The Power of the CP Difference with Dan Wienhold

Speaker A: And you have to be just vulnerable. Starts with you. You be the difference, you change it. And it's key for engineering to own not only the tech stack, but the understanding of what customers our business, our partner is asking.

Speaker B: Hey, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of fintech Brews. I'm Nikki Rode and today is super exciting for me because we are back with FinTech Brews. After a little hiatus, uh, we've been reimagining and rethinking the purpose of this podcast, why we're here, what we're doing, and, um, of course, let's not forget what started this whole thing. Fintech's a little bit crazy. A lot brewing up under the umbrella of fintech and Payments. And we, we like beer and we like coffee. So fintech Brews is now back in, living through some of the things. So I thank my friends down at Wood Grain, first of all, for, uh, this IPA that is called Snobbery and has been around for quite a number of years, but is still one of my favorites. So I asked the team to please bring me a snob. And, uh, somehow I ended up with a 32 ouncer, uh, which is quite interesting. But I'm going to crack that while I introduce, uh, a guest with me today, Dan Wienhold. Hi, Dan.

Speaker A: Hello, Nikki. Thank you for having me.

Speaker B: Please introduce yourself.

Speaker A: My name is Dan Wienhold. I joined Central Payments just over a year ago now in that hiatus that Nikki just talked about. That's one of the things that we had going on. So I am the, uh, kind of head of technology, VP of Software Engineering currently. And yeah, I'm super excited to be here as we kind of kick off this conversation on what's been happening in

Speaker B: fintech and what do you have to do?

Speaker A: So I know she said a beer and coffee. I kind of went a little off script. And I have Songbird Kombucha from our friends at Songbird Kombuchery. Is that Kombuchery? Kombuchari? Yeah, probably. And yeah, I think we have strawberry basil. Go on, check them out at. I think they're at the Farmer's market on tap in town. Cool. Yeah, very cool. Definitely.

Speaker B: Thank you so much, Dan. And guys, I am so stoked for this, um, series. We are actually debuting a, uh, a few episodes where we're going to be highlighting some expertise that we have inside the walls at Central Payments. So throughout this hiatus, once again, we've had some time to think about, uh, and marinate on the value that's being brought through Fintech Brews. And Central Payments, you know, why do we exist? What are we here for? And so we really have this mantra that we exist to take bold vision and turn it into market leading products. So it takes a lot of people to do that. It takes a lot of wisdom and a lot of experience. And so our tagline as a company is you, your vision, our expertise. So why not highlight some of the expertise that we have inside of our walls. So uh, without further ado, that is what today is going to be all about. So Dan, I just thank you so much for being here. And I want to start just kick off by telling the audience a little bit about, about your journey, uh, to get to Central Payments.

Speaker A: Oh gosh, that is a long journey. So we will kind of keep it to the abbreviated version. Um, my journey to get to Central Payments. It actually I knew about you guys, knew about you guys for a long time. I knew what you were doing and I knew who was there and I knew it was a place, it was a special place. So we're going to rewind a little bit from there. My journey into fintech actually started at a bank like most of us do, right? I was at the bank, I was at a big bank. Citibank. Crazy story. It was the financial crisis. Citibank actually laid off a huge number of their employees in Sioux Falls. They hired me in the middle of the, in the middle of all of that. Literally the door that was going out had hundreds of people going out on the day that I started the job there.

Speaker B: And that didn't spook you?

