M&A, we built and scaled a global financial technology platform entirely in-house — from the ground up — on a single tech stack with proprietary acquiring and banking licenses. This unified platform allows us to: (i) simplify the complexity of payments, (ii) optimize performance, (iii) streamline operations, (iv) drive innovation, and (v) reduce the total cost of ownership — ultimately delivering unparalleled ROI for our customers.
Q. Morgan M.
How do you see Adyen’s one-platform approach benefiting large enterprises and SMBs?
A. Davi S.
For large enterprises, success comes down to finding the right balance between conversion, risk, and cost. Adyen customers gain access to the latest innovations in payments and financial services while saving millions annually through operational efficiencies and optimization features. On a global scale, this becomes a critical competitive advantage. For SMBs, which we support through platforms embedding payments and financial services, the benefit is access to the same powerful payments infrastructure that powers the world’s largest businesses. We are making SaaS platforms that embed payments and finance nearly impossible to compete with in the SMB market.
Q. Morgan M.
How would you describe Adyen’s company culture, and how does it influence how you lead?
A. Davi S.
Speed and autonomy are at the core of Adyen’s culture. We are an ambitious company with a clear mission: to power our customers’ growth. For every opportunity or challenge, we always align our interests with those of our customers and work backwards looking for the most effective way to create value for them. We always start with the “why” and work as a team — winning is more important than ego. The Adyen culture has really shaped how I work and think about leadership. I strive to lead with curiosity and empathy, always working with our teams to help our customers succeed.
Q. Morgan M.
How do you envision the payment landscape evolving over the next 5 years?
A. Davi S.
The pace of change in payments has been accelerating: payment methods, fraud, consumer preferences, and regulation. It’s hard to find a part of the ecosystem that hasn’t gone through some transformation in the past years. I think we’ll continue to see rapid change. With change comes complexity and challenges. Payments are far from a solved problem, but there’s also opportunity. Businesses that treat payments as a strategic asset will certainly be ahead of the curve
Q. Morgan M.
Adyen recently launched Adyen Uplift, an AI-powered payment optimization suite designed to enhance payment conversion rates, simplify fraud management, and reduce payment processing costs. Tell us more about the evolution of this suite and how it gives businesses a competitive edge.
A. Davi S.
Historically we looked at every single step in the purchase funnel and built products to optimize each of those steps, and we were very successful. Fast forward to today, a few things have changed: there’s more complexity in payments, our business has grown to process over $1 trillion in transactions annually, and we’ve seen major technological breakthroughs — like AI. But one thing hasn’t changed: our single platform. We built the ability to learn from every transaction that hits our platform and the ability to predict the most optimal route for that transaction based on our customers’ strategy and our platform-wide data. Instead of optimizing specifically for authorization rates or fraud, we are now optimizing the entire purchase funnel, with direct impact to the bottom line of our customers.
Q. Morgan M.
What role do alternative payment methods (like BNPL, digital wallets, and real time payments) play in Adyen’s North America strategy?
A. Davi S.
The payment method mix in NA was largely concentrated in cards until a few years ago. Much like in other markets, alternatives to cards gained traction in recent years, driven by shifting consumer preferences and growing merchant demand for better economics. Building best-in-class alternative payment methods is central to our strategy in North America. In fact, we’ve been first to market with many alternatives including BNPL, wallets, and real time payments. Notably, we were the first to bring many of these payment methods in-store and among the first in the US to integrate to FedNow.
Q. Morgan M.
How is Adyen responding to the rise of embedded payments and software-led payments strategies?
A. Davi S.
We’ve been offering infrastructure for SaaS businesses embedding payments and finance for many years now via Adyen for Platforms. We recognized early on that SaaS platforms are uniquely positioned to serve a massive, underserved market — SMBs, which have long been neglected by traditional banks. Built on Adyen’s single platform and supported by our U.S. branch license, Adyen for Platforms enables SaaS businesses to offer payments as a service across online and in-store channels, as well as financial services like business accounts, capital, and card issuing. With only 20% of the market addressed, the opportunity ahead for SaaS platforms embedding payments and finance is enormous. Helping these businesses capture the remaining 80% is a top priority for us.
Q. Morgan M.
What’s one thing about Adyen that you think more people should know?
A. Davi S.
Adyen is unique in the industry in that we are a technology company with banking licenses. What is also unique about us is that we are obsessed with building. We built Adyen from the first transaction to processing over 1 trillion USD annually and we intend to keep it that way. This allows us to solve complex problems for the world’s largest companies while keeping it extremely fun and exciting. And we’re just getting started. Our North America team continues to grow, and the best is yet to come.
