Our team
The leadership behind Payroc's people-first global payment processing company
Executive leadership
James Oberman
Chief Executive Officer
Jim has been with Payroc since 2015. Since 2000 Jim has served in a number of executive capacities including National Processing Company (NPC-formerly Retriever Payment Systems). In 2010 Vantiv (VNTV: NYSE) purchased NPC and Vantiv appointed Jim as the Managing Director of Vantiv's NPC ISO business. Late in 2013 Vantiv appointed Jim to serve as Vantiv's enterprise-wide Chief Merchant Risk Officer. NPC is Vantiv's nationwide ISO merchant distribution business serving over 220,000 small-to-medium-sized merchants.
During Jim's tenure with NPC and Vantiv, he also drove the development of and relationship with several key NPC ISOs, as well as oversight and management of specific specialty initiatives. These initiatives include the invention of market differentiating boarding, CRM and risk management systems, the acquisition of merchant portfolios, the oversight of the company's POS equipment leasing and check processing divisions, and acquisition and oversight of NPC's POS terminal deployment and service business unit. Jim has served on a number of payments association and card brand advisory committees and boards which included serving on the Electronic Transaction Association (ETA) Government Relations and Risk Committees and ETA's Strategic Leadership Forum.
Jim currently resides in the Chicagoland area, has been married for 39 years, has 4 children and 8 grandchildren. For over 33 years Jim has been a board member of Calvary Academy Christian School in South Holland, Illinois, and Restoration Ministries in Harvey, Illinois, and serves on the Board of Elders of Parkview Christian Church in Orland Park, Illinois.
Adam Oberman
President
Adam brings over 20 years of experience to Payroc’s executive team and is one of the original founders of Payroc in 2003. Since that time, he has operated in multiple capacities to serve the company. From 2003 through 2011, Adam’s role was focused on the development of larger and more complex eCommerce merchants, which remains one of the cornerstones of Payroc’s core capabilities. Then in 2012-2017, Adam became Chief Financial Officer and was responsible for all financial, risk, and compliance matters of the company, especially ensuring Payroc’s partners are paid accurately and on-time. In 2018, Adam was appointed Payroc’s President and played a pivotal role in Payroc winning ISO of the Year from the Electronic Transactions Association in early 2019. Adam currently serves on Payroc’s Board of Directors today.
Prior to joining Payroc, from 2001 through 2003, Adam was the Senior Risk Manager & Analyst for National Processing Company (NPC), formerly Retriever Payment Systems, overseeing NPC’s transaction and chargeback risk management activities. He also was a member of the NPC team that invented and developed what remains today NPC’s and its parent company Vantiv’s risk management system.
In his free time, Adam is an active Sunday school teacher at his church, an avid golfer and drummer, and considers his most important job to be a husband and father of six kids.
Kevin Hodges
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Hodges is responsible for the company’s expanding financial organization and joined in August 2020. Before joining Payroc, Mr. Hodges served as a member of the executive team at EVO Payments (NASDAQ: EVOP) as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, where he was responsible for transforming the financial organization, leading numerous strategic acquisitions, and taking the company public via an initial public offering in May 2018.
Before joining EVO, Mr. Hodges held various senior leadership positions at Global Payments Inc., serving as Vice President of Global Finance, Vice President of International Finance and External Reporting, and Director of Corporate Development and Strategy. Mr. Hodges began his career in investment banking with Deloitte & Touche and Arthur Andersen, where he advised middle-market business services companies on their strategic alternatives. Mr. Hodges received his Masters of Professional Accountancy from Georgia State University and his Bachelor of Science from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Hodges is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Mr. Hodges is a native of Atlanta, where he lives with his wife and three children. Mr. Hodges is an active volunteer in various organizations including, Woodward Academy, Boy Scouts of America, and his church.
Matt Austin
Chief Operating Officer
Matt Austin is the Chief Operating Officer for Payroc, establishing long-lasting strategic partnership relationships. Matt has an extensive history of building strong and lasting relationships with financial institutions, technology providers, and referral partners. Matt’s focus is to complement and broaden our partner’s relationship with their clients, and deliver cost-competitive customized card acceptance programs. As a payments industry veteran is known for his integrity and transparency, Matt builds relationships that last.
