Leadership Spotlight: A Conversation with Sarah Wu

An edited conversation with payments industry veteran Sarah Wu, covering her remarkable career journey, insights on industry trends, and advice for professionals navigating the evolving payments landscape.

Sarah Wu Background: Global Payments Executive with FISERV, Visa, Mastercard, and QCC, spanning Greater China and Asia Pacific.  Her career spans marketing, commerce, and payment technology, bringing a human-centered perspective to the evolution of payments across diverse markets in the Asia Pacific and global regulatory environments.

Mike Bradley: Sarah, before we dive in, tell us about your background and career. What keeps you motivated today?

Sarah Wu: Thank you for having me. Many people know me from my payment career highlights—serving as North Asia GM for FISERV for over six years, Head of Sales at CyberSource for five years, and Vice President of Business Development for MasterCard China. But my journey actually started in a very different place.

I began my professional career in marketing, working as a business development executive for a shopping center in Taiwan. That experience helped me understand a variety of businesses—from restaurants to fashion retail—which became invaluable later. This background led me to work with MasterCard China during an exciting time when most people in card schemes focused on issuing. I was one of the few working on merchant business development, which gave me the opportunity to help build China's payment system and industry infrastructure.

I also spent time in cross-border trading, working for an importing company in the US. This taught me about business costs and operations from a completely different angle. When I joined CyberSource, I became fascinated by public and private cloud technology and how it could facilitate entire payment and trade ecosystems. From there, I wanted to understand what was going on inside the data centers running these cloud technologies

Before FISERV, when it was still First Data, they had two data centers in China with over a hundred developers. The company brought me into the company to understand how to build technology products and the differences between various solutions. It became a fascinating journey because I don't have a technology background—but I know people, I know business, and I understand how technology applies to business and serves human needs. This unique perspective has allowed me to help companies from different angles.

Mike: That's really insightful and probably speaks to why you've had so much success. You're not caught up in the technology itself, but focused on the real stakeholders in B2C payments—consumers and merchants. When you understand that and then enter the payments world, it gives you a unique advantage. I'm actually similar—I came from that world and worked my way into technology without a technical background.

How has the Payment Industry Misjudged Its Priorities?

Let me ask you this: from your perspective, where do you think the payment industry has misjudged its priorities? Are there specific opportunities that have been overlooked?

Sarah: As I mentioned, I have many different perspectives because of my background, and I've become heavily involved in technology over the years. Here's what I've observed: people focus too much on technology and not enough on customer experience needs. While many successful payment technologies have met customer and business demands, we need to think more critically about that balance.

Payment is fundamentally about two things: how you pay and how money is received. It's always a trade-off between risk and business opportunity. The real misjudgment? People think it's too simple—that if they have technology and capital, they can capture massive market opportunities. But they forget to consider compliance, regulation, geopolitical issues, and even cultural distinctions. Different people have different payment behaviors based on their cultural context.

This misjudgment affects not just companies but also the capital markets funding them.

Mike: I think that's particularly true for global organizations—whether US-based, European, or Chinese companies expanding internationally. There tends to be a rush to expand based on technological or business model advantage, but as you point out, there are regulatory issues, government data sovereignty concerns, and cultural factors that significantly affect market entry and customer adoption.

I'd also add that we haven't seen much true innovation when it comes to payments. There has been plenty of innovation in software and how it interfaces with mobile devices or e-commerce sites, but fundamentally, we're putting software layers on top of 50-year-old payment infrastructure. China has been different—Alibaba, WeChat Pay, and others have driven real innovation over the past 20 years. But outside China, we've relied heavily on card payment models. We're only now starting to see potentially new payment rails with stablecoins and related technologies.

You highlighted something important as we prepared for this conversation: payments infrastructure has become commoditized. Moving authorizations, settling transactions, and providing reconciliation files—it's all pretty much a commodity now.

What do you think truly differentiates long-term winners? Is it business model, technology, or market focus?

Sarah: When discussing payment systems, people often mention technology factors like stability, resilience, and capacity to process payments quickly. But I believe the crucial winning factors are features, pricing, and services—with services being the key differentiator.

Some emphasize features, and yes, they're important. But you need people who understand how to articulate those features, how to serve clients, and how to apply the right knowledge and experience to help business partners win and serve their own clients.

It's not just about treating clients well. It's about having deep knowledge and understanding of the ecosystem. Do you know the potential barriers and risks your client will encounter? Can you help them make the right decisions and take the next steps without wasting resources? That's what differentiates winners.

Mike: So you're not just a technology provider—you have expertise. That's what separates winners from everyone else.

I think that's a consistent theme. New players might have technological or business model advantages, but without the right expertise to help customers and partners leverage those advantages, they won't gain traction or achieve sustainability.

Sarah: Exactly. And being able to partner with others is also crucial. You need to be open-minded because one technology company can't do everything themselves. They need to know their strengths and weaknesses, even for their star products.

Take "buy now, pay later" as an example. Five to ten years ago, it became the star of the payment market—but only for a short period. Without partnering with other technology or payment companies, those firms couldn't win the market or scale quickly. Partnership is essential for success.

