Payments consultant · Berlin

Elie Joseph

More than a decade of payment expertise.

I help e-commerce and omnichannel retailers make their payment setup work better, from choosing the right PSP to running payments day to day.

Elie Joseph, payments consultant based in Berlin

What I do

Eight ways I work with merchants. Most engagements combine a few of them.

  1. PSP selection & RFP support

    Managing the RFP process and finding the right PSP.

  2. Payment integration oversight

    Owning the integration from kickoff to launch as the counterpart to your engineers and your provider.

  3. Payment performance & conversion optimisation

    Looking at the numbers to understand where authorisation, conversion or money is being lost, and fixing what can be fixed.

  4. Payment architecture & strategy

    Designing a setup that still works at the next order of magnitude: providers, methods, markets and the flows between them.

  5. Day-to-day payment operations

    Reconciliation, incidents, chargebacks, refunds and the day-to-day work.

  6. Interim / fractional payments lead

    An experienced payments lead, for teams where payments have outgrown a side task.

  7. Payment cost & fee review

    Breaking the cost of a transaction into scheme fees, interchange and PSP margin, so you know what is actually negotiable.

  8. PSP contract negotiation

    Negotiating commercials and terms from the merchant's side of the table.

Background

I've worked in payments for more than 12 years, mainly on the merchant side. My work has covered PSP selection and RFPs, payment integrations, product and project leadership, payment architecture, operations, and strategy. The common thread has always been the same: making payments work better for the merchant.

I've been the person choosing a PSP, managing the implementation, dealing with payment issues after launch, and looking at the numbers to understand where money or conversion is being lost. Most recently, I led the tech payments team at adidas.

Based in
Berlin, Germany
Working across Europe and remote
Experience
12+ years in payments
17 years merchant-side
Previously
adidas
Led the tech payments team
Independent
No PSP affiliation
Advice with nothing attached
Community
Stripe Radar
Global community lead

Selected clients

Mercedes · Booking.com · LEGO · SIXT · OBI · Dublin Airport

03 · Currently

paymentops

A productized payment operations service on a subscription basis: give mid-sized businesses access to an experienced payments team without the cost or commitment of building a full internal payments function.

Open and taking clients.

Many companies reach a point where payments become too important to manage as a side task, but are not yet large enough to build a dedicated team. That's the gap I'm interested in: PSP management, payment performance, optimisation, operations and the day-to-day problems that come with running payments at scale.

I've seen what a dedicated payments organisation can achieve in a large company. At one of the merchants I worked with, the payments organisation was more than 800 people strong. Most mid-sized merchants don't have anyone to close that gap.

Say hello

If you want to talk about your payment setup, compare notes, or find out whether paymentops fits, feel free to reach out. I'm always happy to connect with people working in the payments space. No sales pitch required.