Expanding internationally is more complex than ever, with economic uncertainty, shifting regulations, and unpredictable tariffs creating constant challenges. While overseas opportunities can be tempting, businesses must navigate a landscape full of blind spots and evolving risks that demand careful planning and adaptability.
Simone Tamussin, SVP of Product Management at Mastercard Gateway, shares valuable insights from his experience working with companies facing these hurdles. He discusses common pitfalls growth-focused leaders encounter, proactive strategies for entering new markets safely, and practical tips for managing the overwhelming paperwork that comes with global expansion.
Resources from this episode:
- Subscribe to The Product Manager newsletter
- Connect with Simone on LinkedIn
- Check out Mastercard
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hannah Clark (00:01):
Scaling internationally has never
been an easy proposition,but today, the challenges
can hardly be overstated.
We live in a time of economicuncertainty, tariffs, and
regulations that changeas often as the weather.
But businesses are meantto grow and sometimes
an overseas opportunityseems too good to pass up.
And, as we'll coverin this episode, they
certainly can be—for now.
(00:23):
But if you consider all theunknowns of doing business
in a foreign market, plus thepiece of change both here and
abroad, the only thing youcan really be sure of is that
you WILL have blind spots—andmore are sure to develop.
But that's wheremy guest comes in.
Simone Tamussin is theSVP Product Management for
Mastercard Gateway, and assomeone who works closely
with businesses in thisposition, he'd be the first
(00:43):
to say that every day demandsa whole new set of solutions.
He offers a high-level viewof the challenges that catch
growth-minded leaders off-guard,proactive measures for safely
entering new markets, and ideasfor efficiently tackling the
astonishing pile of paperworkthat stands between you and your
global expansion initiatives.
Let's jump in.
Oh by the way, wehold conversations
(01:03):
like this every week.
So if this sounds interestingto you, why not subscribe?
Okay, now let's jump in.
Welcome back to TheProduct Manager podcast.
I'm here today withSimone Tamussin and he
is here representinga Mastercard Gateway.
Thank you so much formaking the time in your busy
schedule to be here with us.
Simone Paul Tam (01:20):
Oh, absolutely.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Hannah Clark (01:22):
So today we're gonna be focusing on what
enterprise leaders need toknow when entering new markets
internationally, which isa very complex topic that
we'll be digging in today.
Simone, can you kick us offwith an anecdote that outlines
some of the gaps between theassumptions and reality that
you've seen trip up leaderswho are in the process of
pursuing global expansion?
Simone Pa (01:40):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
We have a few good onesthat I've been in mind
during my life and duringmy career, but let's see.
One thing that usually happensis especially if you're
successful in a lot of countriesalready, you give for granted.
Like that things work ina certain way, that your
standards are the ones that canwork in each single country.
As an example, once we,so I work in the payment
gateway, so we need to try toimplement new payment methods.
(02:03):
I don't implement onlyMastercard, any type of
payment, pretty much agnosticfrom that point of view.
So many years ago what happened,we were trying to enter in a new
market and we didn't have likelocal expertise or knowledge
of what was happening there.
And we had to implementa local domestic scheme.
So a car network that is, thatwas available in the country.
(02:24):
What happened?
We gave for granted thatit was going to work.
Oh, we deal withMastercard, we deal with
Visa, American Express.
We know our stuff, so it shouldwork as we do it every day.
And that was terrible as anassumption because once we
start to dig in, the work wasgoing on and at the time the
platform was less modern thanthe one that we have right now.
Yeah, the things weren't great.
So what turned out to be likea small project was going
(02:46):
to be a completely longerone, like almost taking a
year and a half with a lotof millions to be invested
and that basically killed.
The business case to enteringthat country and customers
immediately start to goaway to some other players.
So that was one kind of example.
Another one, sometimesit happens also on
technology standards orlike security standards.
(03:09):
Another we give for granted thatmaybe what we need to adopt,
what we are using for, I dunno,key exchanges or certificates,
works for everyone.
But sometimes in some countries,the regulator, especially if
you need to deal with the localregulator and the regulator
is working in a differentway, good luck with trying
to say, Hey, how is the bestpractice you should adopt and
(03:29):
you should change your systems.
That doesn't fly well.
Yeah.
Hannah Clark (03:33):
Yeah, fair enough.
I can only imagine dealingwith regulators is yeah,
probably a little bit of aoil and water situation often.
Let's talk about scaling aproduct into new regions.
What signals do you lookfor that indicate that there
might be a risk involvedthat's maybe unforeseen at
that moment or that theremight be some geopolitical
or volatility that mightbecome a risk for the product?
Simone Paul Tamussin (03:55):
Yeah, there are definitely several
factors, and I can tell youlike the last five years things
have become crazy and every dayis becoming even more complex.
So you have different type offorces that are going maybe in
opposite directions or clashingor combined as an effect.
So you have the technologyside, of course evolution
of the technologies.
(04:16):
Are the countries ready?
How is the scenarioin that country?
Definitely in terms ofregulations, so our work in a
super regulated industry, andI have everything, if it talks
about like your data, it talksabout how you manage payments.
Anything that couldbe impacting our area.
We were talking about likethe forces from a localization
(04:37):
perspective, nationalism.
Is there a push to protectlike local players?
Is there a resistance tosend data outside or to
protect like everything andtry to keep everything into
the domestic environment?
That's something that isimpacting and changing
on a daily basis.
Last but not least, I wouldsay economical pressure.
(04:57):
Even tariffs, even changes ordynamics that are happening
across the world becausewe deal with payments,
commerce, and so on.
Assumptions that wehad yesterday could be
completely wrong tomorrow.
So yeah, those are thethings and we really need
to step up and monitor and.