Before joining Payroc, Matt founded an independent consulting firm focused on analyzing and addressing for merchants the confusing, inconsistent, and sometimes hidden fees that are prevalent in today’s card processing relationships. His efforts helped save millions of dollars for his clients, all while improving their contractual terms. Matt also worked with many ISOs, Merchant Acquirers, and other industry organizations to improve their efficiencies and grow their businesses. Matt was Senior Vice President of Risk Management with National Processing Company for over a decade, in which he was responsible for risk transaction monitoring, underwriting, collections, account boarding, and compliance. He managed a team of over 60 people across multiple locations. Under his leadership, his teams performed at the top of the payments industry.
During his tenure, losses were reduced, approval levels were greatly increased and the company’s customer satisfaction was at an all-time high. Prior to becoming a payments industry veteran, Matt was with Arthur Andersen, at the time the world’s largest accounting firm. He headed up information management consulting teams serving Fortune 500 clients and other large multinational clients. Matt gained a reputation for blending the art and science of information management to both internal and external client needs. He was regularly called upon by Fortune 1000 clients to handle process design engagements. Matt holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Bradley University in Illinois. Matt serves on several boards and committees of various charitable and community organizations.
Paul Vienneau
Chief Technology Officer
As Chief Technology Officer, Paul brings over 25 years of experience building and leading teams in support of technology-driven outcomes. Overseeing all elements of the organization’s Technology strategy, Paul and his team drive with a focus on simplicity and pragmatism.
Passionate about technology and its possibilities, Paul aspires to create organizational structures that stimulate communication, creativity, and innovation. He possesses a broad engineering background in the areas of service-based architectures, data analytics, and information security. He has been responsible for architecting and implementing systems in the fields of healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and payments.
Before Payroc, Paul held CTO positions and participated in successful exits with TSYS, Cayan, NaviNet, and NxStep Technologies. He has a B.S. in Management, Engineering from Southern Illinois University, and an M.S. in CIS from Bentley University.
Aaron Johnson
Chief Risk Officer
Aaron joined Payroc as Chief Technology Officer in May of 2014 further strengthening the organization’s executive leadership and technological capabilities. With an 11 year career in electronic payments and a lifetime passion for all facets of technology, Aaron was excited to join this rapidly growing company to focus on delivering a world-class experience. In addition to serving as Payroc’s SVP Payfac Trusty, Aaron also manages Payroc’s risk management and 3rd party vendor relationships.
Since 2004, Aaron has held various key senior risk management roles with Vantiv (VNTV: NYSE) and National Processing Company (NPC) which Vantiv acquired in 2010. Since 2008 Aaron was the Senior Manager of Vantiv’s and NPC’s merchant risk division. In this role, Aaron focused on transactional risk while coordinating oversight of risk investigations, chargebacks, and underwriting. Aaron was primarily responsible for a merchant portfolio with a volume of over $300B per year, delivering industry-leading results year-over-year. Aaron was a key member of the NPC team that built NPC’s risk system and then most recently lead the Vantiv team that enhanced and upgraded Vantiv’s risk management alert and CRM systems to address the ever-changing new and complex risk challenges facing the payments industry, including omni-commerce, complex eCommerce marketplaces, payment aggregation, and mobile payments.
Prior to joining NPC in 2004, Aaron gained a critical foundation in the payments industry including overseeing underwriting and collections for a POS equipment leasing company, executing POS system deployment and support for a leading NPC ISO, and managing the referral partner relationship and sales process for a large referral bank relationship in Chicago with over 100 branches. In Aaron’s spare time he enjoys spending time with his family, golfing, visiting craft breweries, and watching Chicago sports teams.
Casey Conley
Chief Product Officer
Casey brings over 20 years of Product experience to Payroc’s executive team. In this newly created role, Casey is responsible for the strategic product direction. His role includes product vision, product innovation, product design, product development, and partnering with marketing on product messaging. Additionally, in this role, Casey will partner with the sales channels and strategy to ensure we bring products to market to meet our partner and merchant needs.
