Most everyone has known someone like Keren Levy early in their lives: The one most active in youth organizations and a leader by age 15, or joining every committee and volunteer project in high school. Or being in the forefront of social projects.
All of that was true for Levy, who has been chief operating officer at the digital payment and money transfer services company Payoneer for the past 11 years and also took on the role of general manager of merchant services in 2019 after Payoneer acquired Optile and added that division.
"It's the small experiences you have as a child which shape you as an adult and I believe this is true for me, too," said Levy, a 2021 Most Influential Women in Payments honoree. "All of this responsibility as a young person of working with children, and the experience of being socially engaged, definitely gave me a taste for building projects, managing myself and most importantly, working with other people."
Those experiences laid the proper groundwork prior for Levy, who was born in Tel Aviv, to tackle payments industry challenges while at Payoneer.
Prior to Payoneer, she was at a startup called Cyota, which went through two ownerships in being acquired by RSA Security, which in turn was bought by EMC.
At Cyota, then a small company, she created a department to manage banks' responses to growing online service threats. She ultimately built the department from scratch, covering all of the bases from operations, product sales, client relationships and other roles in growing the department to 150 people.
"It gave me valuable experience in working directly with banks and in creating kind of a startup within a startup," Levy said. "This solidified my business experience, which is now core to my position as COO at Payoneer."
Levy oversees all operations at New York City-based Payoneer, which serves millions of clients.
After Payoneer acquired payment platform Optile last year, Levy led the Payoneer merchant services unit in launching new offerings for enterprises and small businesses. She drew on her similar experience at Cyota, where she created the Online Threats Managed Services department.
Levy has seen the COVID-19 pandemic push merchants and banks into more digital payments experiences, a scenario she believes has highlighted how payments companies have evolved from "being viewed as competitors to traditional banks to becoming active partners."
Because Payoneer has 24 office locations worldwide, the company communications network was prepared to deal with a pandemic that has generally created leadership challenges for people used to having face-to-face relationships with customers.
"We needed to adapt to a form of remote working well before the pandemic," Levy noted. "I love face-to-face time and while we've all become experts in remote meetings, I believe that there's something about being together in the same room that cannot be replaced online."
Still, as Payoneer emerges from the pandemic, the lessons learned about using remote communication technology will serve her and colleagues well. "But I look forward to being in a lively office again and traveling around the world to meet customers and colleagues," Levy said.
She wasn't willing to wait for the return of what she considers the important conversations that take place when passing others in the cafeteria or when meeting by the stairs.
"The trickiest thing to replicate is the less formal communication," Levy added. "At Payoneer, we've introduced virtual coffee sessions and daily meetings to fill this gap."
It helps foster stronger relationships, which ultimately benefit successful mentoring and collaboration, she said, adding that it also leads to obtaining good or critical feedback from everyone at the company.
"Everyone in your organization can offer a different perspective," Levy said. "I always want to hear what our customer care team is saying because they are on the front lines and can provide a view that I might be missing."
In addition to her work and family life, Levy likes to support social causes that provide tools to those that find themselves in less fortunate positions. She has seen the work Payoneer has done in emerging markets and has met with entrepreneurs just looking for a chance.
"I've seen how small businesses are often underserved and how this pattern is even more pronounced in developing countries," Levy noted. "I feel especially connected to supporting women entrepreneurs in these markets, and while we talk about the democratization of opportunity in today's interconnected digital world, I see the additional challenges they face."
