Fired Up

PYMNTS Business News Network

How do culture and leadership shape performance in the AI era? That’s the question Paulette Rowe is putting to some of fintech’s most admired leaders on Fired Up, a brand new podcast on the PYMNTS Business News Network. One of The Financial Technology Report’s Top 25 Payments Executives of 2025, Paulette has built a reputation for value creation and business transformation at global companies as well as scaling high-growth, PE-backed businesses. Culture has always been central to her formula for success. Now she’s finding out if culture is the real competitive advantage in a world where everyone has access to the same AI tools.

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    Out of the Frying Pan w/ PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster: Does Culture Determine Whether AI Delivers?

    How do culture and leadership shape performance in the AI era? That’s the question Paulette Rowe is putting to some of fintech’s most admired leaders on Fired Up, a brand new podcast on the PYMNTS Business News Network. Hosted by Paulette Rowe: One of The Financial Technology Report's Top 25 Payments Executives of 2025, Paulette Rowe has spent her career leading transformation in complex, tech-intensive businesses across global markets. Her roles span GE Capital, Meta and NatWest, where she led a 20,000-person retail banking network. At Barclays, she led the merchant acquiring business processing one in three UK card payments. More recently, she has taken on scaling high-growth, PE-backed companies. As CEO of fintech unicorn Stax Payments, she transformed the business,strengthening its financial performance, building it into a full-stack processor, and driving an AI rollout that helped deliver award winning customer service. Across every role and boardroom seat, her approach has been the same: invest in culture not as a soft add-on, but as the foundation of P&L performance. Now, as AI reshapes how every company operates, she’s putting that belief to the test with some of the most admired leaders in fintech and beyond - probing the question every leader needs to consider: how much does culture really drive success, and does AI change that equation? Guest: PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster is one of the world’s leading experts in payments innovation and the digital economy, advising multinational companies and sitting on boards of emerging AI, healthtech and real-time payments firms, including a non-executive director on the Sezzle board, a publicly traded BNPL provider. She founded PYMNTS.com in 2009, a top media platform covering innovation in payments, commerce and the digital economy. Webster is also the author of the NEXT newsletter and a co-founder of Market Platform Dynamics, specializing in driving and monetizing innovation across industries.

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How do culture and leadership shape performance in the AI era? That’s the question Paulette Rowe is putting to some of fintech’s most admired leaders on Fired Up, a brand new podcast on the PYMNTS Business News Network. One of The Financial Technology Report’s Top 25 Payments Executives of 2025, Paulette has built a reputation for value creation and business transformation at global companies as well as scaling high-growth, PE-backed businesses. Culture has always been central to her formula for success. Now she’s finding out if culture is the real competitive advantage in a world where everyone has access to the same AI tools.