Timing matters too. I remember about ten years ago when Circle wanted to come to Asia. I had a brief conversation with Jeremy from Circle—he really wanted to bring stablecoin, or crypto as it was called then, into China for payments. But the timing wasn't right. The regulation, market acceptance, and technology infrastructure simply weren't there yet.

Structural Trends Affecting the Payments Industry

Mike: That gets to differentiating between structural trends and short-term headlines or buzzwords. I'll put myself in this category—I always felt like crypto had a lot of promise, but it was very hard to find the use case to move it into wider adoption. Then we started seeing B2B payments as a key use case for stablecoin in particular.

What are your thoughts on maybe three or four major long-term trends you see? Let's differentiate between card payments and B2B payments, since those are very different.

Crypto & Stablecoins

Sarah: For consumer and commercial payments alike, I believe crypto—particularly stablecoins—is the next major trend. We shouldn't just look at our own behavior, but at future generations. For them, digital is like water and air—it's their daily life.

Ten years ago, crypto was different, but now look at the key players participating in this area. The infrastructure is developing, and many countries have started studying or publishing regulations. The market is being promoted, and if you look at the circulation size, I believe crypto and stablecoins are the next trend we cannot ignore.

Mike: How do you see crypto working with consumer payments? We're used to wallets on Alipay or WeChat Pay, or credit cards linked to bank systems. Crypto is very different—you might have crypto stored in a wallet somewhere, but it's not related to payment flows or infrastructure. There's lots of activity around making crypto a source of funds, but I don't see how crypto moves forward without leveraging existing infrastructure. I don't think it can feasibly replace current systems.

Sarah: I completely agree—it's not about replacement. We cannot ignore crypto or digital coins, but they won't totally replace traditional infrastructure. They should work together, and I've seen many companies starting to build connections and integrate infrastructure in Asia to ensure currency can be off-ramped and used in different scenarios.

This is starting with cross-border business, where there's real need. For example, in Southeast Asia, some currencies like Vietnam's dong cannot be easily exchanged. In regions like Africa, they need an intermediary medium for exchange. Cryptocurrency and stablecoins will play a crucial role in cross-border business for emerging and small-currency markets—and the demand is really significant.

Mike: The regulation coming out of the US, Japan, and Europe has been critical to opening opportunities for investment and viewing stablecoins as new payment rails, especially in B2B payments or transfers.

For consumer payments, there's a fascinating path companies will take trying to interface existing infrastructure with what I call "source of funds"—crypto assets with value. It's difficult to pay directly with Bitcoin—it takes too long and costs too much—but it has value. You can extract that value and use the existing payment infrastructure to make purchases. That feels like the most likely path for how crypto interfaces with existing payment systems.

Crypto and Existing Payments Infrastructure

Sarah: I agree. One interesting example is a feature my current company, QCC, is building: allowing consumers to use crypto or stablecoins to pay credit card bills. I'm talking about the technology, not the regulatory part—we're making sure our technology is ready so that when it is ready, financial institutions can use that function.

Another example from Southeast Asia: small and medium-sized merchants in restaurants and tourism are actually considering accepting stablecoins or crypto. I've seen more players trying to integrate that sort of gateway or payment method for those merchants. While we may not see massive customer adoption yet, people are asking about it.

Career Perspective -  Insights and Advice for Rising Professionals

Mike: Let's switch gears and talk about careers. You've worked at some of the biggest and most influential global payments companies—First Data, Visa, and MasterCard. What do you think people underestimate or overestimate about working at those organizations?

Sarah: The advantages of working with large brands are clear: more resources, professional expertise to share with you, easier outreach to people, and understanding of the whole system and decision-making process. However, the flip side is the limitations and legacy systems. You spend a lot of time explaining and communicating with people at different levels of understanding.

Here's what's really risky: some people working at large companies feel they are equal to the brand. This is misleading because you won't be able to continue working at that large company forever. You have to prepare yourself and be able to succeed without that large platform. You need to become your own brand.

The brand and the person are not at equal levels. Some people who've never worked at large brands—or who don't prefer them—can still be excellent in their fields. The most important thing is always looking at the person: how they talk, what context they bring, and the value they deliver.

Mike: For someone who's hired and interviewed many people from both large and small organizations, I very much believe that the brand you work for might get you a second look, but you really have to have your own personal brand. That brand needs to be about expertise, skills, and bringing something to the table beyond "I worked at big company X."

That's important advice for younger professionals in payments. Just because you're at a big company doesn't qualify you for the next big opportunity. You've got to build what a friend of mine calls a "credibility index"—showing you've done things, understand the industry and partnerships, and can communicate that effectively.

Sarah: Exactly. One very important thing is to always participate in difficult, challenging projects or work during challenging periods. I still remember when we were all at CyberSource—that period was amazing because we started from zero to one in the Asia Pacific. Even though it was a big brand, it was totally a startup stage for the whole department. That's really valuable.

Mike: The whole presence was a startup. You've got to see that if you work in a large organization, you can build good experience, but it's also very easy to hide behind the brand. My advice to people starting their careers: use the brand, but don't hide behind it. Develop skills and experience.