Speaker A: That did not spook me. No, not at all. And uh, it's kind of funny and the reason why I bring that up is because it highlights the journey that is myself. But also I think is what Central Payments brings from an expertise perspective. And that a lot of those people that were being let go and it was no fault of their own, they were in the classical IT and they were like, this is my job, this is what I do, this is my work stream. Good stuff. I was actually hired on as what was called a line of business engineer. So at that point in time there are a lot of, a lot of people at ah, Citi that were trying to be really like passionate about their jobs, like save their jobs, like figure out what this meant for cardholders out in the market. So departments were saying, we will actually take our budget and we will hire engineers and they will, they'll do everything. So there, there was no, like, that's my world. That's your world. No, you don't touch that. It was Dan, we're going to hire you. No tether, no nothing. You are here, uh, fix problems, solve things. So, yeah, that's where, that's where I started. Right? It was, it was crazy. I, I, uh, we did some crazy things. It's kind of like it in this day and age. You would not get away from it. I literally created Citi's like, main ach process for customer service. We moved tens, hundreds of millions of dollars through a server next to the bathroom that I created myself. I work with the Treasury Department. Anyway, that, that just is kind of one of the, like, tipping points of knowing who I am as a person. And I am, as a person. I'm, I'm a problem solver. I am not your classical technologist that sits behind a door or has a wall that people can't get through. Run center, right? Like Citibank, my department, they're my customer, every single one of them. It was, how can I fix this for you? What can I do? So that was a really kind of eye opening experience for me and it really set the tone for where I wanted my career to go. Yeah.

Speaker B: So what happened after Citi?

Speaker A: After Citi? Oh, yeah, Citi. I, I, you know, classic. Kind of like me and a, uh, me and a teammate, we're like, we're going to go do our own, like, do our own thing. We had our own, like, software development agency. Really successful that. And when you literally have $0 in the bank, you learn how to hustle. You, you, you learn that the only thing, as they say, cliche, your net worth is your network. You better get out there. And every single conversation is a sales conversation. You are selling yourself, you're selling what you do. And yeah, that, that just really drove it home. That success is you. Yeah.

Speaker B: So shout out, out to all the entrepreneurs that are bootstrapping.

Speaker A: Yeah, you, you get scrappy. There is, there is no other way around it. When, by the way, during that whole period I decided, uh, I'd actually quit my job at Citibank the Monday after I got married. And, uh.

Speaker B: So shout out to your wife.

Speaker A: Shout out to my wife, who, by the way, didn't have a job because she just graduated for the second time out of grad school and was also looking. We literally had a terminal amount of money in the bank account and it was a do or die, like so, so I'm gonna lean into that.

Speaker B: Did she know you were quitting your job?

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: And she was like, all, uh, right,

Speaker A: what are we doing to Lose. I trust you. Wow. Yep.

Speaker B: What's your wife's name?

Speaker A: Beth.

Speaker B: Shout out to Beth.

Speaker A: Let me get it. Wow. That's incredible. So we did that. We did that. I. What I learned from that experience, though, was it was if your net worth, if your network is your net worth, it's your team. I got your pack. And I knew that that point in my life kind of. That got me to the point where wanted to be a team. And, uh, you know, it's finding your team, finding your tribe, we'll call it. So I kind of. I. I ended up like a lot of people. It's like, okay, go back to a bank, right? Ended up at Metabank. Call them password. Now they're still Metabank. Um, a lot of us came from there. That really was that time. I. Again, it was. I just put myself out there, and it's like, I'll learn as much as I can. I'm. I'm. Metabank is my customer. So I had a lot of cool opportunities through Meta's, um, acquisitions for the Times. It was tax. It was the whole prepay industry. Boom, right? Like, all the prepaid card space. I was on that team and a tax team, and then I was on a team where Meta was trying to reinvent what team meant in engineering. We had a team problem, right? People don't build software, teams do. So they picked a select few of us and they said, you guys don't know each other. Surprise. You're a team now. We hope it all works out. They literally closed the door and they said, figure it out. Oh, by the way, we have this really huge problem. The problem was, is that we have all these processors we want to work with. Processors are really important in fintech, right? Or bank. Right. They can make or break you. And it's like, M. We have this data problem. We don't know how to handle their data. Everybody has different data, and it takes us 18 months to figure that out. We want you guys to figure it out. You know what? We figured it out. We got a new processor's data onboarded, and four or six weeks. Well, we shaved that down. Wasn't anything major that we did. There's no IP behind any of this, people. It's not M Team.