Think about this and we setup like almost a team that
(05:18):
is a complex team that islooking to try to anticipate
everything that is happeningin a single country.
Hannah Clark (05:24):
I think this is really timely.
This, obviously, this hasbeen on everyone's mind.
Just the insanevolatility, especially
in the last little while.
So you've mentioned beforeI've heard you use the word
regulation killing yourbusiness case overnight.
And I'm thinking about this interms of, how do we evaluate
risk when we're expandinginto a heavily regulated
region, especially whenwe have limited resources.
And then my hang around questionto that is how do we continue
(05:46):
to give an ongoing view onwhere some of our markets
are changing when we've we'vegot many markets that we're
overseeing at the same time?
Simone Paul Tamussin (05:54):
Yeah, no.
One thing that you know forsure is you need to be able to
adapt and you need to be able tohave some degree of flexibility
and also be open to work withpotentially local players.
Share like the part ofyour business with someone
else if you want to startto get into that and into
(06:14):
the country in that region.
So the business modelthat you have maybe in
80% of the countriesyou are already present.
If you want to get in.
The other ones, youmaybe need to reach some
compromises and work.
Maybe some players thatin the past, in some other
countries are competitorswith you, but there could be
like able to give you accessto what's happening there.
(06:36):
I feel that it's important.
To do like a thorough analysiswhen you enter in a country,
especially for paymentsand regulated industries.
So if I had to invest somemoney, I would definitely
invest it like in legalconsultants, regulation,
data privacy, trying to coverthese aspects and understand
if, how big is the risk foryou for entering that market?
(06:59):
And also try to anticipate like.
We were saying like thepolitical environment, is it
going to change potentiallythe things that the legal
council is giving me now, arethey potentially changing in
two to three months and thenis going to completely change
the impact on my business case?
So these are all the thingsthat you need to take into
account when expandinginto a new country.
Hannah Clark (07:20):
I did wanna pro a little bit more on
one thing that you mentionedabout partnering, it sounds
to me like you're suggestingthat potentially partnering
with someone who's alreadyin that market who otherwise
would be a competitor.
What might that look like?
Do you have an exampleof something like that's
happened in practice?
Simone Paul Tamussin (07:34):
Yeah.
I can't make names, but thereare different types of scenario.
Let's, I can talk, ofcourse, also how I see it
personally for the job thatI am or my company and so on.
And there are two differentthings in some cases.
It's easier to work withsomeone that is locally there
that has maybe already donethe integration with, I know
the local domestic scheme oris working with the switching
(07:57):
other processing companiesthat are mandated by the
regulator or the government.
Why?
Because maybe theyhave already built.
Connections and they areable to influence, they have
a good relationship withentities, the regulators that
are there in the country.
So that's one thing thatsometimes you need to
evaluate, and I usually dowhen our team usually does.
(08:19):
Another thing that could happenis like more selfishly is
when we were talking probablysometimes about compliance
as a service as well is,let's say, if I am forced to
do that kind of investmentalready, maybe because I have
wider interests, because I'mMastercard or another company
that have other businesses thatare in that country, so I need
(08:40):
to support also the other ones.
So I'll need to do thatmassive investment.
Then why don't I play myselfthe role of providing that
access to some other playersthat would not be able to make.
That investment in technology,in resources, in people
location, and I collaborateand is like of course a
different type of dynamic.
As I was saying, maybewe are competitors.
(09:03):
My business unit is a competitorwith someone in country A,
but in country C, it makessense for them to leverage my
services or embedded paymentsor how, or compliance as a
service and then they're ableto enter the market as well.
Hannah Clark (09:16):
That's interesting how that kind of a dynamic
can make something thatcould be a competitive angle.
Maybe better as astrategic partnership play.
We're talking a little bitabout things that pertain
more to enterprise leaders,but when we're talking about
like a smaller business that'sbeginning to scale into an
international market for thefirst time, what are some of
the mistakes that you've seenrepeated when it comes to a
newer player who is startingto scale into larger markets?
(09:38):
What are things that those kindsof startup leaders and scale
up leaders should be aware of?
Simone Paul Tamussin (09:42):
Yeah, so definitely underestimating
some parts of compliancemay be thinking that you can
delay some aspects of thisuntil after launch or after a
year we will take care of it.
Let's immediately get there.
Let's scale the revenues.
Let's grow as fast as possible.
It can happen in many countries.
It's the case, the rightapproach, and maybe regulations
(10:03):
are still not there.
And you have like enoughlead time to build like
enough revenues to then.
Work on this later, but insome other cases you maybe do
this approach and two monthsafter the regulator is coming
with a completely differentchanging completely the rules
of the game and this is goingto impact another thing that
I think is really important tounderstand, it's especially in
(10:25):
payments, is not that you'rejust bringing your product to
another country and that's it.
You are basically embeddingyourself in the local
ecosystem of the payments.
It's a different typeof mindset, so you
need to get intel.
You need to understand, andthat's the part that you can,
of course, from a startupperspective, if you are agile,
nimble, and you are able toaddress compliance, but also
(10:49):
work on the inefficienciesthat the incumbents have.
Maybe you can transformthat in an opportunity
for yourself because youcover the compliance.
You can deal with any changesthat the regulators are doing,
and you're faster than most ofthe incumbents that are there.
So you can turn it toyour advantage, but
don't underestimatesome components of it.
Hannah Clark (11:06):
Is this that a situation in which that sort of
compliance as a service might bea good strategy to Kinda, yeah?
Simone Paul Tamussin (11:13):
In the same way as I was saying
before example, I'm a bigplayer and some others could
see me, I'm a competitor.
In some cases it could bea partner, but it could,
same thing could happenlike for a smaller, an
enterprise or a startup.
Like what could they do?
Who could they look thereto help them to scale?