What about folks who are mid-career or later—those of us who've been in payments for a while and have "seen the movie many times"? What about burnout or fatigue? What are your thoughts on that? Have you dealt with it yourself?

Professional Journey Mid -Career:  Rising Executive Track and Balance

Sarah: I'm actually still learning in this area—how to give yourself space to relax, space just for yourself. This is really crucial because the payment industry moves very fast with overwhelming information and constant change. We have to be really mindful of our bodies and the signals they send us.

I learned this over the past eight years. I almost burned out by the end of 2023. For the first time, I tried to find a pharmacy right after landing in Tokyo. I realized I had to really rest, but I didn't know how. This is partly why I'm now in the health industry—trying to understand what health is and what key components ensure good condition. If you have good condition, you have a clear mind to make decisions.

Sometimes we just need to pause. If the signals tell us we need rest, we have to rest and give ourselves space every week. Maybe do nothing on Sunday. Rest is crucial, and something very simple is nutrition. Nutrition accounts for 70% of your health. Once you have that foundation, you can run your body well. Nutrition and rest are crucial.

Mike: Rest is mental as well as physical. For the audience, Sarah and I worked together, and I know how hard you worked. We were often concerned. The work culture in China was intense—as an outsider, it was very hard to understand. Whether in startup mode or big companies, there are no boundaries, so you have to learn to set boundaries.

There's so much information, so much happening, so much innovation. You could stay awake and learn for the next 10 years, but that's not healthy. It will lead to bad outcomes. In your career journey, you're learning where to put boundaries and divert attention to other aspects of your well-being.

Sarah: You're recalling my memory from that stage. Passion drove me to run faster. Sometimes when you love what you're doing, you work too much. We have to be aware of our body and its limitations. Put time for yourself in your calendar so it's not just full of work schedules.

Goals are important. In the past, especially in Asia, the definition of success was just one thing. But when you start thinking differently—if you think your success is a combination of family relationships, hobbies, friends, and your health—then you know how to spend your time on a daily basis.

Changing Work Culture and Professional Development Environment

Mike: You spent so much of your career in China with Chinese companies and that startup ecosystem. Are you observing change, or is the “996” culture still prevalent? For those of you not familiar, “9-9-6” means working “9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week”...it has been the defining work culture characteristic of many start-up and hi-tech companies in China.

Sarah: Based on my observation, people in the Chinese fintech industry still work long hours. However, the whole environment has changed people's mindset. People are starting to understand what's really important and prioritize their life accordingly. Even though 996 is still the norm in the market, people are changing how they respond and react to it. They're making their own decisions to either change or be more flexible. I think 996 is still prevalent in the market.

Mike: It's interesting—in the US, the startup environment is now maybe moving toward 996. For a long time, we had ping pong tables and some would say “cushy” work environments in Silicon Valley as firms sought to attract top employees and make them stay. People worked very hard, obviously, but with AI, it's become a race. We're seeing a return to really strenuous work environments—long hours, with contracts even specifying weekend work and expectation of long work hours.

These things come in phases, but back to your point about learning and sharing experiences: helping people think about where to put boundaries is crucial because we're in a boundaryless world. In payments, we have so much information and access. With the evolution of AI, we can get answers to anything we want, which presents challenges for focus, health, and mental well-being.

The Importance of Mental and Physical Well-Being

Sarah: Regardless of industry, health is always number one. Without one, you don't have other zeros.

Mike: I'd say that's key to having resilience as an individual in the payment industry—you've got to have that foundation of mental and physical health.

So lastly, if you could give advice to your younger self 15-20 years ago, or to someone just starting their career path, what would you tell them?

Advice to My Younger Self

Sarah: Don't be afraid to pause. You always need clarity about your life stage before moving on. It's not like continuous work without stopping makes you successful. Don't be afraid to change fields. You can embrace more perspectives by experiencing different things, and eventually, the rewards of life will be there.

Don't rush into so-called success. Put the right priorities in your life. Over the past two years, I've experienced a lot and seen many stories. One friend told me in his last two months of life that he felt regret because he spent all his time on work and had to depart earlier.

I think enjoying life is not about putting one factor as your definition of success. Be able to pause, don't be afraid to change the role you play in the industry, and always think about what the priorities in your life are.

Keep It All In Perspective: Conclusion

Mike: That hits home for me as well. You can lose perspective. I think it's important to tell someone just starting a career that while ambition, energy, and being adventurous are important, don't lose perspective.

Sarah, thank you so much. Your life experience and career have been remarkable. Kevin and I are both so fortunate that we got to build a relationship with you and work with you in different ways, and we're still very close after all these years.

Sarah: I feel fortunate, too. Having you as my boss at CyberSource was a really amazing journey. I still think about that period—it wasn't just about memories, but about growth, different perspectives, and amazing experiences. It's been an amazing relationship with you both.

Mike: Likewise. Thanks so much, Sarah. I'm sure we'll talk again, and if I get to Taiwan, we'll find time to spend together.

Sarah: Yes, for sure. And wishing ChainTech a very successful start to 2026!

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.