Career moves

In 2016, most incumbents in the payments industry will probably spend some time defending their businesses and rethinking their strategies, says Reetika Grewal, who has been leading payments strategy at Silicon Valley Bank for the last three years.

"I realized that if you want more, you have to constantly look for new tasks and new areas to be involved and learn new skills, all while making yourself a little uncomfortable in the process," Elliott said.

In the past year, Verifone's European market share has grown more than 10 percentage points, and Felix declares it her proudest moment in a career that spans 26 years.

"If we stay the course, I’m optimistic that we’ll put an end to the era of mass data breaches at merchants," Richey predicts. However, she has been in the payments industry for 22 years and does not approach her job with blinders.

As the payments industry advances at a lightning-fast speed, Stephanie Ferris plans on enjoying that ride — as long as it benefits Vantiv's customers.

Patty Watson admits she stays awake at night with thoughts of what, to TSYS and its clients, would be a true nightmare — a data breach. But that fear keeps Watson focused on the task at hand of assuring such threats can be thwarted.

Work-life balance has taken a new meaning for Synchrony Financial's Carol Juel since her company began its spinoff from GE over a year ago.

As ACI Worldwide's executive vice president of application development, addressing the real-time payments challenge falls squarely on her shoulders.

Kazazean’s ability to drive collaboration across diverse teams will be a critical asset as she faces Walmart's ambitious shift to omnichannel commerce this year.

To Kennel, mentorship and encouragement from the top down would go much further toward boosting workplace diversity than any sort of formal association.