Blackhawk Network appoints Cory Gaines as Chief Product Officer
Blackhawk Network announced product management and payments executive, Cory Gaines, has been named its Chief Product Officer. Gaines will lead Blackhawk’s continued innovation in payments products, including globalizing the company’s solutions, building upon its Pay4It suite and launching new innovative products to help partners drive scale, revenue and loyalty.
Gaines brings 30 years of experience in product development and management, including at several Fortune 100 companies in the payments and financial services space, such as Visa, Citibank, Bank of America and PayPal. While at PayPal, Gaines led the company’s global business product line that enabled payment acceptance, third-party wallet support, currency management and localization across online, mobile and emerging commerce channels. Most recently, he served as chief product officer for Lively, Inc., where he led product management, product design, engineering and data science helping the U.S. transition to consumer driven healthcare.
Talbott Roche, CEO and president of Blackhawk Network, said, “We are thrilled to have Cory join our world-class team of payments industry veterans. Cory’s experience in product innovation and execution in matrix-driven and globally dispersed organizations will be an asset to Blackhawk. We are committed to delivering digital payment innovations to our partners. With Cory’s strong product expertise working alongside our technology-innovation focus, we look forward to continued success for our partners over the coming years.”
In his new role, Gaines will report directly to Roche and will align closely with Blackhawk’s technology team, led by Chief Technology Officer Nik Sathe, to continue the company’s embedded payments growth within the global commerce landscape.
“I’m bullish about joining a team at Blackhawk that recognizes how the power of payments can help partners create true engagement and added value for their customers,” said Gaines. “As consumer expectations for flexible, simple and seamless transactions and payments continue to rise, innovation for more unified and digital payment experiences is the next frontier in payment solutions. It is an exciting time for the industry, and I’m thrilled to help Blackhawk address these opportunities through technology and innovation.”