We know about like bankingas a service embedded finance
that helped so many fintechsto scale in many markets like
(11:36):
Europe, United States and so on.
You could have asimilar approach.
So try to identify whocan help you there.
Are they reliable,are they trusted?
And how can they help you takeaway some of that kind of work
so you can bring what's yourexpertise, where you really
good at, but still be protectedfrom any kind of compliance
or regulation that is there.
So definitely try to go andfind if there's the right
(11:58):
partner for you there.
Hannah Clark (12:00):
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about
using large language models.
This, of course, there'salways an AI component
to every conversationthis time of our lives.
So you've mentioned thatusing those kinds of tools
can be really useful for doinggeopolitical and regulatory
research when we're tryingto understand the environment
that we're about to enter into.
Give me an example of how thosekinds of tools can be effective
(12:23):
at completing some of those.
I know a lot of folks havequalms right now with using
LLMs for research purposesor making sure that those
outputs are accurate.
So how would you advise thatfolks use those kinds of tools
to conduct that kind of researchwhen they're investigating?
Simone Paul Tamussin (12:38):
Yeah, I found that like especially
the deep research type offunctionalities are really
helpful if you're on thestartup, on the, trying to
prioritize which markets do weenter, like what are the forces
and you can access informationthat is pretty good, reliable,
of course, not at the level ofthe detailed data as example us
in Mastercard we have with ourteams and our presence locally.
(13:00):
But it can give you like athirst mapping of the threats
and what's going to beimpacting your business cases,
what you need to focus on.
So that at the point, goingback to the point I said
before, if you need to investsome money into, some local
expertise and something, youcan decide which countries to
go and make that investment.
And other areas likelet's say, you've made
(13:21):
investments and you're goingin different countries.
So I'm in more thana hundred countries.
And if you even just search,as I said, as we said before
with LLM, you can see thatthere are probably more
than 60 domestic schemesfrom a car point of view.
They're more than 100from account tokin type
of payment methods.
Now, most of them areregulated by the governments.
(13:42):
All of them are releasingmandates and letters
on a daily basis.
On top of this, you haveschemes like Mastercard,
visa, American Express, thatthey're releasing their stuff.
So it's thousands ofletters and documents.
So how can you leverage onething that we're pushing a
lot and trying to optimizeis like, how can we leverage
LMS to support us in.
Understanding, reading throughand understanding impact on
(14:04):
our app, on our systems, on ourcustomers, and how to accelerate
and compress the time.
You need to think thatalso the expertise, if you
rely on individuals to gothrough all those letters,
all those documents isreally difficult to find.
People that know technologyfrom one side understand your
business and on the otherside are have that legal
compliance lens and can bringthe two things together.
(14:26):
So sometimes it would be idealto have a solution that helps
you to, get there to the rightposition and protect yourself
if some of your key resourcesare leaving your business,
because that's another keyimportant thing like that
knowledge, where is it going?
How can you protect itand how to scale up again?
Hannah Clark (14:44):
I've seen some similar kind of concepts
echoed by some of the folksthat we've had on the show
who are in the user researchspace where they're trying
to, condense an enormousamount of user research data.
And it's just not realisticoften to be able to accurately
parse, a thousand piecesof customer feedback into a
clear, concise recommendation.
So I can see how a similar kindof approach could be really
(15:04):
effective for parsing throughlike an enormous amount of
compliance data and tryingto make sense of it in a way
that's clear and transmittable.
Simone Paul Tamussin (15:12):
And also with that timing, because what
we are finding more and more islike many of these regulators
or schemes are releasingsomething and then they ask
you to do it in the next sixmonths or like in four months.
If it takes you like alreadytwo months to digest all
the thousands of lettersand mandates, just imagine
like how timely can you bein delivering what you need
(15:33):
to do for, to be compliant.
So that's anotheraspect to keep in mind.
Of course, training validation,super important because you're
dealing with compliance.
If you get it wrong, isthere other hallucination
or things are going inthe wrong direction?
Like you couldalso fail big time.
So make sure that youdo all the right checks.
Don't rely 100% on what'scoming out from LLMs.
Hannah Clark (15:55):
Okay, so this is a really interesting one to
look into a little bit closerbecause this is an area I'm
not really sure how peopleare handling this right now.
How do you, first of all,I think it's wonderful
that we have tools that areable to move at the speed
of change at this stage inour political landscape.
But at the same time, I wonderat an enterprise level, how
(16:15):
are you able to conduct checkson accuracy and outputs and
that kind of thing when there'ssuch an enormous amount of
information that's so nuancedaccording to the different
regulatory bodies that havemandated this kind of work?
Simone Pau (16:28):
It's difficult, it's tough to crack the code.
We're not yet there.
It's a learning journey inmy personal view is like
investing a lot, reviewingtraining and giving more
information and saying of eventhe ones that's giving back
to you that, oh, this doesnot apply to your company and
your, and to your customers.
Have a review of that becauseyou're missing something.
(16:49):
It's better almost toimplement something that
is not needed than to notimplement something and then
being hit by a complianceregulator that is stopping
you to do from doing business.
So try to focus on those ones.
Is it right?
If it's wrong, go back andretrain the model and continue
and have those quality checks.
So you will need, alwaysneed supervision from in
(17:09):
from human point of view.
That's my view.
But you can accelerate andproduce much more, much faster.
It's definitely not easy.
Hannah Clark (17:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm sure, not easy, butcompared to the alternative
of doing it all manuallyis actually impossible.
Simone Paul Tamussin (17:22):
And especially when you, when
with the multiplication,like of all these schemes
and all the regulators andeverything, so it's yeah.
10 years ago is, it wasmuch an easier job to
do this kind of work.
Hannah Clark (17:33):
Yeah.
I can only imagine.