Prior to joining Payroc, Casey spent 10 years with FIS | WorldPay starting out as a Product manager and growing into the SVP of Product Merchant and Partner Experience leading over 100+ technology products including sales and quoting, data automation, customer support, CRM’s, IVR, underwriting/risk, Merchant and Partner Portals, API integrations, billing, and partner payment residual systems. In his career Casey has been instrumental in merger and acquisition Product due diligence and buy recommendations, post-merger integration, and merchant base product and product consolidation.
Husband and father of 2 boys, Casey’s free time is spent on the baseball field driving the boy’s around the country to tournaments and practices.
Angela Antrim
Chief Human Resources Officer
Angela is a multifaced, goal-driven, entrepreneur HR Executive starting in HR Consulting | BPO | RPO business with a proven record of accomplishments in union, nonunion, public fortune 50, private and family-owned businesses ranging to 97,000 employees. With lead HR roles in Caterpillar, GE | SABIC, AMETEK and most recently Head of HR for Plymouth. Her experience spans the globe with exp. in 4 continents, supporting employee populations from 275 – 11 K in multiple different countries; Asia (China, Japan, India, Philippines), Middle East (Saudi Arabia), Europe (Netherlands, UK, Ireland, Spain, France, and Germany), Bermuda, Mexico, and Canada.
As a high energy influential leader and a certified 6 Sigma Black Belt, Angela has built her career around continuous improvement and trusted strategic partnerships in changing competitive environments. Strengthening the competitive advantage through the development of an HR strategy that focuses on talent, performance, and culture. A trusted advisor and partner in business organizational development, mergers and acquisitions, business strategy, and LEAN/6 Sigma solutions. Creating, and implementing innovative ideas and programs, while obtaining cost optimization savings through the eyes of a business leader who wears a HR hat.
Angela has been married for 21 years to her husband David (Ted), two teenage boys (Steel & Stone), and lives in the west suburbs of Chicago. Angela used to spend her time doing extreme sports, skydiving, cliff jumping and ziplining. But since kids, she has taken fewer personal risks and now spends her free time boating, jet skiing, and the occasional fix of “need for speed” through race car driving. One of these days, she also wants to try sandboarding.
Brian Kamstra
Chief Sales Officer
Brian Kamstra was recently named Chief Sales Officer of Payroc WorldAccess, LLC. Brian entered the merchant bankcard field in 1993 and joined the Retriever/National Processing Company family in October 1999 as a one-man Sales shop. In fall of 1999, Brian opened his office as President and owner of Retriever Merchant Solutions. He leads a successful business employing over 250 Sales Agents and servicing more than 26,000 merchants. Brian’s unfaltering commitment to the RMS representatives enabled the business to become Retriever/National Processing Company's (NPC) No. 1 Sales agency. He led his team to earn numerous awards including Group of the Year, Highest Sales, Most Leases, and Most Check Sales.
Brian’s business principles were shaped by his father, an early Amway distributor, which are based on building relationships and trust. Following some soul searching about his future direction, Brian realized a unique factor about sales representatives, "They are a special breed needing confidence and fair treatment from their host organization. I founded RMS ensured reps were being taken care of fairly and with generosity".
Over the past 23 years, Brian has remained true to his core personal values of integrity and generosity while delivering high levels of security and service. This commitment includes transparent communications, on-time residual payouts and a responsible, pro-active support team behind each representative.
Early in his adult life, with plans for college, baseball, and law school, a chance meeting with a hitchhiker shifted the course of Brian's life. He joined a local Jazz-Rock band as a keyboardist where he met his now long-time friend and business collaborator, Jim Oberman, CEO of Payroc WorldAccess, LLC. Today, the two sit on Boards together and continue to make music together whenever they can. Brian's business success is matched only by his devotion to family, friends, and serving the greater good through his contributions to several local social services organizations. He serves on the Boards of Directors of Restoration Ministries in Harvey, Illinois and Calvary Academy in South Holland, Illinois.
Ryan Hallett
Chief Growth Officer
Ryan Hallett is responsible for developing and managing Payroc’s strategic referral partner business in the United States, working with financial institutions, association and accounting firm partners, and more. Hallett entered the payments industry right out of college, joining cousins Nicholas and Adam Oberman to as co-founders of Retriever of Chicago, a fledgling independent sales organization. The company incorporated in 2007, hiring its first office staffers and developing a sales agent channel with a focus on serving merchants with integrity and trusted advice while building lasting, personal relationships.
