design:retail - May 2019 - 22

INNOVATION

DESIGN:RETAIL

MAY 2019

PERSPECTIVES

Empowering
Retailers

By joining forces, we are working to help build
awareness and provide women around the globe
with more opportunities. As the global rate of female entrepreneurship continues to rise, we want
to ensure that female entrepreneurs have the right
tools to expand and succeed.

VISA'S NEW EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM
AIMS TO HELP FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS
➞ AS THE HEAD OF Global Merchant Sales & Acquiring
at Visa Inc., Suzan Kereere is responsible for helping Visa's merchant and acquiring clients grow by
being their preferred partner to enable secure, digital commerce for current and future generations of
buyers and sellers. We talked with her about Visa's
new "She's Next, Empowered by Visa" program and
how it relates to the retail industry.

design:retail: What are the goals of "She's Next,
Empowered by Visa" and how did Visa develop it?
Kereere: At Visa, we recognized that the global rate
of female entrepreneurship has been increasing
rapidly, with more than 163 million women around
the world starting a business since 2014.
She's Next, Empowered by Visa was created with
the goal of supporting and championing women
in their efforts to build, sustain and advance their
small businesses.
In a survey we conducted to help inform the
initiative, titled "The State of Female Entrepreneurship," 79 percent of American women
entrepreneurs told us they feel more empowered
today than they did five years ago. Yet, they also reported facing many roadblocks in the journey to
building their businesses, starting with the ability
to get funding. That's why we started the program,
to help give women the tools they need to start, and
build, their business.
At the inaugural She's Next, Empowered by
Visa workshop in Atlanta, we hosted hundreds of
local female small business owners for interactive
trainings with partners and experts from Yelp,
Facebook, Instagram and Square. This year, She's
Next is laser focused on being a trusted partner to
women small business owners everywhere, by not
only giving them the education, financial resources
and mentors they need to succeed, but also by providing a strong community of women all over the
world, committed to empowering one another.

SUZAN KEREERE
HEAD OF GLOBAL MERCHANT
SALES & AQUIRING
VISA INC.

"Digital experiences
are great enablers
of small business
growth, and smart
business owners
will make those
experiences easy
and authentic."
female entrepreneur in her own right, so it only
made sense to work with her and the Female
Founder Collective (FFC), as we have the same goals
in mind. It's a triple play-a platform, a network and
a movement all at the same time-for female business leaders to connect and support each other.
Visa chose to partner with the FFC, because we
share some common goals that align perfectly:
* Build awareness, and help women business owners expand their share of overall
sales revenue.
* Support growth and expansion of womenowned firms and create opportunities for
more female founders.
* Invest in women's financial viability across
the socio-economic spectrum-from female
business leaders to single heads of households-and leverage women's leadership in the
economic development of our communities.

d:r: How did She's Next get involved with the
Female Founder Collective (FFC)?
Kereere: Rebecca Minkoff is a force and successful

d:r: How can technology help small businesses
grow and keep customers?
Kereere: Customers have more ways than ever to
connect with their favorite businesses-online,
in-person, through e-commerce and through social media and messaging. Digital experiences are
great enablers of small business growth, and smart
business owners will make those experiences easy
and authentic.
And today, because of technology, transactions
increasingly are everywhere. Innovative business
owners can encourage customers to take advantage
of technologies to jump the line, pick up in-store
for online purchases and other time-savers.
In the Visa survey I mentioned, social media
and e-eommerce are essential parts of the mix for
women business owners, who place high value
on being tech-savvy. Nearly three-fourths of the
women in our survey said they have an online sales
presence. And nearly a third said they would direct
additional funding to investing in new technology.
d:r: What payment methods are on the horizon
that are still in development stages?
Kereere: We're quickly moving toward a world
where seamless digital payments work securely,
anywhere, on any device. As part of that, for
example, we'll increasingly see merchants accepting payments on popular messaging platforms
like WeChat, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp,
which reach billions of people. A messaging app is
a natural fit with e-commerce-it is personalized, it
can leverage social data to provide rich context and
recommendations, and it runs on many different
kinds of devices.
➞ B I O SUZAN KEREERE heads the Global Merchant Sales & Acquiring
organization at Visa. She is responsible for helping Visa's merchant and
acquiring clients grow by being their preferred partner to enable secure,
digital commerce for current and future generations of buyers and sellers.
Her remit spans Visa's merchant acquiring partners around the world, giving her a truly global view of the business and her team.

design:retail - May 2019

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