BILL Names Ex-Visa Executive Mary Kay Bowman Head of Payments Business

BILL has named former Visa executive Mary Kay Bowman as its executive vice president, general manager of payments and financial services.

Bowman will oversee the payments and financial services business of the financial operations platform for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and will report directly to BILL CEO and Founder René Lacerte, the company said in a Monday (Sept. 9) press release.

“The market opportunity we are pursuing is immense, and there couldn’t be a better time to bring the kind of deep leadership expertise Mary Kay has in payments and financial services,” Lacerte said in the release. “We’re driving an ambitious innovation agenda to enrich existing payment options, deliver new payment options for our SMB and accountant customers, and capitalize on our potential as the essential financial operations platform for SMBs.”

Bowman was most recently head of global buyer, seller and platform product and solutions at Visa, according to the release. In that role, she led the strategy for acceptance products and solutions.

Before that, Bowman oversaw the engineering, product and operations teams at Square; oversaw global payment acceptance, issuance and gift card programs at Amazon; and led global payments for Digital River, per the release.

“I’ve dedicated my career to bringing great technology solutions to SMBs,” Bowman said in the release. “Innovation starts with customers, and I’m passionate about creating value for SMBs by delivering industry-leading payments capabilities for them and their trusted accounting advisors and banking partners.”

BILL has been expanding and refining its financial operations platform to meet the needs of SMBs, Lacerte said in August during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

During the past fiscal year, the company launched its integrated platform that incorporates its accounts payable (AP) and spend and expense management solutions; added a data and analytics layer to the platform to give businesses a comprehensive view of their cash flow; and leveraged artificial intelligence throughout the platform to simplify and personalize the user experience it provides, Lacerte said during the call.

“We turn the financial back-office complexity that drains SMBs of time and money into simple automated tools that provide visibility and control,” Lacerte said. “We empower SMBs to run better businesses.”

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