Speaker B: Yeah. What was the secret sauce in that experimental. Here's a fishbowl. Get inside of it and figure it out. What was the secret sauce?

Speaker A: The secret sauce is. And this is a lot, lot easier said than done. And there were some really hard stumbling points with that. And you have to be just Vulnerable. It literally comes down to vulnerability, humility. There's, I'm not, I'm not gonna pretend like this space or any space really, but I think engineering and even kind of like fintech, embedded finance, there's a bit of a hubris around it there. Like, let's just say there's some egos sometimes. Yep. They show up at a lot of different tables.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You throw some people into a room and they might check their egos in with them. And so whose brain is bigger? Whose brain is bigger? Whose idea is the best? What's going to be the fastest? What's going to be the best? You know, everybody wants to, you know, stake their claim on I did that. And it's always about the I did that. They want that resume builder of that was me.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But where we got to was no, that's a team.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so that was really transformational.

Speaker B: Yeah. I love that you experience that specifically from a technology and a software engineering type of brain because stereotypically engineers are pretty, uh, introverted, isolated. Just tell me what you want me to build and I'll build it. Tell me how you think about the world differently as you now have an engineering team and, and you are the head of central payments IT infrastructure, environment. How did you get from a place and maybe it's where you started. Like you said, it's just who I am as a person. But how did you find that space, that teamwork and problem solving, besides the experience at Meta? Like, how did you get there?

Speaker A: How did I get there? That is really an interesting thing. I'm not going to lie. I think a lot of it is personal. I, I, I've, I've had, you know, jobs where first day on the job, someone rolled into my cube and they said, hey Dan, nice to meet you. Just so you know, if it comes down to me or you, I'm always going to win. And you kind of like, oh, okay. You think to yourself, that's not me. And I, a long time ago in uh, different conversations, different lifetimes, everything like that, I had an opportunity to, to really sit in a room with a really, uh, excuse me, well respected academic and we're talking about things and everything like that. It's like the world is total garbage. Everybody's egos are inflated. What do we do? How do we do this? He had three words for me. It's just, I don't know. But yeah, he told me, starts with you. You be the difference. You change it. If you don't like that, you be that people will see that you're not that, and they will gravitate towards you. So that's, that's really, it's, it's living what you want to be, living how you want the world to be. So now take that over to buildings. Right. And engineering and all that kind of stuff. It. You're right. You're right. A lot of engineering, a lot of this space, people are measured individually. They're measured by their output. I don't think that's right. It's not. We're not. We're not. We're bigger than the whole. Sorry. We're bigger than the, uh, sum of our parts. Yeah. The whole is greater than the sum of our parts. Right. We have their events will it. Right, yeah. So what do we look for at Central Payments? What do I look for? I tell people that come in to Central Payments and I tell them when I interview, you know, everyone that works here is a very specific type of person. Whether you're an engineer, whether you're in compliance, whether you're sales or partner facing or whatever. We're not all the same. But we all have something specific about us. That's what I look for and what that kind of translates to in engineering. Those are those people that don't believe that there's a door or a wall in front of them that protects them. They are the owner. I try to instill that and I try to make sure everyone understands you're the owner. The other thing with being an owner is you are allowed and you are expected. And please do this as often as possible. Please fail. Yeah, please fail. That is, that is, that is core to progress. The other litmus test that I kind of use is I want to see how quickly you'll push code, how fast you'll get that out there. Because that in engineering is the ultimate sign of vulnerability. You're saying this is what I just poured all of my brain, my thought, my everything into. Go ahead and rate me, tell me what I did wrong. And you have to get to that point to be a really good team player. I feel like.

