Paul R. Garcia
Apple thriving close to the tree
aul R. Garcia, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Global Payments Inc., one of the world's largest payment processors, literally grew up in the credit card business. Garcia's father was President and CEO of Diner's Club International Ltd. and instrumental in the creation of the American Express Co. card.
When growing up, Garcia spent a great deal of time at his father's Manhattan office and, through him, learned the values that helped him succeed in his own right.
"I had the opportunity to meet senior bankers involved in the issuing business, to listen in on their conversations," Garcia said of his formative days in New York. "I learned from watching the way my father treated his customers and colleagues that, by being personable and approachable, they can figure out who you really are and what you're all about. I feel fortunate to have met all those people and to have gotten involved at the beginning of a very exciting wave."
Experience meets opportunity
After graduating in 1975 from Ithaca College in Ithaca, N.Y., Garcia began his career selling Citigroup Inc. travelers checks to financial institutions. While at Citi, he met representatives of the newly formed Equifax Inc. and was offered a position to sell Equifax's credit reporting services to banks and big retailers. Then after a serendipitous meeting at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Garcia found himself on the path to the payments industry.
"The guy that ran the credit card business at Chase also had the merchant business under him," Garcia said. "He mentioned it was starting to gain some momentum, believed that it was really going to take off and asked if I would be interested.
"Well, I was 27 at the time, and they made a pretty attractive offer that turned my head. So I jumped on board, and that was the beginning of my merchant experience."
Garcia worked his way up the executive management ladder as a sales executive at Chase. He recalled there were only two enterprises doing significant transaction processing in the 1980s: Chase and National Bancard Corp. (NaBanco).
"Other companies were, of course, coming up and started to give us some competition, but we were the only two companies in the world doing that kind of online interface with merchants and processing at that time," Garcia said.
"So naturally I found myself selling against NaBanco a lot. Their CEO and I went head-to-head a bunch of times: Long story short, he offered me a senior executive management role, and I joined them in 1981 to run their sales division."
Addition by division
Garcia served as CEO of NaBanco and then Group President of Card Services at First Data Corp. In 1997, Garcia temporarily left the payments arena to take over the reigns of Productivity Point International Inc., an instructor-led information technology training company.
"We must have had around 300 computer training centers when I was with PPI, but I didn't realize how much I missed the payments industry," Garcia said. "However, in 1999, National Data Corp. called me, and they said they had this little division and wondered if I would be interested in spinning it out and having a separate company focused on payments. I said that I would; it's hard to believe that was 10 years ago."
Garcia joined NDC as CEO of its Atlanta-based e-commerce division in June of 1999. NDC eCommerce began operating as Global Payments Inc. in December 2000 and spun off from NDC as a distinct, publicly traded company in February 2001. Garcia had planned to retire in the late 1990s, but memories of his father re-inspired him, giving his tenure as CEO of Global a second wind.
"I thought back on what a positive role model my father was for me, and I thought I owed that not only to my kids but to the new venture at Global," Garcia said.
"The company had 1,200 people almost exclusively in the U.S. when I joined, and now we have almost 6,000 staff members worldwide. It was important to me to instill the pride and promise of what this company could be and to communicate clear values and vision in a very crisp way."
Provide and nurture
Garcia added that he feels fortunate to be surrounded by highly qualified, reliable people, which eliminates any need for micro-management. Garcia said CEOs and other executives running the day-to-day operations of large companies need to understand they are responsible for empowering their staff and providing opportunities for success.
"As a CEO, you want to be well thought of, but if you focus on yourself too much, you do your employees and clients a disservice," Garcia noted. "If you are the company, what happens when you are no longer there? That's not good for you, your investment partners, your shareholders or your staff. What you want is a company culture and not a cult of personality, and that's what I strive for every day. Management, I believe, is just people taking care of people.
"When you take care of the people who take care of the customers, then we all get rewarded with their continued business. And that's a wonderful circle that repeats itself.
"You also must realize that, as a company leader, you have to always be morally and ethically just. Set the right example with encouragement and nurturing, and you can impact lives in a significant way. Conversely, if you are capricious, mean, selfish or dishonest, you can destroy a lot of people."
Garcia feels he is smarter and more capable now than ever before in his career, and he continues to challenge himself and those around him to grow intellectually and hone their skill sets.
He said Global's philosophy has no secret formula for success; everything revolves around its staff and customers. Additionally, Garcia believes there are three secrets to happiness that have nothing to do with health, wealth or marital status.
The happiness quotient
"The first secret is to do something meaningful and recognize that your work is important," Garcia said.
"The second is to have someone to love and to love you, and number three is to have something to look forward to. If you have those three things you are fundamentally a happy person. If you don't, at the end of the day, you're not going to fulfill your true happiness potential."
With more than 30 years of payments industry experience to draw from, Garcia is nearing the dÇnouement of his career, and he has a unique perspective on the industry's evolution and current promise. He believes Global and the industry as a whole are in very good hands and will continue to thrive regardless of outside influences.
"Putting aside some of the legislative issues, the industry gets better every year," Garcia said. "The ETA [Electronic Transactions Association] is a much stronger organization. The ISOs are growing and prospering because they're doing everything we talked about: They're ethical, honest and clever, and they realize that they must continue to deliver true value to everyone.
"And lastly, we have to be very grateful for our customers. At the end of the day they're the ones that sign our checks. They are what drive this business, and we can never forget that."