Fiona will be responsible for the development of payments services to existing clients who are on the Vodat network, as well as identifying new customers that can benefit from integrating point of sale, payments, transactional data and other networked functions on a single network.

With 15 years of experience in the retail payments arena, specifically in business development, account and team management – specialising in electronic payments, prepaid transactions and distribution channels to the retail sector in both multiple and independent locations – Fiona is well positioned to help retailers combat their every-day payments challenges.

Fiona said, “It’s an exciting time to join Vodat. They have a great Unified Payments solution that can meet the demands of the multichannel retailer and hospitality business, delivering better performance, visibility and support.”

She continued, “I have worked with a number of retailers that Vodat has already implemented in-store networks for and hope to build on these relationships on the payment front. With 96% of customers on the Vodat network satisfied with the service, I imagine they will be receptive to the complementary payments system.”

Her very first role in the payments industry was as Regional Sales Manager at Cardsave, acquired by WorldPay in 2010. Before moving to ePay and working up through the ranks from Area Sales Manager to Retail Channel Development Manager over a 10 year period, specialising in payment and distribution systems including, card acquiring, gift cards, online gaming, mobile and bill payments, ticketing, money transfer, lottery and loyalty schemes. Her last project involved working directly with iTunes to get them live in all Post Office sites across the UK and in JD Sports stores – the first retail specific location.

Paul Leybourne, Head of Sales at Vodat, commented, “Phase one of our payments strategy was to perfect the solution and complete our first implementation. Now this has been accomplished it’s about developing the payments team to launch Unified Payments into the wider market. As a trusted payments advocate in the retail industry, Fiona was the best fit for the role and will be responsible for driving our payments team.”

He continued, “If retailers are to gain a single view of the customer they need to look at joining up their payments services across their many sales channels, for visibility of transactions across the retail estate. We have worked hard to achieve this with our Unified Payments service.”