Interview with Krzysztof Drzyzga from Verestro - part 1

What Krzysztof Drzyzga, President of the Management Board of the international Verestro company, inspires others – in development, in building the company and in business searches. What type of manager is he, what kind of people does he surround himself with? And how does he know not only what we will pay in Poland in 10 years, but also in Germany or Colombia?

 Is a jacuzzi in the Warsaw headquarters one of the benefits?

Yes, you can get vouchers as a friendly company😊 It is a very important benefit, because it shows how non-standard VERESTRO ideas can be.

Apparently you know what will be needed in 2 years in Germany, in 5 years in Colombia? And how do you know that? What will we pay for 10 years in Poland? Do traditional cards have a raison d'être?

Poland is a very strongly developed area of innovative payments, in particular card payments. Personally, I had the pleasure of developing the contactless payments market in Poland from the beginning, i.e. MasterCard PayPass. I myself dealt with the first probably a hundred projects, including every first implementation in banks and merchants.

This allowed us to create a market that is currently ahead of many other countries in terms of payments and contactlessness, including Germany, Colombia and the United States.

As research has shown, in Poland 98.5 per cent of transactions are contactless, and we really know what will happen in Germany, where today there are probably about 10-15 per cent of these transactions, or in Colombia – 5 or 10 per cent.

We have experience as consumers, users, developers of these technologies, as a company - in terms of UX or marketing technology. I don't know if we would find an example of another industry in which we could say that Poland is in the top three in the world in innovative business. And this is a very unique situation that allows us to draw conclusions and gives us knowledge of what will happen in this area in other countries.

It is said that payments are like the second phase, after the development of software we enter embedded finance. How do you see it? Can Poland be a fintech hub of the world?

I wouldn't say that much, because we simply have too little money in this country and banks that don't want to support fintechs, because they do most of the projects themselves. Payments are changing a lot, new ways, technologies, places where we touch them are emerging (such as the important trend of Embedded Finance - although it is not as new as it would seem). The dynamics in this market is continuous, caused by accelerating technological changes. There is a lot to do in many dimensions – technical, product, geographical, ux-wise. And this certainly means that we will have opportunities for development in the future.

It is also a challenge for large organizations such as banks, fintechs, merchants, mobile operators, these technologies affect everyone, everyone would like to implement them as soon as possible. However, it makes no sense that everyone does it on their own and pays similar IT specialists, the same increasing salaries for the same thing. So I think there's a need to simplify the implementation of these technologies and then configure them hundreds of times for different customers, which is exactly what VERESTRO does.

Coming back to the question about the cards – I have heard about their death many times over the last 20 years. Cards in plastic form are probably a declining product and, depending on the country, they will last 10, 20 or 100 years, because customers will be attached to this form of payment. Whether they will disappear completely – I don't know.

The name "payment card" is not entirely appropriate, it is associated with a traditional plastic card, but in fact today it means virtual, multifunctional payment tools, enabling dozens of different use cases, and one of the most important, but not the only ones, is payment in a store, online or ATM withdrawal.

How did it happen that you became an entrepreneur, did a sudden catalyst for such a decision appear, or did you take years to mature to it?

Many years ago, I was very pleased to work in two banks - in BIG Bank Gdański (Millennium), then in Bank Zachodni WBK, which became Santander. Then I joined the Mastercard organization for 9 years. It was one of the coolest periods in my life, because I was the ninth person in Poland in this company. At that time, it was a small start-up with huge budgets, which was an ideal situation for work and development. We could do a lot of things that changed the entire payment market in Poland - we implemented mobile payments, contactless payments, loyalty programs.

In fact, even earlier at Bank Millennium I was in a managerial competence development program, in which we received mentors, and Bogusław Kott became mine. I had quarterly meetings with him - we discussed what to do and why. At that time, I came up with the idea of creating a center of innovation and ideas in the bank. During this time, I learned the theory and practice of implementing innovations - we made a lot of mistakes, but I learned a lot then. In general, I have a "flair for novelties", testing new things, checking new technologies. I don't feel very comfortable in a business that is too technologically stable. And that's what I liked about Mastercard, that we could always do something new – I always had new ideas and thought about new products. For example, if payment technology can be NFC technology, not working through a magnetic stripe, or through a chip, but through an antenna, then we can change the shape of this card – make a watch, bracelet or... a tie with which we can pay. At that time, we founded the Quicko company. To be clear - I received permission to do so at Mastercard. It was by no means a competitive activity, I was an investor, a passive founder of the company. At Quicko, we implemented bracelets and other payment gadgets, we sold them in quantities of 50-100 thousand per year. And so began the road with entrepreneurship, which began to draw me in more and more. Then another idea appeared, also with Mastercard's consent – it was Fenige, and then Fastino, which unfortunately went bankrupt in the meantime.

