Seasoned executive with a proven track record aligning technology with business objectives to deliver bottom line results to my employers and clients. Extensive experience managing, and advising at, the intersection of business and technology at project, product, divisional and corporate levels both as an employee and as an independent consultant. Highly skilled in the chaotic environment of new product development and in building consensus among internal and external stakeholders. Particularly well-versed in the automatic merchandising (“vending”) market, including vending management software/systems, electronic, mobile, and virtual payment facilitation systems and practices, vending machine design and unattended market operation.  Deep understanding of MDB, DEX, VMC design, vending machines, coin and bill acceptance and vending management software. Equally deep understanding of open system payment acceptance to include PCI and EMV swipe, NFC, contact chip and tokenized mobile and virtual transactions as well as closed loop systems such as campus and other stored value cards.

US10304057 – Vending equipment for remote selection of items via a mobile device

Professional Biography

Vagabond Vending LLC:

Successive positions V.P. Product Development, SVP Product and Market Strategy, CTO Vagabond.

(July 2015—Jan 2020)

Reporting directly to the CEO since joining the company. Vagabond Vending is an independently owned leading-edge provider of Hardware as Service and Software as Service to the Vending industry. Vagabond currently provides real time MDB based Vending Management Software and vīv touchless vending (named best innovation 2017 NAMA). viv commerce for micro markets, order ahead, retail delivery and commercial delivery. Vagabond also provides equipment leasing and Vagabond One Rate financing.

Key responsibilities achievements:

• Managed Vagabond’s third-party supplier for design, development and manufacturing of Vagabonds machine resident hardware and firmware including backwards compatibility with most Vending Controller Boards produced over the past 25 years.
• Managed Vagabond’s third-party (off shore) full stack development partner responsible for the development and maintenance of Vagabond’s server platform, databases, APIs, payment engine, VMS engine, vīv consumer mobile apps (Android and iOS), route driver apps (Android and iOS) operator web UI and inhouse support UI.
• Primary Inventor of Vagabonds recently approved patent for enabling vīv Touchless Vending Managed the selection, integration and certification process for three major processing partners, Braintree, Global Payment Services (formerly Heartland) and Apriva
• Managed the joint development with AMS of the Industry’s first commercially available Ambient Snack touchless vending machine.
• Managed the joint development process with Vendors Exchange of the Industry’s first retrofit kit for a refrigerated movable arm beverage machine.
• Managed development UL and Carrier certification for our new LTE machine resident device.
• Negotiated with Visa, Google, Apple Pay, and Visa to achieve a profitable rate structure for Vagabond’s offerings.

John H Powell Consulting LLC.

Owner

(October 2009—July 2015)

Specialty consulting firm offering advice, evaluation and management services relating Micro Payments, Vending Management Software, Unattended Transactions and machine resident hardware.

Sample clients and services:

• InOne Technologies/Coinco Jointly reported to Gene Ostendorf President InOne and Parker Conde President and COO Coinco. Coinco, the second largest supplier of bill acceptors, coin changers and new vending machines and the largest refrubrusher of old vending machines had recently acquired a controlling interest in InOne technologies, a company that provided expertise in Vending Management Software and payment acceptance for small and nontraditional vending route operators. Coinco and InOne were having difficulty with their relationship and with InOne’s offshore payment technology provider based in Israel. Development was behind, the product could not accept payment in Canada (a key Coinco market) and it was later discovered the entire project was hemorrhaging cash due to the use of an off shore processor unable to get competitive interchange rates in either the U.S. or Canada.  Specific accomplishments include:
  • Providing a level of oversight of the offshore developer not previously available.
  • Identifying the critical interchange gap.
  • Negotiating with a major U.S. processing partner to get integration and development done to reduce processing rates to a reasonable level.
  • Leveraging this processor relationship to win Coinco the Visa preferred vending rate and reducing interchange costs by over $500,000 per year.
  • Identified a Canadian processor and managed the integration efforts with InOne’s offshore provider to allow their units to operate in Canada.
  • Worked directly with Ron Hoormann Coinco CTO to assist in getting Coinco’s internally designed and developed reader certified in Canada.
  • Worked with Coinco’s in house systems developer to create an automated accounting system which not only enhanced the efficiency of payments but also provided Coinco with a level of visibility to eventually determine how best to exit the relationship
  • The result of the project was that Coinco was able to staunch its cash bleeding, gain enough control to exit the relationship and open Canada as a market for their own card reader.

• Crane Merchandising and Payment Systems: Reported to Brian Godwin V.P. Product Development. Crane Merchandising and Payment System Divisions is the largest supplier of new vending machines Vending Management Software (StreamWare) and has vied with Coinco to be the largest provider of Bill Acceptors and Card Readers in North America. Crane engaged John H Powell Consulting to do a top to bottom evaluation of Crane’s suite of electronic payment products and services to include, StreamWare, StreamWare Connect Services, the Carenza card reader and payment facilitation services.
  • The resulting work product report included detailed product positioning analysis against all competitors across, pricing, functionality, ease of installation/operation and perceived benefits

• Harvard University (sub-contractor to Robert Huber Associates):
  • Provided technical component of a top to bottom review of Harvard University’s Campus One Card System.

Cantaloupe Systems:

V.P. Business Development and Cashless Vending Project Manager

(10/06—10/09)

Reporting to Anant Agrawal co-founder, initial hardware architect and CMO. Cantaloupe Systems pioneered remote monitoring and management of vending machines and later became a leader in Cashless Vending prior to its successful sale to USA Technologies. At the time I started with Cantaloupe total connections were about 3,500 for VMS only with no prospect of a cashless offering, no national account and only incremental growth. At the time I left Cantaloupe had over 20,000 connections, a national deal with Lowes and Sodexo and a cashless payment offering certified with a major national processor getting ready for PCI certification. Within 6 months of my departure Cantaloupe was on track to hit 90,000 connections.

Specific activities and achievements include:

• Lead the team that successfully developed and integrated credit and debit card acceptance into Cantaloupe’s main line product offering
• Supported major initiatives within the company’s main line route management business contributing to Cantaloupe’s five-fold increase in valuation, Inc 500 status and winning the M2M national gold award for retail implementation
• Coached Anant on basic sales force management/metrics and provided boiler plate processes
• Personally, managed the implementation of the Sodexo Lowes deal that added 3,500 new connections across 20 operators in 8 states and positioned Cantaloupe as a major player in the industry

U.S. Wireless Data later acquired by TNS Director Vending Systems –

V.P. Vending Channel

(May 2002 – Sept 2006)

Initially reported to Marc Shultz V.P. Business Development of U.S. Wireless later to Heidi Goff EVP of TNS. Brought on board to respond to an RFP by Pepsi for a swipe based vending solution. I developed the opportunity into a separate market channel for its acquiring company TNS. During my employment TNS was the largest payment gateway in the world moving tens of billions of transactions between the terminal and the bank with a market valuation of $700 million.

Specific activities and achievements include:

• Took Cashless Vending from a concept to the exclusive Trademark Authorized Solution for Pepsi North America.
• Initiated the PepsiCo relationship, discerned key customer needs, and wrote the system specifications and shepherded the process leading to sole source supplier status for Pepsi North America
• Worked with Conlux and Coinco to pioneer separating the read head bezel from the telemeter and creating the combination bill acceptor card reader bezel, innovations that are mainstream in the industry today.
• Positioned TNS as the dominant player in the emerging Cashless Payment segment of the $20 billion annual machine vended product market
• Created a new market channel for TNS