Women Leaders in Payments: The Future is Human with Clarice Leaman, dLocal | Episode 506

Payments don’t fail as an abstract metric. They fail for a freelancer waiting to get paid, a small business trying to accept the locally normal method, or a customer who gets told “we don’t support how you pay.” That’s why our conversation with Clarice Lehman, Alternative Payments Operations Lead at DLocal, keeps landing on one theme: the future of payments has to stay human, even as the industry gets more automated, embedded, and AI-driven. 

We start with Clarice’s journey from Uruguay to fintech, including a pivotal dinner-party moment that redirected her MBA path to MIT, followed by consulting at BCG, and a return to DLocal to lead strategy and operations across alternative payment methods. We unpack what “APMs” really include (instant payments, wallets, cash-based options, BNPL operations, card-present initiatives, and crypto operations) and why delivering a consistent cross-border payments experience is hard when every market’s infrastructure looks different underneath. 

Then we get practical about leadership and trust: why smarter systems can’t mean more exclusion, what transparency should look like when AI makes decisions, and why reliability and accountability are non-negotiable when downtime or a wrong decline hits. Clarice also shares the trend she’s most excited about: AI-driven credit and underwriting using alternative data, and how that can expand access to capital for consumers and SMBs that traditional credit bureaus overlook. 

If you care about emerging markets, payments strategy, fintech leadership, and building products that actually include people, this one is for you. 

Transcript

Women Leaders Series Kickoff

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome to Women Leaders and Payments Month, where we highlight and celebrate the women shaping the future of payments in FinTech through their leadership, insight, and impact. A special thank you to Payrock for sponsoring this year's series and for powering the continued advancement of women across our industry. Now, on to the show.

Meet Clarice Leaman At dLocal

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this Women Leaders and Payments Month episode. Today I'm honored to have as our special guest Clarice Lehman, the Alternative Payments Operations Lead at DLocal. So, Clarice, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Thank you so much for having me, Greg. It's it's really nice to be here.

Icebreaker Speed Reading Dream Skill

SPEAKER_02 0:39

So let's start with a little bit of an icebreaker. If you could instantly become an expert in one non-work-related skiller hobby, what would it be and why?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

I would have to say I think honestly, speed reading with total recall. I have a pile of books I'll never get through at this rate, right? So every time I'm out or I'm at an airport, I buy a book that, you know, I've read about or that looks interesting. And then I I don't have all of the time in the world to read them, but I would love to also have I hate forgetting what I've read a year later. So I think that would be amazing for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

I I love it because I've I asked that question and and I I've yet to get the same answer. So I I think it's it's it's an interesting question.

From Uruguay To FinTech Payments

SPEAKER_02 1:21

So let's talk about your background and your career journey a little bit. So give us a quick snapshot of your background, maybe where you grew up, where you studied, and what led you into the world of payments in fintech?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Yes, of course. I grew up in Uruguay.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

I studied telecommunications engineering in a Uruguayan university, Universidad de Montevideo. And it wasn't a straight line to fintech. So after I graduated from college, I started working in commodities trading. I then ran a venture of my own, and then I finally joined DLocal in 2019. There I was a customer success manager and I dealt with like some of our key accounts. I was there for about a year and a half, and then I left for four years because I went to Boston for my MBA at MIT. And then I moved to New York where I did two years at BCG. And now I've been back at DLocal for about a year and a half. What hooked me into the fintech and the payments world wasn't just DLocal and the company which I love and you know the people which I love working with, but it's actually like the problem that we are trying to solve. Access to the global economy for the emerging world. I am quite passionate about it, and I love being able to see the impact that we are doing with the work that we are doing on our daily basis. So I think that's a problem worth spending a career

One Dinner That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_01 2:34

on.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Well, was there a person or an opportunity or maybe even an unexpected moment that helped you shape the direction of your career?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yes, for sure, for sure. It's actually pretty funny. I went to a dinner party in Punta del Este, which is uh like a beach town in Uruguay, the summer before I was going to go to my MBA. So I had already signed up for Columbia in New York. I had already paid like my town fee, and I met Mauricio Levitin, who is a Uruguayan. He had gone to MIT and he was very, very big in the business world. And he was like, Why aren't you going to an MIT? And I was like, Yeah, I don't think, you know, I I I'm not, I think it's kind of nerdy. I'd just rather live in New York. It's true. And he was like, no, no way. So he called up the head of admissions and he told him about me. And the guy said, you know, have her apply. And he he was pushy. So I had just met him and he texted me every day for about a week until I did. I got accepted. Mauricio had sadly passed away by then. But like his influence in just like a few hours sitting together at dinner, they shaped my life and my career. So I will be eternally grateful for him.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

That's a

Building Alternative Payments At Scale

SPEAKER_02 3:40

great story. So tell us about your role today at DLocal and what part of your work are you most excited about right now?

