How Citi went from idea to impact with the launch of Spring

[00:00:11] Jim Freeze: Welcome to Right Decisions, Right Now, where we explore the choices that define a leader's career. I'm Jim Freeze, Chief Marketing Officer at Anaplan, the only AI-driven scenario planning and analysis platform designed to optimize decision making in today's complex business environment. In each episode, we unpack a pivotal decision. What drove it, what impact it had, and the human story behind it. You'll hear from leaders at companies like Gap, Zevia, Citi, and more, sharing details about impactful decisions, bold breakthroughs, tough calls under pressure, and the moments that shaped their careers and their companies.

[00:00:51] Jim Freeze: Today we're joined by Vineeth Subramanyam, the global head of Spring by Citi. Vineeth leads the digital payments business for one of the world's largest financial institutions. He has a track record of driving innovation in a high stakes, fast moving industry. We'll hear how he balanced complex business priorities, turned challenges into opportunities, and built a service that is now a core part of Citi. Vineeth, welcome to the show.

[00:01:18] Vineeth Subramanyam: Thank you so much, Jim. Thanks for having me on, and it's a pleasure to be talking to you.

[00:01:23] Jim Freeze: Yeah, we're thrilled to have you. So for our listeners who might not be familiar, can you share a little bit about Spring by Citi?

[00:01:30] Vineeth Subramanyam: Absolutely. So Spring by Citi is Citi's merchant acquiring and payment acceptance service. In a nutshell, what that really means is we enable our clients to accept payments in a variety of different forms, whether it's card or non card payment methods. We are today in approximately 25 markets around the world. We serve B2B and B2C flows and we're part of the payments team that sits within the services organization at Citi. So that's a little bit about Spring.

[00:01:59] Jim Freeze: Terrific, terrific. So as a marketing guy, I have to ask what's the story behind the name Spring?

[00:02:03] Vineeth Subramanyam: The name was initially picked as being indicative of the start of new things. Call it a springboard to success. All those good things that a word like spring evokes. But, what really sealed the deal was when we were having a workshop and the team was walking around in lower Manhattan pondering the name Spring. They just happened across Spring Street, which is close to where the Citi offices are in Tribeca. So call it divine signal or whatever it is. But, that's how the name stuck.

[00:02:34] Jim Freeze: I actually kind of like the springboard story better. So that's what I'll tell folks if they ask me. So, we both know that the financial services space is changing pretty quickly but historically the industry has been a little more traditional and a bit more conservative. What were some of the biggest hurdles you faced in getting buy-in for a new initiative within Citi, and how did you overcome them?

[00:02:57] Vineeth Subramanyam: Yeah, so it's a good question. As you might think, of any new product that's trying to gain ground within a large, established company, you're always having to deal with competing priorities. You're having to figure out, should we invest in something new, or should we just double down in the core? How do we think about the opportunity cost, all of those things?

[00:03:18] Vineeth Subramanyam: And of course, you need to have a good business case. You need to have good sort of financial judgment there. But what really helped us was to tie it to everything else that Citi was doing and show that this is not an initiative that's sitting off to the side, but it's actually accretive to everything else that Citi is doing. So really thinking about the enterprise value, if you will, that Citi could derive from a service like Spring and value that we could create for our clients so that they could come to one place and really use us for multiple services that we offer to them.

[00:03:54] Jim Freeze: That makes a lot of sense. I mean, when you think about enterprise value, it's kind of the ultimate measure of success, right? You're driving the value of the company. But let's dig into that concept a little more. How do you measure success against a larger organizational objective like that? What are some of the key financial indicators that you look at to ensure that you're on the path to enhancing enterprise value?