And at some point, this path of being an entrepreneur seemed more interesting to me in terms of financial, personal and life development. I'll add a valuable curiosity – the year I left Mastercard was the most difficult year in my life – I had a hell of a lot of stress, I was going through this change, I left a good company, I left my BMW. It was very difficult mentally. Unfortunately, I don't come from a family of entrepreneurs, so I came to the conclusion that these dilemmas also resulted from experiences - let's call it - environmental and genetic. After three years of being a full-time entrepreneur, I just liked it. Today, I can't imagine anything else, except maybe doing a doctorate and teaching others.

As a seasoned trader, how can you assess the difference between the rational risk in making decisions such as "radically going for it" and the folly in such a challenge?

I've been using this comparison very often lately, because I see young entrepreneurs in our start-ups, in fintechs like Fenige and others. To be an entrepreneur, you have to be ready to "jump headfirst into the pool without knowing if there is water or just smells of chlorine". You can call it madness, or you can also call it courage or calculated risk. This is the most difficult part of being an entrepreneur, making decisions about which we are not sure, about which the lawyer informs us that there is a risk that can cause changes in the families of several hundred families of employees.

A great responsibility?

Yes, there is undoubtedly one, I definitely feel it every day.

Do you feel it as a burden or as a challenge?

It is not a burden for me, but I feel it especially in difficult moments or when there are decisions to be made. I think about it, but it doesn't block me either in making decisions or in moving forward in general.

What is necessary to build a solid, large, international company like yours, and what are just circumstances that are conducive and good that they have appeared?

Every larger company (we have 150 employees and over 20 million in income) is a puzzle of many blocks – like Lego that need to be connected to each other – and they evolve over time – they change shapes, colors, disappear altogether, so it is very difficult to answer this question in a simple way. Running a business consists of several phases of development, then many steps in these phases, and different things are important in each phase.

Of course, the standard theory of management tells us what it consists of and what is important is the idea, people management, operations, finances, marketing – how we will reach the customer, how we will sell our product to them, but this is a big simplification. At Verestro, we make a big change in our approach to the customer every year, maybe not by 180 degrees, but certainly by 120 degrees.

In addition, technological issues are very important, and probably the most important is the approach to people, because in the long run you do not build a company yourself. The role of the person he runs the company is very important, but if he or she cannot convince the team to this direction and to himself, the business will not grow.

What values do you look for in the people you hire?

It all depends on the position, the role and the needs. Once the already mentioned Bogusław Kott told me that the bank needed a dozen or so generals, several dozen officers and many privates. And this is how it is in large companies. Although, of course, we are always looking for people who fit the organization culturally, are sincere, honest, trustworthy, i.e. adhere to basic principles. And this is the most important thing. In the second step, it depends on the positions – of course, it is good when people are creative and independent, but I would describe it more generally as "appropriate". The most important thing in this area is how we influence each other, what we can develop in employees and how it affects their development.

It is interesting how many people who manage companies have been invited to you to become shareholders and presidents of these companies. Did you find these qualities in them or did you manage to discover them during this work?

Sebastian Swoboda, the current president of Quicko, is a very interesting example. When he came to us, he was certainly intelligent, honest and open, and this has not changed, of course, but he did not know anything about the business he was entering. He was a project manager, and after some time he decided to prove himself as the President of a payment institution. We decided that it was better than looking for someone from the outside with more experience and knowledge, but different soft skills.

Today I think it was a very good decision - Sebastian is developing a lot, he learns quickly, he is not afraid to make decisions, and he "jumps headfirst into a pool without water", he is not attached to his decisions. This is also a very difficult part of being an entrepreneur - you have to be able to change your mind.

How to effectively manage a group of employees, of whom there are already over 150, and who are also dispersed, also abroad?

We have 4 offices in Poland, in Warsaw, Lublin - the largest number of employees, in Częstochowa and Tarnowskie Góry, there is also a group of about 10 people abroad - in New York, Mexico, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, and now we have been recruiting in Dubai.

Certainly, people management is a difficult process that requires daily iterations, conversations, openness, and decency. In addition, we are currently facing a challenge - how to manage a company without expanding the management levels. I don't know the answer to this question yet. Undoubtedly, you need a group of people who already know each other, understand the company's culture and can talk to employees. My little goal in this area is that I try to know everyone by name and at the moment I succeed in 80-90 percent. Recently, we're also starting to implement my monthly online meetings with newly hired employees. So I think that this direct contact with people from the team is really very important, you have to have time for it and you always have to be honest in it.

THE SECOND PART OF THE INTERVIEW >>