Hallett focused on business development, cultivating relationships with major merchants and national accounts, especially field service organizations, restaurant chains, and B2B manufacturing companies, as well as managing Payroc’s sales agents and referral partners. Most recently, he was Payroc’s chief revenue and marketing officer. Hallett’s efforts through the years have been instrumental in Payroc achieving significant growth. Prior to the company’s four-way merger with Payscape, NXGEN, and BluePay Canada, Payroc served more than 30,000 merchants processing over $10 billion in annual charge volume. While serving on the Electronic Transactions Association Certified Payments Professional (ETA CPP) committee, Hallett authored portions of the Association’s credentialing curriculum and certification exam.
He led the company’s charge to ensure all Payroc Payments Professionals are equipped with adequate knowledge and skill to help clients and prospects successfully navigate the complexities of payments through ETA CPP certification. Hallett is a frequent speaker at partner conferences on the topics Payment Processing and FinTech. Hallett earned a bachelor’s degree in business management and entrepreneurship from Illinois State University and has earned his ETA CPP industry credential.
Marcus Dagenais
Managing Director, Corporate Development
Marcus has 20+ years experience in the acquiring and processing side of the payments industry, particularly within card-not-present (CNP), Payment Facilitator, and integrated software (ISV & SaaS) focused verticals such as business to business, property management, education, financing, and other emerging categories. As the head of Payroc in Canada, Marcus has P&L responsibility for the country as well as the development of new ISV & reseller channel partnerships, key enterprise merchant relationships, and M&A origination activity.
Leading up to the late 2019 four-way merger that created the foundation for the new Payroc, Marcus successfully piloted his business unit through 4 changes of control; Caledon’s exit to BluePay Processing in 2014; BluePay’s acquisition by First Data Corporation in 2017; First Data’s merger with Fiserv Inc. (FISV: NASDAQ) in 2019; and, most recently, he led a management buyout of the BluePay Canada assets sponsored by Parthenon Capital. Over this same period, the business unit originally known as Caledon grew both its earnings and enterprise valuation by more than 300%. Marcus is a member of YPO Maple Leaf in Ontario, a member of the ETA’s Payment Facilitator & ISV Committee, and a founding member of the Paytechs of Canada Association.
Charitable causes he currently supports include the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children as well as the more local Oakville Hospital Foundation. Marcus lives in Oakville, Ontario, Canada with his wife Lesley and their 3 young children. In addition to his family & business, Marcus embraces a lifelong addiction for alpine skiing, mountain biking, golf, and road cycling. His only claim to fame is he, along with 7 teammates and 16 crew members, continue to hold the Canadian speed record for the infamous annual Race Across America (RAAM); a 3000-mile non-stop open road cycling race from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, Maryland.
Rebecca Lee
Chief of Staff
Rebecca Lee joined Payroc in 2021 and serves as Chief of Staff, a strategic and operational role reporting directly to Payroc’s CEO, James Oberman who she supports in the overall strategy of the company and in day -to-day operations. Rebecca is also responsible for driving critical corporate projects, tracking high-priority initiatives and communicating and coordinating these with the executives.
Since 2002, Rebecca has held a variety of positions with Worldpay (FIS), Vantiv (VNTV:NYSE) and National Processing Company (NPC). In her 19+ years with Vantiv, Rebecca managed the Risk Monitoring Department where the team minimized losses related to credit risk across the respective ASG/ISO Portfolios. She then served as Executive Assistant to James Oberman where she gained experience in Contract Negotiations, Retention, ISO Escalations and Portfolio Initiatives. In 2010 Rebecca moved to Relationship Management where she worked directly with 7 of Vantiv’s top ISO Strategic Partners assisting with residuals and billing, reporting and financial accounting, merchant boarding, risk, underwriting, and escalations. As Rebecca continued to work with these same Strategic Partners her role transitioned to Strategic Client Account Executive which focused on revenue generation and business development specific to each ISO.
