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TradeAssociationNews

Eureka Payments is a direct-to-merchant ISO. We served Regardless of your beginnings, where you are now, or
Northern California, Southern Oregon and card-not-pres- what success you attain, measure yourself not against
ent merchants nationwide. I am honored to have worked others—but by the distance between your aptitude
with Steve and Scott for nearly a decade. and your altitude. Do that sincerely and with earnest-
ness, and you will be amongst the richest people on
Being an independent ISO allowed me to write freely, un- earth. And we, who came to witness your journey, will
constrained by the obligations of a public company. Writ- be proud to have done so.
ing required me to think deeply, and I thank The Green
Sheet, Kate Gillespie and Laura McHale-Holland for the Thank you all. Thank you MWAA. It is a privilege to have
privilege and platform they provided. my name forever etched in your organization's history.

While with Eureka Payments, Eugene Rome of Rome LLP As founder of Humboldt Merchant Services, co-founder of Eureka
encouraged me to serve as an expert witness. I hesitated, Payments, and a former executive for such payments innovators as
but he persisted, and I'm grateful he did. Today, expert tes- WePay, a division of JPMorgan Chase, Ken Musante has experience in
timony is one of my consulting verticals, and it's given me all aspects of successful ISO building. He currently provides consulting
court-side seats to some of the most fascinating stories in services and expert witness testimony as founder of Napa Payments
the history of payments. and Consulting, www.napapaymentsandconsulting.com. Contact him
at kenm@napapaymentsandconsulting.com, 707-601-7656 or www.
I've testified in both civil and criminal cases. I've been on linkedin.com/in/ken-musante-us.
both sides of a deposition with Ed Marshall. And I worked
one of the most bizarre cases ever for Theo Monroe. It's
amazing how hard some people will work to make a dis- Snapshot of Upcoming Events
honest dollar.

In 2019, I left Humboldt County. My son needed services
not available there. During our time at Eureka, we recog-
nized the potential of payfacs, which became my next di-
rection.

Patrick Guindon gave me the chance to serve as a product
manager for WePay, a Chase-owned payfac. Before WePay,
I'd had 10 bosses in my entire career. At WePay, I had at September 8 - 10, 2025
least as many in two and a half years. It was a challenge to Fairmont Scottsdale Princess
adjust to a big company, but I grew tremendously. Scottsdale, AZ
https://westernstatesacquirers.org/

I served as a scrum master helping integrate WePay's CNP
ecosystem into Chase's CP solution. We failed—fantasti-
cally—but I learned more than from any success. Many of
my current clients, like Coris.AI's founders Vinodh and
Shaym, come from those connections, and I reach out to
my WePay Alum regularly.

In 2021, I founded Napa Payments and Consulting. To
Greg Reymundo, my first client, and Bill Dumont, my lon-
gest client, Thank you! Naim Hamdor, a close friend and
Payzli founder, provided a unique opportunity to support Strategic Leadership Forum
them through their launch.
September 29 - October 01 , 2025
I still remember my high school commencement address.
The speaker spoke about Kaizen, the Japanese principle of The Ritz Carlton, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, Calif.
continuous improvement. I didn't fully understand it then, http://bit.ly/46zKX9b
but it stuck. Kaizen, the idea of incremental progress, is
something I strive for in my life. In 2017, I gave the com-
mencement speech at my own son's graduation.
Editor's note: You can also tune in to an interview Allen Kopelman, CEO
Though he didn't graduate in the traditional sense, I'll of Nationwide Payment Systems and host of the B2B Vault podcast,
leave you with the message I shared and my own aspira- recorded with Ken Musante shortly before the award ceremony at
tions: B2B Vault, http://bit.ly/47bkkYs; YouTube, http://bit.ly/4ldnfmK; and
Spotify, http://bit.ly/45hfEO7.

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