PayTech Women Leadership Summit 2025: Credibility is the Currency of Leadership

By: Ayana Scriven, Sr. Marketing Communications Manager at RSPA 

The PayTech Women Leadership Summit 2025, held Nov. 4-5 in Atlanta, was more than an industry gathering; it was a call to action.  

From AI trends to marketing fluency to leadership development, a single theme echoed throughout the event: leaders must establish credibility to thrive in a rapidly changing payments space.  

Leading with Credibility in a World Moving at Speed 
The Summit opened with a powerful message from ETA CEO Jodie Kelley who encapsulated the current state of payments into one defining word: speed. The industry is advancing faster than ever, and leaders must commit to continuous learning to maintain credibility, confidence, and keep pace. 

Kelley’s insights set the stage for a Summit focused on staying informed and staying adaptable, especially as AI continues to transform payments. 

Education Session Highlights 

1. AI’s Expanding Influence: What Payments Leaders Need to Know 

  • Microsoft’s announcement of commerce capabilities within Copilot underscores AI’s expanding role in payments. 
  • Merchant websites are relying more on AI-powered chatbots for service and sales. 
  • Payments leaders must help AI better capture consumer intent, reducing automation missteps (such as overspending or incorrect bookings). 
  • In an AI-driven world, networks remain essential for building trust. 

2. Marketing in Motion: Becoming a Utility Player 

  • Marketing is not linear – requiring professionals to wear many hats and collaborate across departments.   
  • Becoming a utility player means being versatile, contributing across multiple functions, and connecting the dots between teams – making you indispensable and building lasting job security. Credibility grows when leaders openly share what they know and help others level up. 
  • Leverage modern marketing tools to increase effectiveness, including: 
  • ChatGPT 
  • Claude AI (especially for visualization) 
  • Perplexity 
  • Gemini 

3. Mentorship, Sponsorship, and the Power of Advocacy 

  • Mentorship provides guidance; sponsorship provides opportunity. 
  • Strong sponsors actively use their influence to propel others forward. 
  • Credibility attracts sponsors, and sponsorship accelerates career growth. 
  • A powerful example: Session speaker Patty Watson of TSYS brought PayTech Women CEO Dr. Gail Burgos into a chief of staff role early in their careers together, helping lay the foundation for Burgos’ leadership and her eventual rise to her current position. 

4. Building Tech Fluency: A Must for Modern Leaders 

  • Leaders set the tone for adoption; positive language and clear examples influence team buy-in. 
  • Strong AI prompts are essential — words matter. 
  • Tech fluency is knowledge-based, not solely skill-based. 
  • Jobs aren’t disappearing — they’re changing, and leaders must change with them. 
  • Attendees were encouraged to build a personal 90-day fluency plan to stay ahead. 
  • Stay unapologetically curious and take on projects where you may be the “least knowledgeable” person in the room — because that is where growth (and credibility) accelerates. 

General Session Highlights: Leadership, Vision, & Resilience 
Several keynote speakers shared practical strategies for strengthening credibility and leadership.  

Political leader and entrepreneur Stacey Abrams brought compelling perspectives to the Summit with key takeaways including: 

  • Encourage solutions-oriented leadership: identify problems and bring prepared solutions. 
  • Meet people where they are to move them toward where they need to be. 
  • Focus on bouncing forward, not just bouncing back. Growth comes from reflection, not returning to baseline. 
  • Avoid self-editing and don’t negotiate yourself out of opportunities. 
  • Maintain persistence alongside pragmatism. 
  • Invite male colleagues into shared accountability and allyship. 
  • Use the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize effectively and allow yourself time in all four quadrants. 
  • Humility is not self-erasure; own your value and expertise. 

Additional Key Takeaways from General Session Speakers 

  • Visibility matters; share your work, speak up, and make your contributions known. 
  • Authentic leadership builds trust — bring transparency, self-awareness, and honesty to your role. 
  • Strengthen and expand your network before you need it; relationships fuel opportunities. 
  • Demonstrate leadership through initiative and influence, not just title or position. 
  • Resilience is a credibility builder; how you respond to setbacks shapes how others view your leadership. 
  • Advocate for yourself and for those around you — lifting others strengthens the entire community. 
  • Strengthen your leadership path by working across functions – marketing, sales, operations — to understand the business end-to-end on your path to an executive role 

The PayTech Women Summit made this clear: credibility is the foundation of leadership. The professionals who will thrive in this fast-changing industry are those who stay curious, stay prepared, and continue building credibility — one decision, one insight, and one opportunity at a time.