Speaker B: So one thing that, as you know, we've been on a mission to define how Central Payments is different in the market. So there's, pick your buzzword, banking as a service, embedded finance, you know, sponsor, um, bank, fintech bank. Like on and on and on and on. Um, but our difference as a company is multifold. And in my opinion, uh, one of those multifold factors is, uh, what you just hit on. It's teamwork, it's radical Transformation through teamwork and our core values. So we established, uh, core values through a democratic process in 2023, where we really folded that in. And progress is one of them. And so whether it's software, engineers, sales, anything in between, the idea of leaning into our values and highlighting how we work together, that's magic. And so I'm so grateful that you're at the helm of that function with just who you are as a person. Um, so I'm going to take a little bit of a pivot and I want to talk about what makes software engineering special as far as. You said you wanted to come to Central Payments because it was special and you saw that from the outside and you kind of ultimately took a leap, clearly, because we're here. Tell me what you've experienced, um, and what you imagine for the future of the software department at Central Payments.

Speaker A: Yeah, so I really, what I experienced was exactly what I thought. A lot of great people, but big. But big. But walking in the door, it's like, dan, help. You know, like, and, and I, and I, and I. So true. It was, it was so true. And I say that, but that was a good thing because that was the company saying, get us there. Right? That was the company saying, we're vulnerable too. Like, we need to, we need to figure out what we're gonna do in this space. We need to figure out what our differentiators are. We're gonna, we need. Here's who, here's who we wanna be. And so walking in the door from a software development perspective like that, that, uh, for some people, you know, that might be scary as all else, but me, I just, I kind of just rush into it. And that's what we did, right? We. We decided, okay, first thing, what do we have? What are we doing with it? Why are we doing that with it? What value does that add to our partners? Where do we. What do they feel like they need to be? Right? And then. Forgive me, what was the other part of your.

Speaker B: Oh, just what do you imagine the future of develop. So I love how much. I'll just tee this up a little bit too, because you talk about your customers, your customers are inside and outside. Absolutely. And so when our solutions team or the project team come and say, here's what the partner needs. So when we go back to your vision, your means, in this case, the partner, the partner's vision is X. Our expertise allows us to get there. So you have internal customers, you have external customers. What's the vision of the future, of how you want our Engineering team to work.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's, that's actually a great tee up and thank you for that. Um, it is. So we have a very collaborative kind of thing. Right. It's. The engineers are along for that. So what's really cool about how we work at Central Payments is it's exactly what you just said. We have our partners, we have our solutions, we have our engineers. It's your vision, our expertise. Where do we slide in on that? It is okay. Gosh. Our partners, man, they are, they, their idea is transformational. Let's say they are really. They nailed it. Okay. We're going to make that happen for them. We've got a really strong solution. We think. How are we actually going to make the magic happen? How are we going to get that rubber to hit the road? That's where engineering slides in. We, we, we are, we're in support of everyone, every single role, function, body, person. We're not a backdoor, you know, operating thing. We are with you. We are your guide. Right on. Being able to do your part in all of this. And then when we get that, uh, everything lined up, engineering is sitting with the processor ops team, engineering is sitting with the solutions team. And it's like, yes, we're going to put a bow on this. That partner is going to be excited.

Speaker B: So would you say a differentiator? And that's a really great way to wrap that. When you said we're not the back door, you know, it's not this behind the scenes thing. Is that a differentiator for us where software engineer comes along right up front. Y' all are right in the room from the get go that says, all right, partner needs this. How are we going to get there? Let's whiteboard together. Let's think about this, let's solution things up. Um, versus here's a document of requirements.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it because it is. There's been plenty of times where we've been in the room with our financial operations team. What do we know about financial operations? We settle accounts, but we're there because we need to understand how they do it to make sure that we have the right technology in place so that our partners can embed or integrate in the best possible fashion so that those financial operations, they're not a burden, that there isn't, you, uh, know, kind of ambiguity or anything like that. So that's really what we try to do and we try to extend that to all departments. So anybody, anyone, literally, you will see who Engineering has conversations with. It's the whole company. Yeah, it really is.

