Kieron Summers-Smith

Issuer processing and embedded finance for enterprise customers in banking, fleet & mobility, airline travel and hospitality. ~£5M ARR portfolio.

• Joined as one of the first people in a new Customer Success function under new leadership, helping decide how the business would manage and grow its strategic accounts in issuer processing and embedded finance.
• Worked with commercial leadership to build the CS approach from nothing, from the day-to-day processes and account frameworks through to health scoring, the QBR cadence and how escalations get handled.
• Rebuilt the Salesforce setup with internal teams and outside partners so it actually supports how CS works day to day, rather than getting in the way.
• Look after 15 strategic enterprise accounts across banking, fleet & mobility, travel and hospitality, worth around £5m ARR, as the senior commercial and relationship contact.
• Run QBRs and executive meetings up to C-level, covering performance, progress and where the growth is, keeping customer and internal leadership pointed at the same outcomes.
• Find and land upsell, cross-sell and adoption opportunities across the book, contributing around £400k in expansion revenue so far.
• Mentor colleagues, help set how the function works as it grows, and act as the escalation point when things get commercially or operationally messy.
• Take the customer view back into the business, feeding it into product and longer-term planning.

Tier 1 enterprise on a multi-award-winning payment orchestration platform. £8M+ ARR portfolio.

• Set up and grew a new Relationship Management function, putting in place the processes and standards that made merchant servicing quicker and more consistent.
• Managed and developed a team of four relationship managers, setting the servicing bar, running one-to-ones and getting the team delivering to a consistent standard.
• Looked after 6 to 8 enterprise merchant accounts across e-commerce, retail, travel and financial services, ARR over £8m, as the relationship owner and escalation point up to C-level.
• Grew revenue 15% (around £1.2m) through cross-sell and upsell of APEXX's payment solutions, increasing share of wallet across the book.
• Recovered 95% of outstanding debt, roughly £320k, with finance, which cut delinquency and tidied up forecasting on the larger accounts.
• Held gross retention at 94% across the book through proactive account planning and a proper review rhythm.
• Set and reported KPIs through Monthly Service Reviews and QBRs, both to merchants and internally to board, finance, legal and growth.
• Led contract, pricing and SLA negotiations, and worked with product, marketing and sales to steer the roadmap using what merchants were actually asking for.

Global enterprise acquiring with one of the largest payment processors in the world. £11M+ ARR portfolio across retail, travel, hospitality, airlines, financial services, gaming, trading and crypto.

• Managed a tight portfolio of 6 to 8 major enterprise merchants, including household names, across retail, travel, airlines, financial services, gaming, trading and cryptocurrency, ARR over £11m.
• Worked directly with C-suite contacts on strategy and payment optimisation, building long-term partnerships and acting as the escalation point when service issues got complicated.
• Held retention at 97% and brought in around £850k of extra revenue through fraud prevention, alternative payment methods and international expansion, growing share of wallet and processed volume.
• Ran QBRs with real data behind them, covering trends, compliance and market shifts, pulled into decks and infographics built around each merchant.
• Worked with FP&A on revenue forecasting within the margin the business set, feeding into planning across the book.
• Consistently hit or beat Book of Business growth targets, earning quarterly bonuses across nine straight quarters.
• Helped newer relationship managers with account strategy and escalations, passing on what worked and lifting the standard across the team.
• Worked closely with Legal, CDD and Risk & Controls to keep high-risk merchants on the right side of regulation and due diligence.

Executive Complaints team handling escalations from both guests and B2B partners including hotels, airlines and experience providers.

• Handled executive-level escalations from both guests and business partners, including hotels and airlines, taking on the sensitive and awkward cases and seeing them through to a resolution.
• Looked after a set of hotel partners, working with their management to understand where things were going wrong and putting fixes in place that stopped the same complaints recurring.
• Used internal tools and feedback data to see which resolutions actually worked and spot patterns, then fed that back to Operations, Partner Services and Product.