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Amazing. Yes. So as I said, I've been back at DLocal for about a year and a half. Today I lead our strategy and operations team for alternative payment methods. Within my team, we have APMs, so everything instant payments, wallets, cash, everything basically that's not card payments. Then we have our buy now pay later vertical, which is one of our strategic bets. We have the card present vertical, which is also one of the key projects that we are building as a lever for growth, and then crypto operations. I think what excites me most is there's something really energizing about building out sort of all of the strategic thoughts that I've picked out outside the company during the four years while I was away, right? It feels like a moment where the MBA and the consulting pattern recognition and strategic layouting is actually paying off in a concrete way. You go from a market or an opportunity being aligned on a strategic slide to an actual license and an actual operating business. So it's very exciting that at the local we get to build a lot, right? We are a big company, we we are Nasdaq listed, but we are still very hands-on in everything that we do. And that I think is the most exciting part of my work that we actually get to see the impact that our work is doing across emerging markets.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Okay.

The Future Is Human In Payments

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Well, let's pivot a little bit and talk about leadership and perspective. So this year's theme is the future is human. So when you hear that phrase, what does it mean to you as a leader in payments?

SPEAKER_01 5:21

It brings me back to what pulled me into this in the first place. I mean, it's access to the global economy for the emerging world. And there is people behind everything that we do, right? It's easy to talk about it as an abstraction, but it's actually a very human problem. It's a merchant somewhere who's never been able to accept a payment method that is culturally accepted in country, or it's a person who was not being able to participate in the global economy to consume global goods and services because their ways of payment were not accepted by the big merchants of the world. So I think the technology behind that, you know, real-time embedded, increasingly AI-driven, is what makes it possible at scale. But there's a human being that is being impacted, and there's also somebody that is making the decision of whether this specific merchant in this specific market gets to participate, right? So it still takes people who care about the outcome to point it at the right problem. So I think even though we are seeing an increase in AI and in computers in our daily lives, when it comes to payments, it's still a very, very human problem. And we still need a very human touch to understand, especially in emerging markets, what makes sense. What culturally will make sense for all of these people to be able to participate in the global economy?

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Okay.

Access Trust Resilience And Local UX

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Well, as you mentioned, payments is becoming more digital, it's becoming more embedded and becoming more intelligent. So what do you think leaders need to keep front and center as the industry keeps evolving?

SPEAKER_01 7:02

First and foremost, access. I think smarter systems shouldn't mean more exclusion. Especially like, for example, in these countries where credit history and card penetration are thin, you still need to be inclusive and to allow everybody to participate in the economy. I think trust and transparency, right? People need to understand what is happening in that black box that is technology and that it's getting even blacker with AI, right? People need to understand why a payment was approved, declined, or flagged, even why that a machine made that call. I think, I mean, for sure, resilience, right? Systems need to be always on. Embedded payments raise the cost of any downtime, right? It's it's you know, we expect real-time payments in everything, much more so than we did maybe a decade ago. And yes. And then I think I keep saying, right, but user experience and cultural fluency. I think payments need to be very much connected to the reality of the grounds in which they are operating. A payment flow needs to feel natural in one market, and that same payment flow might feel completely out of place in another. And I think the difference is where a lot of our work lives and what I think, you know, leaders need to take into account if they want to be successful with their payment strategies. Not only payment platforms, but also any global merchant that wants to operate in the global world.

Leadership Lesson Hire Better Than You

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Okay. Well, what is something that you've learned about leadership that you wish you had understood earlier in your career?

SPEAKER_01 8:29

I think it's, I mean, I it might sound like a cliche, but always try to hire people that are better than you at the task that you want them to fulfill, right? So early on, there's a pool to prove yourself by doing everything, you know? But your team's achievements reflect on you far better than anything you could do alone. And I think letting go of that and building a team you trust better than you to do their piece was a big unlock for me. And it was bigger than any individual skill that I've learned.

The Real People Behind Every Payment

SPEAKER_02 8:57

So let's talk about the human side of payments and and dive a little deeper into that. So you kind of mentioned this, but behind every payment is a person or a business or a specific need. So, how do you think about the human side of payments and the work that you do every day?

SPEAKER_01 9:13

I think about it all the time. As you said, you know, behind every pay-in or payout, there is always one specific story. It's and when you get to hear these stories, it it's it's very rewarding. Like there's a freelancer or a small merchant that gets paid on time, you know, that they get their money where they need it. They don't have to overspend on fees to get their money in their bank accounts on pay inside. It's a customer somewhere being able to pay with the wallet, with the cash voucher, with the bank transfer they use every day instead of being told, like, yeah, no, sorry, we don't accept your payment method, so you can't access this product or this service. On every side of the transaction, there is a person being included instead of being turned away. And you know, every transaction count. And it's easy to talk about payments in the aggregate, right? Like in TPV, in transaction counts, in converger rates. But the reason why any of this matters is that single pay-in or payout landing for one person at the right moment in the way that works, is why we do the work that we do and why it matters.