[00:04:16] Vineeth Subramanyam: Yeah. So it really depends on the type of client, depends on the geography, depends on what they're doing with Citi as a whole. But it is largely really thinking about what are the portfolio of services that the client is using with Citi and how much of their payment flow are we really participating in? So if you think about the continuum of the payment flow from what we call accept, hold and pay. Accept is really sitting at the front end where payments are coming in and the funds are coming into a Citi account and then going into hold where we're holding those balances. And then there is a whole host of services there around cash management and treasury management, the usual banking services. And then you have pay which is paying out then from that account to a variety of other constituents that clients may want to pay out to, whether it is suppliers, vendors, partners, etc. And what this really enables you to do is, rather than piecemeal-ing it and saying we're going to do one or the other, we're participating right at the front door where the payments are coming in. It really gives you an ability to pull through and serve clients across the entire spectrum and make it very simple when it comes to the reporting and the reconciliation and all of that with the clients, too.

[00:05:37] Vineeth Subramanyam: So it's really taking a look at how much of that payment flow are we really participating in, and how is Spring really helping us generate new ways in which we can engage clients.

[00:05:49] Jim Freeze: Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. So value is never just about the bottom line. Were there any moments beyond kind of concrete financial, measurable metrics where you knew all the hard work and tough decisions were paying off? Maybe a phone call from a client and an "aha" moment?

[00:06:08] Vineeth Subramanyam: Yeah. So this is honestly, really the best part of the job. I think, the fact that you hit your numbers and financial metrics and all of that is important. Of course, it's great to energize the team and really show that the product has landed and we're doing certain things right. And as you start getting these marquee well known names that are using the product, it helps to really solidify that with the teams.

[00:06:35] Vineeth Subramanyam: But for us, the "aha" moment honestly comes from the co-creation that we do with our clients. So we engage in fairly broad based dialogues with clients where there is a willingness to go in and say, look, we have a variety of things that we can push and pull from Citi, and some of them we might not have even thought of. And that is where it is really gratifying and sort of the "aha" moment, if you will, of speaking to clients that are open to really discuss that with you and say, look, here's exactly the problem that we're trying to solve, and we would normally have to go and find four or five different players to stitch all of these things together.

[00:07:23] Vineeth Subramanyam: How do we solve that? And that is when you realize, well, the reason that you're trying to do this particular thing is because you wanted to do this other thing downstream, and let's really hear the whole story and see how we can stitch that together. And there are assets here at Citi that we can bring together to create that holistic picture for you. So, I mean, a couple of examples here already could be a client that has cross-border flows, that has certainly a payment acceptance need, but they also have a need for an FX solution where they may have to do currency conversions and things like that. They may be using separate providers for these things, and they're asking us to send them things in a particular format because that is, what they need for something downstream. And then when you start hearing this whole story, you take a step back and say, well, we can actually do both of those things for you. And can we figure out a way in which we can sort of combine that together?

[00:08:20] Vineeth Subramanyam: So some of the best things that we have done have really evolved out of those types of conversations with our clients, where we might not have had something that's off the shelf. But these are the types of conversations that help us create something new that we can then take and offer to other clients as well.

[00:08:40] Jim Freeze: Yeah, and to the point where we started a few seconds ago talking about driving enterprise value. That's a great example of kind of connecting the dots for our customer. Right? Yeah. That's great. That's great. So when an enterprise leader comes to you in search of a new payments provider, what are their expectations and requirements today? Are they prioritizing speed, security, user experience? And how do you anticipate things continuing to shift?

[00:09:03] Vineeth Subramanyam: Yeah, I don't know if that's a trick question, Jim, but they want it all. This is one of those things where I think one of the big shifts that's really happened in the payment space is that payments has gone from what used to be the cost center, where clients are really trying to reduce their cost of acceptance. And it was more like a vendor supplier relationship where let me just bring someone in that can figure out payments for me for cheap. Now, it has moved into the revenue center where this is really what is bringing the money in. And so they want to talk about things like help me improve the approval rates or help me get more in the door, not just help me reduce the cost of accepting a payment.

