The founder and president of AZ Payments Group is Rick Oglesby, a respected industry veteran that started in payments in 1993. Rick  began his career as an underwriter, first with Chase, and then with Associates National Bank. It was here that he first realized how easily high-risk decisions could be made when the proper information was available. Subsequently, he had a 10-year stint with American Express, where he held progressively increasing responsibilities in international risk operations and international risk management. In these roles, he specialized in the application of data and analytics to improve operational performance, credit, and fraud losses in Europe, Latin America and the United States.

He then began applying his approach to drive revenue and growth. He managed new product development for commercial cards in Asia, product distribution strategy in Europe, and data mining strategies for portfolio growth within American Express Financial Advisors  (now Ameriprise), further refining his approach at each phase.

Rick then spent five years with TSYS Acquiring Solutions, where he managed TSYS’ merchant- and acquirer-facing data products. In this role, he developed new platforms to help TSYS’ acquiring clients manage their customer portfolios and operations, and implemented his platforms at some of the firm’s largest clients. He simultaneously managed a product portfolio worth tens of millions in revenue. He also served in corporate strategy roles, where he pre-screened M&A targets, performed due-diligence activities, and managed post-acquisition integrations. During this phase of his career, he became addicted to studying the external market, watching market evolution and devising approaches to capitalize on change.

Rick has been consulting since 2011. He has authored or co-authored more than 25 industry reports that evaluate and size market trends, and he makes strategic recommendations on how to take advantage of them. In 2014, Rick co-founded Double Diamond Payments Research (DDPR), a payments-centric market research firm that provides research services and go-to-market consulting services to payments companies.  AZ Payments Group continues to have ownership in DDPR, and has a strategic partnership with Double Diamond Group for the provision of complementary consulting services.

In addition to his published reports, you can find Rick’s contributions in articles and media from top tier outlets such as Bloomberg, CNN Money, NPR, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal, and in payments trade publications such as American Banker, Digital Transactions, The Green Sheet, ISO and Agent, PaymentFacilitator.com, and PaymentSource.