Speaker B: And I just have to highlight you for a moment and slip me money later. But uh, I think your personal style is so inclusive and it really does invite a different dynamic where we can build together and we can um, ideate versus what you might see in other places. What I've experienced in other places is the development folks, the technology folks, they just tell me what you want me to build and I'll build it. And I have personally saw, seen you guys work collaboratively in a way that produces something that the call it the business. The typical front end didn't even conjure up because they didn't know it was possible. And you and your team go, well, wait, couldn't we just jump off from this launch pad and it, it comes out better than originally designed or thought?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that really does, that really does hit it right there for me. And that is just tell me what you want me to build and I'll build it. The problem with that is this is the thing that I look for one of those core requirements and key personality traits, it's ownership. Because when you, when you as a person, as an engineer and you're like, just, man, I don't got, I ain't got time for this, right? Just tell me, I don't want to talk to you. You don't own it. You don't own it. And it's key for engineering to own not only the tech stack, but the understanding of what customers our business, our partner is asking. That's the thing right there.

Speaker B: And one of our core values is accountability with a tagline of we're all owners here, all owners here, it's gotta be. So I appreciate that so much. Let's look at the external environment. So we've talked a little bit about what makes Central Payments different and what your working on, how we structure things different. Um, talk about the external landscape, how is it shaping the industry and how does that feed when you go into that room to develop alongside the solutions group?

Speaker A: I know that that's a really cool topic. Um, and I think as Central Payments, we kind of have our finger on that pulse because we are also inclusive and we all are out there, right? So we get to hear it, we get to see it from our company, we get to see it from our partners, we get to see it in our industry so we can really think about what that looks like. Now as you've said, like there's a bunch of names for it, right? Bass 10:20 uh, everybody's got opinions, embedded finance, all the things. Right. It's, I think really I'm gonna, I'm gonna address this in a couple different ways. So the first thing I'm gonna talk about is technology. Don't get scared. I'm not gonna use anything, do any big words or anything like that. But what I think is happening in technology and I think that we're seeing this in this industry is so much of what used to be really hard is now really easy. So for example, for some of us, for those of us that are in the field, right. Um, a lot of what we're building, I've built before. Okay. Pieces of it. In the before land, it used to take a team of five engineers a good six, nine months to get to where. What we're building. Uh, where we're at right now, maybe three weeks is because technology has advanced so far that a lot of those like really expensive hurdles meaning expensive in size of teams, number of teams, infrastructure operating, all that kind of stuff. It's, it's really at a, it's at a point where it's super accessible. And so that has come a long ways. And that means that the right people and the right teams can totally get in there and start delivering value and enabling value a lot sooner. So that's kind of the first point is technology wise landscape is a lot different and it keeps changing. I don't, you know, I'm not going to go into the whole like boring details of what all those bits and bobs are now then, you know, we do have A.I. uh, obviously A.I. is going to be a player in all of this obviously central payments. We are looking at AI we, we

Speaker B: got some, you're already building things.

Speaker A: We, we are, we, we've got, we got some secret stuff happening over here that is going to be for our company, super specific, super powerful. That's really cool stuff. But big buttigieg big but kind of sir mix.

Speaker B: A lot's playing in my head right now is that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Um. M. It's gotta be the right mixture. You know, we gotta be really careful with it. This is still a regulated industry. At least for today it is. Um, so yeah, so the AI thing we are totally kind of looking at and we're pocing and we're looking at where that super duper like powerful value enablement is going to come in. Now getting back to what the partner wants to hear, right? What are we, what are we doing there to make the world better? Everybody, I'm going to tell you the world has not slowed down. Right. Uh, everything is fast and every single thing that everyone expects is fast. Rightfully slow. Ask you to rightfully so. Right. Do you think that you're gonna win a race against a car with a horse and buggy? No, you're not. You're just not. As much as you might not want to go fast, that's what the world we live in. It is real time, it is fast. It is all those things that is kind of where a lot of our external, outward facing technology footprint is going to evolve. It is not just we're going to be fast, real time wise, but we're really expanding how we use that information, how we use that stuff. And it's more of kind of being able to be that really key player that understands. And this is where I personally feel like is going to be really powerful in this industry. Understanding behaviors and patterns, behaviors, patterns. And then being able to create craft really cool, like rule based, you know, hyper efficient, like going to be able to evaluate a million different rules against a certain behavior in milliseconds kind of technology. Yeah, that I think is, you know, I can whiteboard for hours on use cases that partners would just drool over.

