Who Am I? Really eclectic. I’m an aerospace engineer that just wrote the wiki on Inertial Guidance, a software engineer that evolved (or devolved?) into a sales guy, P&L exec and a venture guy….
Why do I do this? I’m tired of seeing my friends loose money in mobile, payments and advertising. There is so little “payment” education… Its also a great way to stay in touch w/ all my alumni friends, colleagues customers and former employees.
What it my perspective?
We are all biased by our life experiences. I always find it valuable to share thoughts with folks of different backgrounds. The dialog helps me question my assumptions, cut through the fog and “buzz” in the valley, and assess trends/models/companies…. It’s also rather challenging to keep up with all my colleagues/friends/former employees.. and this has been a great tool to do so. Hard to believe that close 3,000-4,000 people a week read this thing. My perspective is shaped by running 2 of the world’s largest online banks, running a global SWAT team for Oracle, running and investing in Start ups, working with a few MCX retailers, Top Card Issuers, Regulators, Payment Networks, Mobile Operators and Advertisers/mobile platforms. In short, I know very little about a number of different industries… with deep knowledge of only a very few things. My main asset? I know who to ask when I have questions…
My Starpoint team is comprised of former CEOs and executives in payments, platform, banking, software, mobile, advertising, venture capital, retail and sales. Starpoint’s advisory services are focused in 4 areas:
- Connecting Innovation to Strategic Capital
- Strategic Advisory
- Sales Referral
- Platform Strategy
In short, we put our money where we can put our time (a great way to mitigate risk). Prior to Starpoint, I had a stint as Global Remote Channels Head for Citigroup’s Global Consumer Group (GCG)reporting to Ajay Banga. My focus was driving GCG’s international revenue growth through remote channels (Direct Banking, mobile, phone, …). GCG’s team of 97,000 across 47 countries continues to be the gem of Citi’s portfolio, attracting the best talent in every market. My teams’ launched (or acquired) direct banks in UK, Australia, Singapore, HK, Columbia, Portugal and Spain. My former colleagues have moved on to become executive leaders at other organizations. This strong network provides a unique “global” ability to connect companies with knowledgeable local resources.
Prior to Citigroup, I also led Wachovia’s online and payment services. My team was responsible for making Wachovia the #1 Online Retail Bank in the U.S (2005), managing over $30 Billion per year in payments. (2005 Keynote, 2005 ComScore, 2005 ACSI, 2006 ACSI). Wachovia’s customer focus, and customer listening processes, provided a template for how businesses can harness consumers to drive business success. Satisfied customers require a lower cost to serve, have higher balances, own more products and serve as a tremendous source of information for development of new products.
I’m fortunate to have a few friends in Silicon Valley due to previous roles at Oracle and start-up 41st Parameter. 5 years at Oracle I learned not to confuse sales with delivery. After all Larry Ellison’s first customer was the CIA.. he won a relational database contract without having any software. Its much easier to smile when your on the sales end of the transaction..
Make no mistake however.. I’m not just a pretty sales guy. I still can write code in Ada, C, C+, Smalltalk, Java, … design enterprise integration hubs, real time transaction systems, payment networks, online banks, and wire heterogeneous systems together through multiple protocols. My teams at Oracle were the premier hands on solutions architects, all around the globe. We cleaned up the ”beta product” mess as we rolled out solutions to early adopter customers (Application Server, Fusion, RAC, CRM, B2B Exchanges, ERP, Bill Pay, Supply Chain Planning). This more than ANYTHING was what helped form my view of change in technology. The breadth of Oracle’s portfolio (technology, applications, hosting), and corresponding geographic footprint, provided tremendous base for my current activities connecting ISVs to Fortune 100 companies. At 41st Parameter, I owned the top line at a KBCP start up as my team led sales and marketing to grow revenue 16x in just 18 months to $13M run rate. 41st Parameter’s software is now used by the top US/EMEA banks both individually and in a new networked service to share intelligence.
I still touch space stuff acting as an analyst for CNN, Fox and ABC covering NASA and space policy. A long time ago I was fairly smart.. emphasis on fairly.. I was responsible for the space shuttle’s guidance & navigation during a stint at NASA. Given its hard to test software changes on the actual vehicle we had to build simulations.. some were man in the loop and thus training astronauts to fly the software. All great fun…. Lived right across from Neil and Ed White in El Lago Texas. http://www.tomnoyes.com/shuttle.
More about Tom on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/tcnoyes
I found both your blogsites very informative and insightful. I was just wondering if it would not be worth your while to get a good briefing of Fundamo, the company, the profile and the strategy? For instance, it is not well-known, but did you know that more than 25% of vendor mobile money deploymentsin emerging markets run Fundamo platforms (compared to less then 10% for their closest competitor)?
Tom, thanks for the great blog posts! Do you know anyone who blogs on this space in Europe or UK?
Hi Tom, thanks for this incredibly insightful and informative blog. Was wondering if you might have recommendations for people whose work/blogs you like to read in the space?