Senior Vice President, General Manager, Venmo
When Synchrony Financial launched a new Venmo credit card with PayPal in October 2020, it wasn’t quite like any other card the Stamford, Connecticut-based Synchrony had launched previously.
Lansen led a 100-person team that collaborated with developers at PayPal to create new technology for the card.
“We are the first portfolio within Synchrony where the entire credit card experience is native in the Venmo app,” Lansen said. “That means that Venmo owns the front-end experience and it connects to Synchrony through a suite of application programming interfaces.”
The mobile-first card offers customers cash back, is personalized to each customer's spending habits, and lets customers manage their card and spending in the app. Venmo customers apply for the card directly in the app, obtain customer service through the app and receive a virtual card through the app.
“Every experience is directly in the Venmo app and that allows Venmo to maintain the experience that their users expect,” Lansen said.
The automatic cashback program deposits the cash rewards to the cardholder’s Venmo account. The cardholder can then send that money to friends through Venmo, use it to buy cryptocurrency through the Venmo account, purchase something from a retailer that accepts Venmo or transfer it to a linked bank account.
Part of Lansen’s approach to running the Venmo card program is using the agile methods the $94.1 billion-asset
She constantly asks for feedback on how the team can improve, another agile principle.
One piece of feedback she received was that new team members, who were all hired during the pandemic, lacked the “hallway bump” opportunities with senior leaders that veterans have had.
So she started a program that she calls “Seven in Seven” — seven questions within seven minutes for a senior Synchrony leader.
“We mix in some fun questions,” Lansen said. Team members have thanked her for listening to their request to meet senior leaders. “It's how we lay the foundation for trust, debate and discussion,” Lansen said.
Lansen also oversaw the development of Synchrony's Women's Network Careers Pillar this year. Synchrony already has a Women’s Network that tries to help female staff advance, but the Career Pillar that Lansen added creates programs that help people realize there’s more than one path to moving ahead.
“I was just facilitating a panel and somebody mentioned that in their mind, it's not a ladder, it's a jungle gym, and I couldn't agree with the term and the concept more,” Lansen said. “Our core goal of empowering women to pursue their unique career paths is to help people understand how you get varying experiences and grow your career with those varying experiences.”
The most important character traits of a leader, in Lansen’s view, are trustworthiness and curiosity. Trustworthiness “is being transparent, it's being honest, it's walking the walk, and it's supporting the team,” she said.