So speaking of, antiquatedprocesses and moving into
the future, how do you aligncross-functional teams across
markets that move at differentspeeds and under different
laws and with varying levelsof maturity given that things
are changing so quickly andit's difficult to keep people
aligned on even one change oftenrather than, just the multitude
(17:55):
of factors that these teamsare having to deal with now?
Simone Paul Tamussin (17:58):
Yeah.
Let's say from the teams thatare, let's say, our domains
where product and engineersare working together is
helping them understand.
These dynamics, training themand trying to push them to find
what are the things that canhelp us scale and be adaptable
and flexible, and is therea common factor that then we
can use to then bring in eachcountry, in each region, and
(18:21):
then manage the differenceswith the s implementations,
partnerships or the incrementalthat needs to happen there.
So that's from the technologyside and trying to explain this
kind of flexibility and the whathappens if you don't do that.
On the other side,partnerships from partnership
locally, it's importantunderstanding the dynamics.
(18:42):
Even if you are the besttechnology person, the best
product manager, but you arein the location and you don't
understand some of the dynamicsthat are happening there
locally, or what's happeningbetween the regulator and the
players, the lobbying forces,that's going to impact a lot.
So a lot of communication,a lot of understanding,
a lot of training, crosstraining, cross contamination.
(19:03):
Then trying to get to the rightsolution for each specific
country in specific region.
And as I said, technologically,try to make it as
flexible as possible.
Don't pretend that whatworks there, you can just
deploy it and implementit everywhere else because
you're probably going to fail.
Hannah Clark (19:20):
What I'm hearing here, there's a
theme of an abundance ofcaution in all factors.
I think you may have heardwe had a episode with Craig
Guarraci about too long agowho talked about interacting
with global teams and thecomplexities even of working
with folks who are working onyour team internal, technically,
working from global marketsand the differences in culture
(19:41):
to take into account just whencommunicating objectives, so.
Simone Paul Tamussin (19:44):
Yeah, and in some cases there could
also be another interestingaspect where if you go there,
you show that you are, youbring the right solutions,
you are happy to collaborate.
You can probably sit downalmost to co-create with
who is creating, like inthe domestic scheme, who is
creating the new rules anddefining what good looks like
to help the entire ecosystem.
(20:05):
So if you are able to play andinject yourself there, of course
the role that then you playlater in the country is going to
be much, much easier, much moreimportant, much more relevant.
Then going back to thecollaboration that we
were saying before andpartnerships or like a
compliance as a service.
If you identify thoseplayers that have this
kind of relationship, andthen you're probably going
(20:27):
to be able to scale andenter the market, yeah, in
a better and easier way.
Hannah Clark (20:32):
When we're thinking about, again, going
back into our enterpriseproduct leader mindset, what
are some of the things whenwe're thinking about the way
that things are done now versusthe way that things have been
done for many years prior tojust the world changing and the
scale of, or the pace of changejust accelerating so much.
What are some of the thingsor processes that we need
to unlearn or rethink aboutwhen we're moving to operate
(20:55):
in mature markets andoperate into emerging ones?
Simone Paul Tamussin (20:58):
Yeah definitely like scaling is
not simple, that you needto learn that as a leader.
And you need to probably thinkthat processes that could
work for you maybe 10 yearsago, standardize everything
across even wider enterprises.
Good luck with those,especially if they compress
you with too much paperworkand too much bureaucracy.
(21:20):
People know that usuallythat I'm not a huge fan of
scale, the Jet Framework orother frameworks that are
creating too much paperworkor creating like long
plannings, quarterly plannings.
Almost roadmaps, and everythingcommitted for several months.
Because I need to pivot andchange almost on a weekly
basis or daily basis withthings that are coming out.
(21:40):
So I completely think aboutdifferently from the past.
You don't bring your products,as we said before, you need
to embed yourself there in thelocal system, and to do this.
Your technology, your processesneed to be able to adapt and
be flexible because you havea global team managing product
and managing engineering, andthey need to be able to have a,
(22:00):
like a different approach basedon different type of region.
And maybe some companies willprefer to have teams that
are dedicated in each singleregion and managing the,
I know the functionalitiesand the platforms.
That are there, or you haveas I two have like more
centralized teams, product andengineering teams, but that
they are able to change theapproach based on the country
(22:21):
and the needs that are there.
Hannah Clark (22:22):
So to sum up here, what we're really, our
recommendations really are toremain as flexible as possible,
continue to keep your processesas flexible as possible.
Investigate the optionof looking into strategic
partnerships with peopleoperating in local markets
rather than trying to build fromscratch as much as possible.
What am I missing?
Simone Paul Tamu (22:43):
Keep it going.
Like a lot of excitement,a lot of energy every
day every moment.
So continue with thepassion and the energy.
That's definitely one thing.
Hannah Clark (22:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I suppose you'll definitelyneed it to keep up
this space of change.
Simone Paul Tamussin (22:54):
And probably yeah, using like 20
years or more being in thisindustry, and sometimes I
ask myself why, but then itisn't because every day it's
a different type of challenge.
It's almost, some of thosegames apps that try to
keep your brain active.
I think that I have enough ofthat we trying to deal payments
across this global landscapethat we have right now.
Hannah Clark (23:13):
Alright, I'm glad that it's keeping you sharp.
Oh, thank you for joining us.
Where can listeners followyour work online, Simone?
Simone Paul Tamussin (23:20):
Yeah definitely LinkedIn is the
best place to reach out tome, follow what I'm doing,
follow Mastercard Gatewaywith all the things that
we're doing in the differentcountries, different regions
that will be super interesting.
And Mastercard overallalso publishes a lot of
content around how we'resupporting unlocking
payment methods everywhere.
And of course, a lot ofnews coming out from the
(23:41):
recent days as well, sosuper exciting times.