[00:09:48] Vineeth Subramanyam: And so that is sort of the big shift that has happened there. So what they're really looking for from a provider is the flexibility to work in the environments that they've created for themselves. So you'll often find clients that have fairly large payments teams. Used to be, I don't know, a couple of people working with a partner to set something up. Now, if you go to really big clients, they have payments teams that resemble almost a company that's sitting inside another company and they've started to take much more control of what they want to do. And so you end up talking to a lot of different clients, those that want to do certain things on their own, those that really rely on other providers to do it for them. So the flexibility that you can really show and how you work with the clients, I think is becoming much, much more important there.

[00:10:43] Jim Freeze: Yeah. It's interesting, as you were talking about that, I just think about our business and the importance of being agile and being able to adapt to not only a changing market, but on an individual basis what customers' needs are. And so what you just said very much resonates with me. So it's clear you've learned a lot about how to make kind of informed, value driven decisions during not only your time at Citi, but I know you have a background at Visa as well. If you could go back to a moment when you were faced with a tough decision earlier in your career, what advice would you give yourself based on what you know now?

[00:11:17] Vineeth Subramanyam: Yeah, maybe I can take a couple of examples there. I think just in terms of the product alone here at Citi, I think one of the early decisions that we had to take was do we want to build this on our own or do we want to partner? Right. And this is one of those things where in the launch trajectory for a fairly new product, it's like launching a projectile and every small change in the angle there can set you tens of thousands of feet apart when you finally land.

[00:11:53] Vineeth Subramanyam: So it's important to take your time and sort of go slow to go fast, so to speak. And we made the decision to partner, to start with, because it was very important for us to get a product off the ground and make sure that we are able to spend time on things that are strengths for us, and we're able to really integrate that with everything else to provide value for the client. And that has worked out very well for us. So that's sort of a decision with regard to Spring.

[00:12:26] Vineeth Subramanyam: I think early in my career, if we just sort of broadened this a bit, there was a time when I was a software engineer, and I was becoming a senior software engineer, and I was on track to become a manager and so on. And right around that time, I started getting very interested in the reasons behind the features that I was writing code for rather than just writing it. And there was an opportunity that presented itself at that time to become a business analytics person. So just joining a business analysis team would not have really meant the same trajectory in terms of compensation or having a team or anything like that, but it would teach me something completely new. And it was one of those things where I just remember agonizing with that decision for a long time.

[00:13:19] Vineeth Subramanyam: Do I just stay the course and just do the same thing and get a bigger role on the software side, or should I do something else?

[00:13:28] Vineeth Subramanyam: And if I could go back, I think the one advice that I would give someone in that state is just focus on learning and focus on figuring out what really energizes you when you come into work and just because you may make a few extra dollars in the short term, you're not really going to have much success if you get into a place where that's not what you want to do longer term. So that's sort of the advice that I would give. And certainly now, I mean, a couple of decades later, it's worked out very well in that it's hard to find someone to put all these skills together on the software side and the analysis and strategy. So I just went sort of picking different things that were very important and interesting to me. The whole is much, much more than the sum of the parts at the end of the day.

[00:14:22] Jim Freeze: Yeah. And I think there are two things that I very much relate to. I mean, there's a message there about not being short term and thinking about playing the long game, if you will, and continual learning. I relate to that story very specifically because I started my career as a software developer as well, and now I'm a marketing executive, so I think learning is fantastic and I love taking on new challenges and doing things that I hadn't done before. So I think that's a great, great story. And it's terrific advice.

[00:14:51] Jim Freeze: And I want to thank you very much for being on our podcast. I think your story is really interesting, and we appreciate you taking the time to share it with us. Thank you very much.

[00:15:00] Vineeth Subramanyam: Absolutely, Jim, really enjoyed it. Thank you.

[00:15:07] Jim Freeze: Thanks for listening to Right Decisions, Right Now. If you've enjoyed today's conversation, follow the show so you don't miss our next deep dive into the decisions that make or break great leaders. For more insights on decision excellence and its impact on the financial performance of leading organizations, visit anaplan.com. I'm Jim Freeze. See you next time.