How To Earn Trust With Automation

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Okay, well, you mentioned the word trust earlier, so let's talk about that a little bit. It's such a critical part of payments in FinTech. So, how do you think companies can build and maintain trust as the industry becomes more automated and technology driven?

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yeah, I think uh first of all, it's transparency, as I've said before, you know, people need to understand how a decision, especially like a fraud or risk decision, got made. We don't like looking into black boxes that make decisions for us and we have no control or no way of understanding why the decision was made. I think in payments in particular, I mean it's consistency, right? The experience needs to hold up the same way across markets and payment methods. You can't have differing experiences, and that's part of the real hard work that we as the local do. We are faced with markets that have different infrastructures, that have different levels of technology. We need to abstract users and merchants from those differences, and we need to build, and we work very hard to build a platform that works the same, that is consistent and it and that is you know, you know, good across all the different markets, independent on the status of the infrastructure below. So we build on top to make sure that the level stays consistent. And then I think I would say also in cross-border payments, you know, when something goes wrong, you need to be accountable. You know, when automation gets something wrong, we need to have a fast human path to fix it. So it everything is great with AI, and we love AI, and we are, you know, embedding AI into all of our systems. But you know, it's very important to be also accountable whenever anything goes wrong, and to be able to act fast and to have humans who understand what's going on and can act on top of that.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Yeah, I mean we uh I hear it all the time. It's like, you know, payments is often like a utility, right? It's gonna work 99% of the time, but that 1% of the time when something goes wrong, that's where you know a company can really show that transparency and that trust that they've built.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Exactly. And it's I mean, for us, it's also never trying to put you know errors or whatever, like behind or or underneath a rug. We are always very transparent with what's going on, but more than transparent, we are always very active in finding a solution. And that's what's something I really like about the local. You know, everybody, everybody takes it to heart. And it doesn't matter like what area or what team you're in, if there's a problem, everybody sort of goes into it and gives their whatever they can to solve it as fast as possible. And that is human, you know.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Yeah, AI will never have that uh that empathy and that, you know, for the customer, that kind of stuff.

AI Underwriting And Alternative Data

SPEAKER_02 12:56

So what is one trend or maybe change in payments that you believe will have the biggest impact on people or businesses over the next few years?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

I think it's AI-driven credit and underwriting using alternative data. So for much of the emerging world, people have been locked out of credit simply because of the lack of traditional credit history, not because they're not credit worthy, right? Just because these credit bureaus or the data, they're not there for traditional loans or credit lines to be granted to them. But the more we use AI on transactional and payment data, we can extend credit access to people and small businesses that were previously invisible to lenders. And I think this is a very, very big shift, right? And it's gonna have a real world impact because it's not just faster payments, it's actual access to capital for people who didn't have it before. And that means increased spending, it means increased investment in resources for SMBs, for example. So I think it's a win-win because lenders, on the one hand, they are expanding their customer base, but they're not doing so in a way where they're it's riskier because they don't have data. They're just feeding from different data that they would traditionally use. And of course, for credit receivers, you know, it allows them to access the global economy in a in a much better way, but also it allows them to invest in themselves, in their businesses and grow. And I think that's where where you see a great impact in you know in both sides of the spectrum. So I'm pretty excited about that.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

So does that fit into your kind of sphere of influence at the company? I know you said BNPL, but lending as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Yes. So I mean the local is not lending. We are not in the business of lending and we won't be. But yes, bina palator for sure is is part of like my core strategic bets. And you know, how do we evolve it? It's not just like aggregating binoculators across across different markets. For us, it's also helping the different credit providers with the data that they need to make better decisions, helping them build a product that is, you know, as we said, more transparent, you know, much more reliable. So as we we as this evolves, we are as the local building on top, like a smart layer, right? That makes credit access easier, better for both the credit consumer and the lenders.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Okay.