Hannah Clark (23:44):
Yeah, lots to dig into.
Thank you so much formaking time for us.
Simone Paul T (23:46):
Yeah, no problem.
Thank you, Hannah.
Hannah Clark (23:50):
Thanks for listening in.
For more great insights,how-to guides and tool reviews,
subscribe to our newsletter attheproductmanager.com/subscribe.
You can hear more conversationslike this by subscribing to
The Product Manager whereveryou get your podcasts.
Scaling internationally has never
been an easy proposition,but today, the challenges
can hardly be overstated.
We live in a time of economicuncertainty, tariffs, and
regulations that changeas often as the weather.
But businesses are meantto grow and sometimes
an overseas opportunityseems too good to pass up.
And, as we'll coverin this episode, they
certainly can be—for now.
(00:23):
But if you consider all theunknowns of doing business
in a foreign market, plus thepiece of change both here and
abroad, the only thing youcan really be sure of is that
you WILL have blind spots—andmore are sure to develop.
But that's wheremy guest comes in.
Simone Tamussin is theSVP Product Management for
Mastercard Gateway, and assomeone who works closely
with businesses in thisposition, he'd be the first
(00:43):
to say that every day demandsa whole new set of solutions.
He offers a high-level viewof the challenges that catch
growth-minded leaders off-guard,proactive measures for safely
entering new markets, and ideasfor efficiently tackling the
astonishing pile of paperworkthat stands between you and your
global expansion initiatives.
Let's jump in.
Oh by the way, wehold conversations
(01:03):
like this every week.
So if this sounds interestingto you, why not subscribe?
Okay, now let's jump in.
Welcome back to TheProduct Manager podcast.
I'm here today withSimone Tamussin and he
is here representinga Mastercard Gateway.
Thank you so much formaking the time in your busy
schedule to be here with us.
Simone Paul Tam (01:20):
Oh, absolutely.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Hannah Clark (01:22):
So today we're gonna be focusing on what
enterprise leaders need toknow when entering new markets
internationally, which isa very complex topic that
we'll be digging in today.
Simone, can you kick us offwith an anecdote that outlines
some of the gaps between theassumptions and reality that
you've seen trip up leaderswho are in the process of
pursuing global expansion?
Simone Pa (01:40):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
We have a few good onesthat I've been in mind
during my life and duringmy career, but let's see.
One thing that usually happensis especially if you're
successful in a lot of countriesalready, you give for granted.
Like that things work ina certain way, that your
standards are the ones that canwork in each single country.
As an example, once we,so I work in the payment
gateway, so we need to try toimplement new payment methods.
(02:03):
I don't implement onlyMastercard, any type of
payment, pretty much agnosticfrom that point of view.
So many years ago what happened,we were trying to enter in a new
market and we didn't have likelocal expertise or knowledge
of what was happening there.
And we had to implementa local domestic scheme.
So a car network that is, thatwas available in the country.
(02:24):
What happened?
We gave for granted thatit was going to work.
Oh, we deal withMastercard, we deal with
Visa, American Express.
We know our stuff, so it shouldwork as we do it every day.
And that was terrible as anassumption because once we
start to dig in, the work wasgoing on and at the time the
platform was less modern thanthe one that we have right now.
Yeah, the things weren't great.
So what turned out to be likea small project was going
(02:46):
to be a completely longerone, like almost taking a
year and a half with a lotof millions to be invested
and that basically killed.
The business case to enteringthat country and customers
immediately start to goaway to some other players.
So that was one kind of example.
Another one, sometimesit happens also on
technology standards orlike security standards.
(03:09):
Another we give for granted thatmaybe what we need to adopt,
what we are using for, I dunno,key exchanges or certificates,
works for everyone.
But sometimes in some countries,the regulator, especially if
you need to deal with the localregulator and the regulator
is working in a differentway, good luck with trying
to say, Hey, how is the bestpractice you should adopt and
(03:29):
you should change your systems.
That doesn't fly well.
Yeah.
Hannah Clark (03:33):
Yeah, fair enough.
I can only imagine dealingwith regulators is yeah,
probably a little bit of aoil and water situation often.
Let's talk about scaling aproduct into new regions.
What signals do you lookfor that indicate that there
might be a risk involvedthat's maybe unforeseen at
that moment or that theremight be some geopolitical
or volatility that mightbecome a risk for the product?
Simone Paul Tamussin (03:55):
Yeah, there are definitely several
factors, and I can tell youlike the last five years things
have become crazy and every dayis becoming even more complex.
So you have different type offorces that are going maybe in
opposite directions or clashingor combined as an effect.
So you have the technologyside, of course evolution
of the technologies.
(04:16):
Are the countries ready?
How is the scenarioin that country?
Definitely in terms ofregulations, so our work in a
super regulated industry, andI have everything, if it talks
about like your data, it talksabout how you manage payments.
Anything that couldbe impacting our area.
We were talking about likethe forces from a localization
(04:37):
perspective, nationalism.
Is there a push to protectlike local players?
Is there a resistance tosend data outside or to
protect like everything andtry to keep everything into
the domestic environment?
That's something that isimpacting and changing
on a daily basis.
Last but not least, I wouldsay economical pressure.
(04:57):
Even tariffs, even changes ordynamics that are happening
across the world becausewe deal with payments,
commerce, and so on.
Assumptions that wehad yesterday could be
completely wrong tomorrow.
So yeah, those are thethings and we really need
to step up and monitor and.
Think about this and we setup like almost a team that
(05:18):
is a complex team that islooking to try to anticipate
everything that is happeningin a single country.
Hannah Clark (05:24):
I think this is really timely.
This, obviously, this hasbeen on everyone's mind.
Just the insanevolatility, especially
in the last little while.