In her last five years with Worldpay/FIS (formerly Vantiv) Rebecca lead the implementation Team where she developed and implemented a training program for each newly signed Strategic Partner. This was followed by her final role with FIS as Senior Business Process Manager where she initiated and implemented ISO Incentives, conducted residual and pricing reviews, was part of the leadership team implementing the largest pricing initiative in FIS history and lead the Referral Process for FI, SAM And ISO with a Marketing Campaign for over 10,000 FI opportunities.
Rebecca has been married for 35 years to her husband David and they have been blessed with two children, (and their spouses) and five grandchildren. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with family, serving in the special needs ministry at her church and is a long time Packer Fan.
Brock Robertson
EVP, US Integrated Sales
Brock brings with him an impressive career as a seasoned C-level executive, boasting over two decades of experience in leading growth strategies, establishing robust revenue streams, fostering alignment across business functions, and enhancing overall operational performance. He is a dedicated leader renowned for cultivating and inspiring high-performance management teams that consistently deliver value to clients, employees, and investment sponsors. Notably, Brock has a proven track record of creating enterprise value, contributing to the success of three recent company sales valued at over $1.5 billion.
Board of directors
Brian Golson
Co-CEO, Managing Partner (Parthenon Capital)
Brian Golson is a Managing Partner and Co-CEO of Parthenon Capital and is a member of the firm’s Investment Committee. Brian serves on the Board of Directors of Allworth Financial, BillingTree, BlueSnap, Coastal Credit, eSeclending, ICD, loanDepot, Mid Atlantic Capital Group, Payscape, Periscope Holdings, and Seaside National Bank & Trust.
Brian led Parthenon’s investments in AmWINS Group, Arrow Financial, and Rackable Systems and served on the boards of Cayan, H.D. Vest, Millennium Trust, Performant, Relation, and Wildlands. Brian is actively engaged in the development and scholarship efforts for the University of North Carolina, where he is Vice-Chair of the Honors Carolina board. Prior to joining Parthenon in 2002, he was the CFO and Vice President of Operations for Everdream, a software company sold to Dell providing outsourced IT infrastructure management.
Before Everdream, Brian spent several years at Prometheus Partners, a middle-market private equity fund focused on recurring revenue service businesses and started his career at GE Capital focused on acquisitions and divestitures of financial services and insurance businesses. Brian earned a B.A. in Economics with Honors from the University of North Carolina, and his M.B.A. with High Distinction as a Baker Scholar from the Harvard Business School. Brian is located in Austin, TX, and enjoys spending time with his three daughters.
Zachary Sadek
Partner (Parthenon Capital)
Zach Sadek is a Partner in the firm’s Boston office. He joined Parthenon Capital in 2004 and is active in sourcing and executing new transactions and working with current portfolio companies. Zach focuses on business and financial services, including payments and financial technology, specialty lending, and software.
Zach serves or has served on the Board of Directors of BillingTree, BlueSnap, CardWorks, Cayan, eSecLending, eTix, Injured Workers Pharmacy, Med-Tel International, Official Payments, Oasis Financial, Periscope Holdings, Restaurant Technologies, and Zelis Healthcare. Prior to joining Parthenon Capital, Zach worked in investment banking at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (f/k/a Wasserstein Perella) in Chicago as an analyst specializing in mergers and acquisitions. Zach earned his A.B. (with Honors) and A.M. from the University of Chicago and his M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.
Tom Hough
Principal (Parthenon Capital)
Tom Hough joined Parthenon Capital in 2013 and is Principal in the firm’s Boston office. He is active in sourcing and executing new transactions and working with current portfolio companies.
Prior to joining Parthenon, Tom served as an Analyst at BlackArch Partners, a middle-market investment banking firm, where he was involved in executing M&A transactions across a variety of industries. Tom holds an M.S. and B.S. from Wake Forest University, where he graduated summa cum laude and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Beta Gamma Sigma.
Tom Nitopi
Board Member
Thomas Nitopi is the Founder and CEO of NXGEN International, which in 2016 was named the ‘ISO of the Year’ by the ETA. Since 2002, under Thomas’s leadership, NXGEN has recorded double-digit growth year after year and grew to become the largest Elavon MSP in the USA by processing volume. In addition, NXGEN is the largest global MSP with an unparalleled global footprint in 30 countries.
