D&I SERIES – Afshin Yazdian, CEO of U.S. Acquiring at Paysafe | Episode 46

This is episode 46 of the Leaders in Payments podcast and is also the second episode in our special series focused on Diversity and Inclusion. 

In this series I will be talking with leaders in the payments industry (and maybe some experts from outside of the industry) about diversity and inclusion. It has been proven that a diverse workforce and diverse management team leads to increased creativity, better decision making, reduced employee turnover and increased profit – as well as many other benefits that we will be talking about. 

Our generous sponsors for this series are the Wnet and Paysafe

The Wnet or The Women’s Network in Electronic Transactions is celebrating 15 years of helping women achieve greater personal success, influence, and professional parity in the payments industry. Wnet is a not-for-profit organization with a mission of creating a stronger and more diverse industry by empowering and investing in women. Learn how at wnetonline.org.

Paysafe is a leading, global specialized payment provider. They’ve been driving innovation in and around payments for over 20 years all over the globe for both businesses and consumers. Paysafe believes Diversity and Inclusion is not just a checkbox, but rather a journey in which they are fully committed to being on around the world. Learn more at www.paysafe.com

I’m honored to be joined on the second episode of our Diversity and Inclusion Series by Afshin Yazdian.

Afshin joined Paysafe as its CEO, U.S. Acquiring, in July, 2020, bringing over two decades’ leadership experience in payments. In his role, he is charged with bringing to life Paysafe’s vision of being the U.S.’s leading payments solutions provider. 

Before joining Paysafe, he was President of Priority Payment Systems (PPS), a Georgia-based payments technology company serving over 174,000 American merchants. Before that, he held the role of President and CEO of New York-based Cynergy Data until its merger with PPS in 2014. Earlier in his career, he served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of iPayment and was instrumental in the formation of the company – itself acquired in by Paysafe in 2018.

Afshin holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School in Atlanta and a Juris Doctor (JD) law degree from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.