Karen Webster is one of the world’s leading experts on payments innovation and the digital economy and is a strategic advisor to CEOs and boards of multinational players in the payments and commerce space.
She also serves on the boards of emerging companies in the artificial intelligence (AI), healthcare technology (healthtech), and real-time payments sectors and helps innovators refine their business models for profitable market adoption and growth.
Ms. Webster is an accomplished entrepreneur who has developed and launched new ventures in the online media, consulting, and social commerce sectors that focused on introducing disruptive business models and product solutions to fill a market need. This includes a media, data, and content platform that she founded in 2009 and successfully scaled into the leading source of news and market intelligence for innovation in the payments, commerce, and digital economy sectors.
As cofounder and CEO of a consulting firm, Ms. Webster worked extensively with the most innovative players in the payments, healthcare, financial services, digital media, and technology sectors to identify, ignite, and monetize innovation using proprietary platform ignition frameworks and market simulation models.
Ms. Webster is a frequent keynote speaker and prolific author of articles on innovation, platforms, and the digital economy. She has a long history of consulting, having served as the managing director of Global Marketing and Planning for a Big Four firm’s $6 billion management consulting practice and as COO for a $200 million economic consulting subsidiary. She also served as an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, where she holds a master’s degree in marketing and developed and taught graduate-level courses on business-to-business marketing.
Ms. Webster is a passionate philanthropist and served as a member of the board of trustees at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and chairman of the board of the Susan G. Komen Advocacy Alliance.
Employment History
PYMNTS.com
CEO, 2009 – present
Market Platform Dynamics
CEO, 2004 – present
Professional Affiliations
Bryzos
Board Member, 2023 – present
AI-ID
Advisory Board Member, 2023 – present
Sezzle
Board Member, 2024-present