Thomas is also the Founder and Managing Partner of a proprietary software company with the most advanced workflow management system in the industry that serves over 250,000 merchants, with 1,200-1,500 daily users, and 170 MSPs through a SaaS model. Before founding NXGEN International in 2002, Thomas served as the President of Payment Processing Direct. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Bancard Inc. As an industry leader, he was chosen as the first Chairman of Elavon’s MSP Advisory Committee. Thomas has over 20 years of experience in the acquiring industry.
James Oberman
Chief Executive Officer
Jim has been with Payroc since 2015. Since 2000 Jim has served in a number of executive capacities including National Processing Company (NPC-formerly Retriever Payment Systems). In 2010 Vantiv (VNTV: NYSE) purchased NPC and Vantiv appointed Jim as the Managing Director of Vantiv's NPC ISO business. Late in 2013 Vantiv appointed Jim to serve as Vantiv's enterprise-wide Chief Merchant Risk Officer. NPC is Vantiv's nationwide ISO merchant distribution business serving over 220,000 small-to-medium-sized merchants.
During Jim's tenure with NPC and Vantiv, he also drove the development of and relationship with several key NPC ISOs, as well as oversight and management of specific specialty initiatives. These initiatives include the invention of market differentiating boarding, CRM and risk management systems, the acquisition of merchant portfolios, the oversight of the company's POS equipment leasing and check processing divisions, and acquisition and oversight of NPC's POS terminal deployment and service business unit. Jim has served on a number of payments association and card brand advisory committees and boards which included serving on the Electronic Transaction Association (ETA) Government Relations and Risk Committees and ETA's Strategic Leadership Forum.
Jim currently resides in the Chicagoland area, has been married for 39 years, has 4 children and 8 grandchildren. For over 33 years Jim has been a board member of Calvary Academy Christian School in South Holland, Illinois, and Restoration Ministries in Harvey, Illinois, and serves on the Board of Elders of Parkview Christian Church in Orland Park, Illinois.
Adam Oberman
President
Adam brings over 20 years of experience to Payroc’s executive team and is one of the original founders of Payroc in 2003. Since that time, he has operated in multiple capacities to serve the company. From 2003 through 2011, Adam’s role was focused on the development of larger and more complex eCommerce merchants, which remains one of the cornerstones of Payroc’s core capabilities. Then in 2012-2017, Adam became Chief Financial Officer and was responsible for all financial, risk, and compliance matters of the company, especially ensuring Payroc’s partners are paid accurately and on-time. In 2018, Adam was appointed Payroc’s President and played a pivotal role in Payroc winning ISO of the Year from the Electronic Transactions Association in early 2019. Adam currently serves on Payroc’s Board of Directors today.
Prior to joining Payroc, from 2001 through 2003, Adam was the Senior Risk Manager & Analyst for National Processing Company (NPC), formerly Retriever Payment Systems, overseeing NPC’s transaction and chargeback risk management activities. He also was a member of the NPC team that invented and developed what remains today NPC’s and its parent company Vantiv’s risk management system.
In his free time, Adam is an active Sunday school teacher at his church, an avid golfer and drummer, and considers his most important job to be a husband and father of six kids.
Jeremy Wing
Board Member
As a self-described “unemployable individual,” Jeremy Wing had no other choice but to be a serial entrepreneur. He attended college at the University of Alabama and started his career at MTV in 1998 as the SE Director of Business Development, where he was the youngest director in the company’s history.
After leaving MTV in 2004, he founded Atlanta-based Payscape. His role within the company has been instrumental in establishing Payscape as a contender in the FinTech space. Jeremy focuses his time on Enterprise development, thought leadership, and strategic vision for Payroc. Outside the office, Jeremy is highly involved in the local community, whether it be charity or business endeavors. He serves on several boards, including the International Young Presidents Organization and The Buckhead Coalition. Jeremy is an active mentor, investor, and advisor at FlashPoint Accelerator, a Georgia Tech club that supports startups and young entrepreneurs, and a member of FinTech Atlanta. He has two boys with wife and fellow entrepreneur, Elizabeth.