Mentorship That Builds Conviction

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Well, let's talk about mentorship impact and a little bit about what's coming next. So who has influenced you along the way, whether that was directly or indirectly, and what did you learn from them?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Right. So I think like when I think about a mentor, I think a partner at BCG who I work very close with. Uh she was one of the leaders on the vertical that that I worked at. She was the first person who really pushed me to trust my own judgment and to walk into a room instead of like being over prepared for every possible objection to my to my strategy, but you know, to to go with with a mindset that what I of conviction in what I believe and in what I am presenting. I'd walk into client meetings with 15 backup slides, right? For not for things nobody ended up asking, right? But I needed to have them because I needed like the mental tranquility of saying, if somebody asks this, I have the numbers. And and she told me, like, you already know the answer, you know, just say it and be confident about it and and you know, make them believe it so that they won't even ask for the backup slide because the way you transmit it is has enough conviction that they believe you. And I think that stuck with me a lot. And it changed how I show up in a room and you know, being less bulletproof, but more direct and more more aware of what I'm saying and and of the fact that I am convinced that what I am saying is what I believe to be true.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Okay.

Advice For Women Entering FinTech

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Well, what advice would you give to the next generation of women that are entering payments in FinTech?

SPEAKER_01 16:53

I think the first advice it would be try not to notice that sometimes you're the only woman in the room. Not because it isn't true or that it doesn't matter, it does. And I think society is doing well in in helping us out there, but because the moment you make it the headline of your own story, it becomes a distraction from the thing that actually, you know, changes the room. And that is, you know, that women can be so good or as good or better, and you know, the more we we find the women who are as good and you know, the more we want them, and the more we want more women in the room. That's how the numbers actually shift. Not by pointing the gap, but by closing it one undeniable track record at a time, right? And the same time, I think you know, give yourself permission to have it not have it all figured out. There's real room to grow and to get things wrong too. And when you're starting out, if it's early in your career, you need to learn the job. So be okay with not knowing everything. Be aware that every sort of next step that you take is also opening up doors for other women. So, you know, be good, keep growing and and just let the rest follow, I would say.

Culture Of Trust Without Micromanaging

SPEAKER_02 18:02

So let's talk a little bit about maybe culture in your team. So maybe talk about, you know, maybe what kind of leader you are for your team and and kind of the culture that you build within your team.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

So I really like to build a culture of trust. I would say I'm I'm definitely not a macromanager. You know, I I trust my team enough to give them guidance and orient them and then just let them do their job. I don't like it when I feel like I'm interrupting them by asking them questions because I trust them enough that I know that they will ask the questions that they need to ask if they if they are stuck somehow. And also that whenever there's uh an update, they will give it to me. So something I learned from consulting, which I really like, maybe it doesn't it doesn't show that I'm not a micromanager, but it really is, is we do like very, very brief cheek daily check-ins, right? Where we just say, like, okay, what are the priorities for today? Has something shifted from where we closed at last night? Is there something you need me to help you out? Something that you have thought about that you don't know how to do? It's 15 minutes, right? But it's in those 15 minutes that we sort of set the day off and we sort of do a very little brainstorming of okay, what are we going to accomplish today, this week, maybe this month. So I I like to have a lot of close touch, but not micromanage. That's sort of like my my way. And as I said, like I've learned that the more you can empower your team and the more that you can give them visibility. I something that I've also learned during this past year is how much people sometimes need visibility of stuff that you sometimes sometimes something has been explained to you and then you just pass an order down. But it's so important to give them a rationale behind what you're asking for because it gives them another drive and it gives them another understanding of how their tasks fit into our global strategy. And I think that's super, super interesting.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Okay.

Soccer Books And How She Unwinds

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Well, let's wrap up the show with kind of one final fun question. So, what is one app or podcast or book, TV show, hobby, or maybe favorite way you unwind that gives us a glimpse into who you are outside of work?

SPEAKER_01 20:02

So I think there's like a couple of things. First of all, I really like playing soccer, and I am a huge soccer fan, right? So I play soccer, I don't do it well. I do it, I don't do it well. But I am also a huge fan of my local national team and also our our our Uruguayan selection. Unfortunately, we didn't do very well this year on the World Cup, but I'm a fan and it's something that you know takes the edge of a hard day of work, either like going to the stadium to watch for my team or or playing. And then I think I really like books. I've gone through everything, can follow it. I love series. So once I get into a series, I'll read all of them. And I'll admit I'm even loving like Fourth Wing, even though it's probably below my age bracket. I'm probably not the intended audience for Fourth Wing, but I'm really enjoying it. So once I find an author, I read them through and through, cover to cover. And then I also love, of course, spending time with friends and family. Like I make it a point of, you know, especially during the weekends, you know, do doing as much social interaction as possible. I think that's what sort of keeps me going throughout the weeks. And yeah.

Closing Thanks And Final Thought

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Well, Clares, thank you so much for being on the show today. I think that was a great way to wrap up the show. So I know your time's very valuable. So again, thank you so much for being here, and I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

It was a pleasure, Greg. Thank you so much for having me. And I hope this serves for every woman who is thinking about fintech and payments as an opening door, I would say, because I we really need more women here.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

So okay, great. So thank you so much. And to all you listeners out there, I thank you for your time as well. And until the next story,