Speaker B: It's really funny that you said whiteboarding because, um, Eric Cotton, our president, he has a lot of meetings and he always says, ooh, it's time for my favorite hour whiteboarding with Dan. And so it's really cool. Eric has a beautiful mind in the solution space of knowing the intricacies of all the pipes and rails and techniques and tactics of how payments function down to the micro level and then using technology to overlay that. And the two of you getting into a room is really, really fun.

Speaker A: It is, it's uh, it is so fun. And that, that is a great point. Like, it's that like complimentary nature of everyone at central payments. Because I'll give you a very, uh, specific example. We are currently trying to find the solution for something. Now everybody else, including a processor, said, I don't think you can do that. I don't think you can do that. You know, we did, we said, well have, ah, you guys thought about this. And they're like, I think that might work.

Speaker B: Huh?

Speaker A: So that's where it is right there. Now that wasn't just engineering on the phone with them. It wasn't just solutions on the phone with them. It wasn't, you know, PMO or processor operations or anything like that. It was all of us all were there.

Speaker B: What I, when you said that that can't work. It reminds me, um, if anybody asked me, like, what's Dan's kind of mantra or whatever, it's like, never tell him it can't work. Like, the attitude is, try me.

Speaker A: Right, Exactly. Bring it.

Speaker B: And not from an ego standpoint. Let's be clear about that. Not from an ego standpoint. This is about. No, try me. Let's go.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: And with the right people. So you pull on finops and you go, so if money moved like this, if we built a widget like this, how might that create better speed in the way that we, you know, ingest files or, you know, I mean, there's just so much of. Anything's possible.

Speaker A: Yeah, it really, truly is. And I think that sums it up a lot right there.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. All right, so I'm going to ask you one other question that is future looking. So I get asked this question a lot. Where do you see Central Payments in two, three, five years? So I'm going to ask you from your seat of where we're going, what is happening? What does Central Payments look like two years from now in your mind's eye?

Speaker A: Company as a whole, or my department,

Speaker B: specifically, let's say company as a whole.

Speaker A: I think, and I hope I get to have a hand in this. I think you won't recognize Central Payments. I think that there are so many great minds and great attitudes and just unbelievable opportunities that, that, that, that's like a witch's brew. When you stir that stuff in the cauldron, you don't know what magic's gonna pop out of that thing. If you want to know my dance answer, like, that's what that is.

Speaker B: That's amazing.

Speaker A: You don't know, but not gonna recognize it.

Speaker B: That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Is there anything else that, whether it's your department or, um, what you have experienced out in. In the ethos, anything else that you want to share with the listeners? No, we did a shout out to Beth, so we've got that covered.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. The family's covered. You know, kids won't watch it, so I don't have to worry about them.

Speaker B: That's so perfect. Well, look, I, um, I just. Thank you, um, for what, what you've shared today. I think you debuted this special series of our expertise so well, and a big part of it is you and how you show up when leading your team and collaborating with your peer group. We believe in, um, of course, there's the natural infrastructure of, uh, vertical teams, but we strongly believe in horizontal teams. And I just thank you for building both. Um, because how you shape that and who you are as a person, uh, matters. And having that at the helm of, uh, technology, which is such a mission critical part of fintech. It's half the word, for crying out loud.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: It really matters. And so thank you for sharing and cheers to you.

Speaker A: You're welcome. Thank you for having me.