So you've mentioned beforeI've heard you use the word
regulation killing yourbusiness case overnight.
And I'm thinking about this interms of, how do we evaluate
risk when we're expandinginto a heavily regulated
region, especially whenwe have limited resources.
And then my hang around questionto that is how do we continue
(05:46):
to give an ongoing view onwhere some of our markets
are changing when we've we'vegot many markets that we're
overseeing at the same time?
Simone Paul Tamussin (05:54):
Yeah, no.
One thing that you know forsure is you need to be able to
adapt and you need to be able tohave some degree of flexibility
and also be open to work withpotentially local players.
Share like the part ofyour business with someone
else if you want to startto get into that and into
(06:14):
the country in that region.
So the business modelthat you have maybe in
80% of the countriesyou are already present.
If you want to get in.
The other ones, youmaybe need to reach some
compromises and work.
Maybe some players thatin the past, in some other
countries are competitorswith you, but there could be
like able to give you accessto what's happening there.
(06:36):
I feel that it's important.
To do like a thorough analysiswhen you enter in a country,
especially for paymentsand regulated industries.
So if I had to invest somemoney, I would definitely
invest it like in legalconsultants, regulation,
data privacy, trying to coverthese aspects and understand
if, how big is the risk foryou for entering that market?
(06:59):
And also try to anticipate like.
We were saying like thepolitical environment, is it
going to change potentiallythe things that the legal
council is giving me now, arethey potentially changing in
two to three months and thenis going to completely change
the impact on my business case?
So these are all the thingsthat you need to take into
account when expandinginto a new country.
Hannah Clark (07:20):
I did wanna pro a little bit more on
one thing that you mentionedabout partnering, it sounds
to me like you're suggestingthat potentially partnering
with someone who's alreadyin that market who otherwise
would be a competitor.
What might that look like?
Do you have an exampleof something like that's
happened in practice?
Simone Paul Tamussin (07:34):
Yeah.
I can't make names, but thereare different types of scenario.
Let's, I can talk, ofcourse, also how I see it
personally for the job thatI am or my company and so on.
And there are two differentthings in some cases.
It's easier to work withsomeone that is locally there
that has maybe already donethe integration with, I know
the local domestic scheme oris working with the switching
(07:57):
other processing companiesthat are mandated by the
regulator or the government.
Why?
Because maybe theyhave already built.
Connections and they areable to influence, they have
a good relationship withentities, the regulators that
are there in the country.
So that's one thing thatsometimes you need to
evaluate, and I usually dowhen our team usually does.
(08:19):
Another thing that could happenis like more selfishly is
when we were talking probablysometimes about compliance
as a service as well is,let's say, if I am forced to
do that kind of investmentalready, maybe because I have
wider interests, because I'mMastercard or another company
that have other businesses thatare in that country, so I need
(08:40):
to support also the other ones.
So I'll need to do thatmassive investment.
Then why don't I play myselfthe role of providing that
access to some other playersthat would not be able to make.
That investment in technology,in resources, in people
location, and I collaborateand is like of course a
different type of dynamic.
As I was saying, maybewe are competitors.
(09:03):
My business unit is a competitorwith someone in country A,
but in country C, it makessense for them to leverage my
services or embedded paymentsor how, or compliance as a
service and then they're ableto enter the market as well.
Hannah Clark (09:16):
That's interesting how that kind of a dynamic
can make something thatcould be a competitive angle.
Maybe better as astrategic partnership play.
We're talking a little bitabout things that pertain
more to enterprise leaders,but when we're talking about
like a smaller business that'sbeginning to scale into an
international market for thefirst time, what are some of
the mistakes that you've seenrepeated when it comes to a
newer player who is startingto scale into larger markets?
(09:38):
What are things that those kindsof startup leaders and scale
up leaders should be aware of?
Simone Paul Tamussin (09:42):
Yeah, so definitely underestimating
some parts of compliancemay be thinking that you can
delay some aspects of thisuntil after launch or after a
year we will take care of it.
Let's immediately get there.
Let's scale the revenues.
Let's grow as fast as possible.
It can happen in many countries.
It's the case, the rightapproach, and maybe regulations
(10:03):
are still not there.
And you have like enoughlead time to build like
enough revenues to then.
Work on this later, but insome other cases you maybe do
this approach and two monthsafter the regulator is coming
with a completely differentchanging completely the rules
of the game and this is goingto impact another thing that
I think is really important tounderstand, it's especially in
(10:25):
payments, is not that you'rejust bringing your product to
another country and that's it.
You are basically embeddingyourself in the local
ecosystem of the payments.
It's a different typeof mindset, so you
need to get intel.
You need to understand, andthat's the part that you can,
of course, from a startupperspective, if you are agile,
nimble, and you are able toaddress compliance, but also
(10:49):
work on the inefficienciesthat the incumbents have.
Maybe you can transformthat in an opportunity
for yourself because youcover the compliance.
You can deal with any changesthat the regulators are doing,
and you're faster than most ofthe incumbents that are there.
So you can turn it toyour advantage, but
don't underestimatesome components of it.
Hannah Clark (11:06):
Is this that a situation in which that sort of
compliance as a service might bea good strategy to Kinda, yeah?
Simone Paul Tamussin (11:13):
In the same way as I was saying
before example, I'm a bigplayer and some others could
see me, I'm a competitor.
In some cases it could bea partner, but it could,
same thing could happenlike for a smaller, an
enterprise or a startup.
Like what could they do?
Who could they look thereto help them to scale?
We know about like bankingas a service embedded finance
that helped so many fintechsto scale in many markets like
(11:36):
Europe, United States and so on.
You could have asimilar approach.
So try to identify whocan help you there.
Are they reliable,are they trusted?
