Leadership Spotlight: Shane Happach
We talked to Shane Happach, who joined us as our new CEO on April 1st. Shane has more than 15 years of experience with processing payments for some of the most recognizable brands on the planet. We are really excited to have him on board and we were curious about why he chose us as his next challenge, and what plans he has for Mollie going forward.
Hi Shane, welcome to the Mollie family! Thank you for finding some time for us in your busy schedule. You have an impressive resume, tell us a bit more about the path you took to get where you are.
Hi, thank you! I’ve been involved with payments for a while. At first, I worked at GlobalCollect that was later acquired by Ingenico. I started as a business development manager and then got promoted to VP Of Business Development for The Americas and later EMEA. In 2010, I joined Worldpay as Chief Commercial Officer with overall responsibility for Global Business Development, Account Management, and Partners. After 5 years, I joined the executive team as EVP — Head of Global Enterprise eCommerce. I managed to help to grow the business from 1.000 to 6.000 employees which was great fun. I also participated in taking Worldpay public in London, the Vantiv/Worldpay merger on the NYSE, and the acquisition of Worldpay by FIS.
What made you choose Mollie?
I’ve had a lot of experience dealing with the Google’s, Netflix’s and Amazons of this world. Amazing businesses that have enormous amounts of resources. That’s, of course, nice, but on the other hand, there are a lot of other businesses that are super under-served. For a change, I wanted to focus my efforts in an area where customers need more help in working together with a payment provider. Also, I am very much an e-Commerce guru/ early adopter. I had one of the first Shopify accounts in the US…. for me it’s great fun to work on something you use every day. I mentioned before, I helped Worldpay grow a lot, and now great to be part of an EU growth story again (especially also given that I am EU-based myself).
What goal do you have for Mollie?
I’ve spent many years working with top enterprise clients in global verticals. In that time, it’s become clear that there are still large segments of the market where businesses need extra support, and online commerce still has a long way to go to become “easy”. Mollie represents a very different approach to making payments simple to consume and work well with other parts of the ecosystem. That’s why I’m so excited to be leading Mollie as we continue to drive product innovation and expansion across Europe.
What’s your view on the Fintech market in the EU and the different countries Mollie operates in?
Europe is interesting because you have all these individual country preferences. Merchants who want to expand their business to other EU markets have to be really creative in building out solutions that cater to such dynamic market requirements. Especially for merchants that don’t have whole departments dedicated to certain specific expertise, this requires more support from partners, like a PSP.
Mollie takes a different approach and really cares about merchants of all sizes — those that don’t have whole departments dedicated to payments infrastructure, addressing abandonment, and securing customer data. Mollie is facilitating them on their path to growth. The strategy is working given the tremendous growth Mollie is going through. In the last year in Germany alone, processing volumes grew by 1000%. -> total year-over-year (YoY) growth is more than 100%.
What will be your first steps when you join Mollie?
Good question! I would like to continue to accelerate our payment method and country expansion. That will enable us to capture growth in existing and new markets. Furthermore, I would like to expand our product and engineering team. I want us to keep delivering new financial services products for merchants across Europe. But I also want to make sure that we can grow responsibly — so we’ll be investing a lot in all areas of our business to make room for the next 100,000 merchants and continue to deliver great service.
Will the current team at Mollie remain the same?
We will definitely scale. Driven by the growth in e-commerce and our own growth, we will always be looking for great talent to help us in realizing our ambition to become the most loved PSP in Europe.
That’s great to hear! So when building your team, what are the main qualities that you are looking for?
I’m always looking for people who care and are passionate about their work. People who try to make a difference, small and large, every day by challenging the status quo and fostering healthy competition. I want them to look at new ways to achieve better results. Just like Mollie. We’re a unique business and we are fortunate to have a lot of amazing people interested in what we are doing and applying for key roles.
Let’s go on a more personal note now. You have recently moved to Amsterdam but it’s not your first time living here, correct?
Oh yes. I’ve always been on the move. I’ve lived half of my life in the States and half of my life outside. I’m an American-born, British passport holder who is married to a Mexican whom I met while living in Switzerland. Unbelievable, right? :) Here is how it went. After my university studies, I wanted to go back to Europe so I moved to Geneva where I worked in a finance team for an American company. Later, they transferred me to Miami Beach. There I switched companies and started in payments (for a Dutch company!) and moved to California. I later moved to Amsterdam. It was about 13 years ago but I still remember commuting every day to Hoofddorp on a train. And it didn’t end here. After a year and a half, I moved again — this time to Argentina, to set up their Latin American office. And this rollercoaster finally ended about 11 years ago when I moved to London where I lived prior to joining Mollie back in Amsterdam — full circle.
What are your values?
Good question, I haven’t been asked this one for a while. Where I’m from (Chicago), people are known for their fairness. And I’m big on this concept. Even if you don’t agree with me you must at least admit that I’m a fair person. Other values that closely relate to that are transparency and authenticity. More from the business perspective, I value four characteristics. I love to be curious and ask questions, I always want to figure out how things work. I’m quite detail-oriented and I like moving numbers around. That’s really important in the payment’s business where delivering a great customer outcome relies on thousands of tiny things to go right. I like to work hard, I’ve always had a job since I was 10. The first job I’ve ever had was delivering newspapers, I’ve been in construction and even a sandwich artist at Subway. And the last one is mental toughness. I enjoy sport and the study of sports mentality and that’s how I learned to persuade myself to keep going when things get difficult.
What are you busy with when you are not growing eCommerce?
I’m quite into sports. I enjoy all kinds of physical activities, and I’m active whenever I have a free moment. Exercise is part of my daily routine. This also allows me to enjoy food and wine — I love to try new things. And oh yes, I love barbecuing on the grill. At some point, Mollies will have a chance to taste some of my famous creations :)
Shane is currently scaling his team so take a look at HERE to see what opportunities we have.
