Pulse on Payments: Unveiling Top Global Payments Trends

Sharon Butler

EVP & GM, Education, Flywire

As Executive Vice President of Global Education at Flywire, Sharon brings over 20 years of experience in sales and customer success and currently leads the global sales and account management teams across ten offices globally for Flywire’s Education vertical. Sharon has been a pioneer in the education payment space and helped to evangelize on a global scale the importance of the student payment experience and choice for education based payments. As Flywire’s first employee she has not only built and scaled Flywire’s Education sales and client success teams across the globe, but also championed educational cross-border payments to lead Flywire to a presence representing more than 2,000 education clients across 240 countries and territories.

Sharons’ deep understanding of the education markets have enabled not only world-class cross-border payment options, but also the expansion of Flywire’s comprehensive receivables solution to better serve client payment needs.

Prior to joining Flywire, Sharon held roles as North East Regional Sales Director for Tuition Management Systems, and District Sales Director for SkyTel, a division of Verizon Business and leading wireless technology provider. Sharon has a degree in Communications with a minor in Business from Bridgewater State University.

John Talaga

EVP & GM, Healthcare, Flywire

John brings more than 20 years of experience to his role as Executive Vice President of Healthcare. He has partnered with hundreds of healthcare providers to develop and innovate patient billing and payment solutions.

Prior to joining Flywire, John was co-founder and CEO of OnPlan Holdings (acquired by Flywire), which launched healthcare’s first automated payment plan solution, as well as the next generation student tuition management solution for education. John also co-founded HealthCom Partners in 2001, which launched PatientCompass, a pioneer in patient-friendly billing and healthcare’s first online account management solution. After HealthCom sold to McKesson (MCK) in 2006 as the first acquisition to form RelayHealth, John led the patient billing and payment business at RelayHealth for five years before launching and leading the healthcare vertical for doxo, a multi-biller payment network.

He is a member of and has presented extensively with Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), and the American Association of Healthcare Administrative Management (AAHAM). John holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Dayton.

Colin Smyth

VP & GM, Travel, Flywire

As VP & GM, Colin Smyth leads the global Travel vertical, with a focus on solving complex international and domestic payments for our clients across luxury accomodations, tour operators and destination management companies. In his role Colin works with travel clients to simplify their payment processes and make their guests’ payment experience more enjoyable.

Colin brings over 15 years of sales and client success experience and currently oversees a global team located throughout Flywire’s offices worldwide.

Colin was one of the original members of the travel vertical and has led the team through its tremendous growth over the past few years. Prior to Flywire, Colin spent several years in the sales and digital media space. He began his career in capital markets and financial services with roles at both Lehman Brothers and Barclays. Colin holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Boston College.

Ryan Frere

EVP & GM, B2B, Flywire

As EVP & GM, Ryan Frere leads our emerging global B2B vertical strategy, working with clients to streamline their payment processes and solve challenges in international receivables. Prior to this role, Ryan built and scaled Flywire’s global payments organization, leading a team of global thought leaders and experts, as well as building a proprietary global payments network.

Additionally, Ryan led Flywire’s payment expansion partnering closely with some of the top global banking institutions and payment partners in the world and drove our market expansion across Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa and Latin America. Ryan holds a Bachelors in Finance and Management Information Systems. Previous to Flywire, he ran international product management at Blackbaud.