And how can they help you takeaway some of that kind of work
so you can bring what's yourexpertise, where you really
good at, but still be protectedfrom any kind of compliance
or regulation that is there.
So definitely try to go andfind if there's the right
(11:58):
partner for you there.
Hannah Clark (12:00):
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about
using large language models.
This, of course, there'salways an AI component
to every conversationthis time of our lives.
So you've mentioned thatusing those kinds of tools
can be really useful for doinggeopolitical and regulatory
research when we're tryingto understand the environment
that we're about to enter into.
Give me an example of how thosekinds of tools can be effective
(12:23):
at completing some of those.
I know a lot of folks havequalms right now with using
LLMs for research purposesor making sure that those
outputs are accurate.
So how would you advise thatfolks use those kinds of tools
to conduct that kind of researchwhen they're investigating?
Simone Paul Tamussin (12:38):
Yeah, I found that like especially
the deep research type offunctionalities are really
helpful if you're on thestartup, on the, trying to
prioritize which markets do weenter, like what are the forces
and you can access informationthat is pretty good, reliable,
of course, not at the level ofthe detailed data as example us
in Mastercard we have with ourteams and our presence locally.
(13:00):
But it can give you like athirst mapping of the threats
and what's going to beimpacting your business cases,
what you need to focus on.
So that at the point, goingback to the point I said
before, if you need to investsome money into, some local
expertise and something, youcan decide which countries to
go and make that investment.
And other areas likelet's say, you've made
(13:21):
investments and you're goingin different countries.
So I'm in more thana hundred countries.
And if you even just search,as I said, as we said before
with LLM, you can see thatthere are probably more
than 60 domestic schemesfrom a car point of view.
They're more than 100from account tokin type
of payment methods.
Now, most of them areregulated by the governments.
(13:42):
All of them are releasingmandates and letters
on a daily basis.
On top of this, you haveschemes like Mastercard,
visa, American Express, thatthey're releasing their stuff.
So it's thousands ofletters and documents.
So how can you leverage onething that we're pushing a
lot and trying to optimizeis like, how can we leverage
LMS to support us in.
Understanding, reading throughand understanding impact on
(14:04):
our app, on our systems, on ourcustomers, and how to accelerate
and compress the time.
You need to think thatalso the expertise, if you
rely on individuals to gothrough all those letters,
all those documents isreally difficult to find.
People that know technologyfrom one side understand your
business and on the otherside are have that legal
compliance lens and can bringthe two things together.
(14:26):
So sometimes it would be idealto have a solution that helps
you to, get there to the rightposition and protect yourself
if some of your key resourcesare leaving your business,
because that's another keyimportant thing like that
knowledge, where is it going?
How can you protect itand how to scale up again?
Hannah Clark (14:44):
I've seen some similar kind of concepts
echoed by some of the folksthat we've had on the show
who are in the user researchspace where they're trying
to, condense an enormousamount of user research data.
And it's just not realisticoften to be able to accurately
parse, a thousand piecesof customer feedback into a
clear, concise recommendation.
So I can see how a similar kindof approach could be really
(15:04):
effective for parsing throughlike an enormous amount of
compliance data and tryingto make sense of it in a way
that's clear and transmittable.
Simone Paul Tamussin (15:12):
And also with that timing, because what
we are finding more and more islike many of these regulators
or schemes are releasingsomething and then they ask
you to do it in the next sixmonths or like in four months.
If it takes you like alreadytwo months to digest all
the thousands of lettersand mandates, just imagine
like how timely can you bein delivering what you need
(15:33):
to do for, to be compliant.
So that's anotheraspect to keep in mind.
Of course, training validation,super important because you're
dealing with compliance.
If you get it wrong, isthere other hallucination
or things are going inthe wrong direction?
Like you couldalso fail big time.
So make sure that youdo all the right checks.
Don't rely 100% on what'scoming out from LLMs.
Hannah Clark (15:55):
Okay, so this is a really interesting one to
look into a little bit closerbecause this is an area I'm
not really sure how peopleare handling this right now.
How do you, first of all,I think it's wonderful
that we have tools that areable to move at the speed
of change at this stage inour political landscape.
But at the same time, I wonderat an enterprise level, how
(16:15):
are you able to conduct checkson accuracy and outputs and
that kind of thing when there'ssuch an enormous amount of
information that's so nuancedaccording to the different
regulatory bodies that havemandated this kind of work?
Simone Pau (16:28):
It's difficult, it's tough to crack the code.
We're not yet there.
It's a learning journey inmy personal view is like
investing a lot, reviewingtraining and giving more
information and saying of eventhe ones that's giving back
to you that, oh, this doesnot apply to your company and
your, and to your customers.
Have a review of that becauseyou're missing something.
(16:49):
It's better almost toimplement something that
is not needed than to notimplement something and then
being hit by a complianceregulator that is stopping
you to do from doing business.
So try to focus on those ones.
Is it right?
If it's wrong, go back andretrain the model and continue
and have those quality checks.
So you will need, alwaysneed supervision from in
(17:09):
from human point of view.
That's my view.
But you can accelerate andproduce much more, much faster.
It's definitely not easy.
Hannah Clark (17:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm sure, not easy, butcompared to the alternative
of doing it all manuallyis actually impossible.
Simone Paul Tamussin (17:22):
And especially when you, when
with the multiplication,like of all these schemes
and all the regulators andeverything, so it's yeah.
10 years ago is, it wasmuch an easier job to
do this kind of work.
Hannah Clark (17:33):
Yeah.
I can only imagine.
So speaking of, antiquatedprocesses and moving into
the future, how do you aligncross-functional teams across
markets that move at differentspeeds and under different
laws and with varying levelsof maturity given that things
are changing so quickly andit's difficult to keep people
aligned on even one change oftenrather than, just the multitude
(17:55):
of factors that these teamsare having to deal with now?