Adam Bloomston
Board Member
As Chief Marketing Officer of Payroc, Adam Bloomston runs all go-to-market channels, including direct sales teams, independent sales organizations (ISOs) and agents, strategic partners, and international, plus all the company’s product and service offerings. He also serves on Payroc’s Board of Directors.
A serial entrepreneur, Bloomston’s started his first business in high school and has founded, grown, and sold numerous businesses over the years. As Co-founder and CEO of Payscape, Bloomston grew the company from a basement startup operation in 2004 into a fintech powerhouse 15 years later, processing more than $23 billion in charge volume generating $115 million in annual revenue.
Under Bloomston’s leadership, Payscape racked up numerous accolades. The company was named to the Inc. 500 Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America list, recognized by the Electronic Transactions Association as ISO of the Year, honored by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with its Top Workplaces award, received the Technology Association of Georgia’s Millennial Company of the Year award and earned a spot on as the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Pacesetter list of the fastest-growing companies in Atlanta.
Pursuing a rapid growth strategy, Bloomston was instrumental in engineering the merger of Payroc, Payscape, NXGEN, and BluePay Canada to create the new Payroc as a full-service payment processor and Super ISO, backed by venture company Parthenon Capital. Bloomston graduated from the University of Alabama with a bachelor’s degree in communications. He has been named CFO of the Year by the Atlanta Business Chronicle and earned a spot on their 40 Under 40 list.
Mike Ponder
Board Member
Mike Ponder started signing businesses up to accept credit cards in 1987 as an outside sales agent. After that, he grew into a regional sales manager. He continued his career as the Vice President of National Sales at one of the largest Independent Sales Organizations in the United States at that time. Leveraging his experiences with sales in the field and on a national level, he built the sales organization at Universal Savings Bank as the Vice President of Sales, boarding their first sales partners in 1992.
Mike’s years of experience helping to build out operations that support sales led to the founding of First Savings Bank, Merchant Division in 1995. As the CEO/President of First Savings Bank, Merchant Division, overseeing all sales and business operations, Mike learned how critical a one-stop-shop was to supporting the sales partners and merchants nationwide. In 2001, First Savings Bank, Merchant Division was acquired. After selling First Savings Bank, Merchant Division, Mike recognized that there was still a void in the marketplace for a business like the one he had built before. In 2003, Mike founded Integrity Payment Systems, bringing with him many of the management team and staff from First Savings Bank, Merchant Division.
Henry Helgeson
Board Member
Helgeson brings to the board nearly 30 years of deep operational experience, industry relationships and understanding of emerging trends in the financial technology industry. Helgeson was the Founder and CEO of Cayan, which was sold to TSYS (now Global Payments) in 2018.
Helgeson is involved in numerous industry associations and in 2012, he received the ETA Member of the Year Award, recognizing his contributions to the future success of the industry. Helgeson was also awarded the “40 under 40” award by the Boston Business Journal (BBJ).
“I’m delighted to have the opportunity to join the board of managers at Payroc,” said Helgeson. “I appreciate the board’s confidence in me and could not be more excited to collaborate with the team in guiding Payroc’s continued success.”
Rob Metzger
Board Member
Rob Metzger is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Finance, the Director of the Investment Banking Academy, and the Faculty Director of the Business Honors Programs at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In addition to his roles at Gies Business, he also is a member of the Board of Directors of Payroc, LLC, a privately-held payments processing business, and South Mountain Merger Corp., a special purpose acquisition corporation. Rob also serves as a Senior Advisor to Mission OG, a Philadelphia-based investment firm.
Previously, Rob was a Partner at William Blair & Company, L.L.C., where he held several leadership roles, such as the head of the Technology group and the head of the Financial Services Investment Banking Group. Prior to joining William Blair, Rob worked in the Investment Banking Division of ABN AMRO Incorporated, in the Financial Institutions Group at A.T. Kearney, Inc., and in the Audit and Audit Advisory Services at Price Waterhouse.
Rob holds a Bachelor of Science in Accountancy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Business Administration with concentrations in Finance and Strategy from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.