“We’re united by a drive to solve problems for our merchants.”
Pamela Mead reflects on her first few months leading SumUp’s design team.
Pamela Mead leads SumUp’s global design team from Berlin. She joined us last November, having spent much of the last 2 decades building design communities and working with emerging technologies. “Early on in my career, I discovered that shaping technology was my real passion. I worked in the Bay Area during the dot-com craziness, and gravitated towards the mobile space. At Yahoo, I ran a global design team focused on Connected Life, an early concept of connecting mobile, TV and computers into a single communication space.”
Continuing to work at the cutting edge of mobile tech, she moved to Madrid in 2011 to set up a customer-driven innovation practice at Telefónica. “This was one of my most fulfilling roles to date. I’m super proud of the team that came together there, and the impact we had on the Spanish design community.”
Having returned to her homeland of Germany to head up design teams for HERE Technologies and Delivery Hero, she was intrigued when SumUp came knocking on her door. “There’s a big startup scene in Berlin, but not so many companies that really interest me personally. What struck me about SumUp is that it has a lot of integrity in terms of its mission and vision — everything we do here is about improving the lives of small business owners.”
After meeting various members of our leadership team, Pamela became convinced that she’d found a fit. “I walked away from each interview feeling like I could start whiteboarding immediately with the people I’d just met. I observed in everyone a collaborative approach, a drive towards solving problems for our merchants. And the way they talked about SumUp’s culture and growth was super compelling.”
Happily, Pamela has found that the reality of working at SumUp lives up to the vision she was sold. “This collaborative mindset isn’t just a defining trait of our leaders, it’s something that everyone here seems to share. For me, this mindset is at the heart of creating great products and user experiences.”
What excites her the most, she explains, is the opportunity her team has to make a meaningful impact across the company. “I’m working with a group of really passionate and talented people. And together, I believe we can help the company develop a deeper understanding of our merchants, which in turn will help us to create better products and be more successful. I also love the fact that we’re empowered as a team to define how we work. When I interview candidates, I explain that what’s different about SumUp is that we don’t need to spend a lot of time convincing people to let us experiment. We’re free to figure out how we can make a difference and get straight to work.”
She’s also very happy to be joining SumUp as we expand our range of products and services beyond the card readers that put us on the map. “I think that what has served us really well as a company is a commitment to a simple product and simple models. Now, however, our offering is getting more complex. We therefore need to update the underlying UX architecture to maintain that simplicity, but with a much richer offering. I’m particularly excited about the company’s initiatives around hardware. Having the capacity to extend what our brand stands for through rich, integrated hardware and software products is amazing.”
Finally, with Pamela having witnessed the growth of Silicon Valley first-hand, we’re eager to hear her thoughts on how Berlin’s “Silicon Allee” compares. “I absolutely loved living in the Bay Area, but I find the US-centric worldview there a bit narrow. Here in Berlin, there are opportunities to build global companies that really cherish local variations and local sensitivities. Lots of people have gravitated here because they’re looking for a slightly different perspective. Berlin is a great place for inventing the future, and SumUp clearly benefits from having a base here.”
Interested in inventing the future as part of our global Design team? Check out our latest vacancies.