Simone Paul Tamussin (17:58):
Yeah.
Let's say from the teams thatare, let's say, our domains
where product and engineersare working together is
helping them understand.
These dynamics, training themand trying to push them to find
what are the things that canhelp us scale and be adaptable
and flexible, and is therea common factor that then we
can use to then bring in eachcountry, in each region, and
(18:21):
then manage the differenceswith the s implementations,
partnerships or the incrementalthat needs to happen there.
So that's from the technologyside and trying to explain this
kind of flexibility and the whathappens if you don't do that.
On the other side,partnerships from partnership
locally, it's importantunderstanding the dynamics.
(18:42):
Even if you are the besttechnology person, the best
product manager, but you arein the location and you don't
understand some of the dynamicsthat are happening there
locally, or what's happeningbetween the regulator and the
players, the lobbying forces,that's going to impact a lot.
So a lot of communication,a lot of understanding,
a lot of training, crosstraining, cross contamination.
(19:03):
Then trying to get to the rightsolution for each specific
country in specific region.
And as I said, technologically,try to make it as
flexible as possible.
Don't pretend that whatworks there, you can just
deploy it and implementit everywhere else because
you're probably going to fail.
Hannah Clark (19:20):
What I'm hearing here, there's a
theme of an abundance ofcaution in all factors.
I think you may have heardwe had a episode with Craig
Guarraci about too long agowho talked about interacting
with global teams and thecomplexities even of working
with folks who are working onyour team internal, technically,
working from global marketsand the differences in culture
(19:41):
to take into account just whencommunicating objectives, so.
Simone Paul Tamussin (19:44):
Yeah, and in some cases there could
also be another interestingaspect where if you go there,
you show that you are, youbring the right solutions,
you are happy to collaborate.
You can probably sit downalmost to co-create with
who is creating, like inthe domestic scheme, who is
creating the new rules anddefining what good looks like
to help the entire ecosystem.
(20:05):
So if you are able to play andinject yourself there, of course
the role that then you playlater in the country is going to
be much, much easier, much moreimportant, much more relevant.
Then going back to thecollaboration that we
were saying before andpartnerships or like a
compliance as a service.
If you identify thoseplayers that have this
kind of relationship, andthen you're probably going
(20:27):
to be able to scale andenter the market, yeah, in
a better and easier way.
Hannah Clark (20:32):
When we're thinking about, again, going
back into our enterpriseproduct leader mindset, what
are some of the things whenwe're thinking about the way
that things are done now versusthe way that things have been
done for many years prior tojust the world changing and the
scale of, or the pace of changejust accelerating so much.
What are some of the thingsor processes that we need
to unlearn or rethink aboutwhen we're moving to operate
(20:55):
in mature markets andoperate into emerging ones?
Simone Paul Tamussin (20:58):
Yeah definitely like scaling is
not simple, that you needto learn that as a leader.
And you need to probably thinkthat processes that could
work for you maybe 10 yearsago, standardize everything
across even wider enterprises.
Good luck with those,especially if they compress
you with too much paperworkand too much bureaucracy.
(21:20):
People know that usuallythat I'm not a huge fan of
scale, the Jet Framework orother frameworks that are
creating too much paperworkor creating like long
plannings, quarterly plannings.
Almost roadmaps, and everythingcommitted for several months.
Because I need to pivot andchange almost on a weekly
basis or daily basis withthings that are coming out.
(21:40):
So I completely think aboutdifferently from the past.
You don't bring your products,as we said before, you need
to embed yourself there in thelocal system, and to do this.
Your technology, your processesneed to be able to adapt and
be flexible because you havea global team managing product
and managing engineering, andthey need to be able to have a,
(22:00):
like a different approach basedon different type of region.
And maybe some companies willprefer to have teams that
are dedicated in each singleregion and managing the,
I know the functionalitiesand the platforms.
That are there, or you haveas I two have like more
centralized teams, product andengineering teams, but that
they are able to change theapproach based on the country
(22:21):
and the needs that are there.
Hannah Clark (22:22):
So to sum up here, what we're really, our
recommendations really are toremain as flexible as possible,
continue to keep your processesas flexible as possible.
Investigate the optionof looking into strategic
partnerships with peopleoperating in local markets
rather than trying to build fromscratch as much as possible.
What am I missing?
Simone Paul Tamu (22:43):
Keep it going.
Like a lot of excitement,a lot of energy every
day every moment.
So continue with thepassion and the energy.
That's definitely one thing.
Hannah Clark (22:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I suppose you'll definitelyneed it to keep up
this space of change.
Simone Paul Tamussin (22:54):
And probably yeah, using like 20
years or more being in thisindustry, and sometimes I
ask myself why, but then itisn't because every day it's
a different type of challenge.
It's almost, some of thosegames apps that try to
keep your brain active.
I think that I have enough ofthat we trying to deal payments
across this global landscapethat we have right now.
Hannah Clark (23:13):
Alright, I'm glad that it's keeping you sharp.
Oh, thank you for joining us.
Where can listeners followyour work online, Simone?
Simone Paul Tamussin (23:20):
Yeah definitely LinkedIn is the
best place to reach out tome, follow what I'm doing,
follow Mastercard Gatewaywith all the things that
we're doing in the differentcountries, different regions
that will be super interesting.
And Mastercard overallalso publishes a lot of
content around how we'resupporting unlocking
payment methods everywhere.
And of course, a lot ofnews coming out from the
(23:41):
recent days as well, sosuper exciting times.
Hannah Clark (23:44):
Yeah, lots to dig into.
Thank you so much formaking time for us.
Simone Paul T (23:46):
Yeah, no problem.
Thank you, Hannah.
Hannah Clark (23:50):
Thanks for listening in.
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