Victor Newsom | FinTech Magazine
As Everi’s SVP of Product Management, responsible for payments at Everi—a fast-growing, $550 million company—Victor Newsom has tremendous financial responsibility. But he entered the business in an unusual way, having started his adult life as an officer on a nuclear submarine with a degree in marine engineering from Annapolis (USNA). He could have gone down other paths, but in the late 1990s, banking claimed him and proved to be a good platform for him to develop his passion for innovation. He recalls developing a product that allowed people to write a check against a stock exchange account, something unheard of at the time.
Moving through health insurance and retail startups, Newsom eventually landed the role of Chief Operating Officer for a prepaid processor that moved to Las Vegas, where he is now based. “This is where I really hit my stride. I got the bug not only for innovation, but also for technology and how it can really make a difference. By ‘difference’ I mean things like financial inclusion – helping the unbanked, underserved people in The USA, the EU, Asia and Africa that do not have access through the traditional ossified banking system.”
It was nine years since Victor joined Global Cash Access, now Everi. “They brought me on board to help transform the payments gaming industry, with its burden of legacy infrastructure and frameworks.”
He is a man of action, very into hiking, weightlifting and martial arts, in which he holds a black belt, and that aspect of his personality suited Everi well. “My job is a huge opportunity to transform how we do business, how consumers interact safely and more. It’s what got me here; it’s what keeps me energized and motivated, and continually pushes me forward.”
As a child, he admits he was a bookworm, and remained a voracious devourer of two genres in particular well into his adult years. “Science fiction and fantasy have been my imagination since I was a child.” It fed into his innate optimism while helping him develop the concept of community service that led him through the Eagle Scouts and eventually into the Navy.
“I’m still following up on innovation from my previous stops, such as nuclear-powered batteries and salt reactors, as well as the latest technology for payments such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies.”
As a manager, and also personally, integrity is a core value. “People, families, relationships matter. I think it’s a fundamental element that we can easily lose sight of. Another principle for me and my team is: ‘You can do more than you think!’ – I had a basketball coach in high school who taught me that, and I use that principle personally as well as at work. Put another way – Robert Browning said “Man’s reach should exceed his grasp”. I expect people to understand and share the dream, or at least get the vision.”
Why? “I can describe an outcome, but if people connect to the journey, they will be 1,000 times more effective as a team member – so my goal is to ensure that, whether it’s my leadership or my team members, we all connect to a vision and understand that we are traveling together, because then they will surely think of solutions that I could never have come up with.”
This attitude ties in with the integration work that Victor has talked about doing at Everi, as well as the gaming industry as a whole. If people only do something because he tells them to do it, the result will be to grow in a linear fashion; if, on the other hand, they work in a parallel and mutual understanding of the goal, exponential growth and scaling will be the result.
Read the whole story HERE.
