We are delighted to welcome wholesale-sector IT expert Andy Payne as our new Solutions Manager. Working closely with Technical Director, Mark Vasey, his extensive experience will help us pick up the pace of our software development operations as we embark on our most-ambitious Tech Roadmap yet.
With nearly four decades in project and product management, Andy is also a keen marathon runner and long-distance hiker so knows a thing or two about streamlining, discipline and what it takes to stay the course.
Ivan Durkin, STL Managing Director, said,
‘We’ve long known and respected Andy, most recently as our primary contact at partner NCR, and we know he will bring new rigour and the very best practice to our development team.’
Meet Andy ‘POS’ Payne
Andy’s career began at wholesale IT heavyweight Riva and wove through some of the leading names in Point of Sale and omnichannel systems, including Torex and NCR, which has given him a significant understanding of STL customers’ current and emerging business challenges.
He also brings us a valuable global outlook. This was established early – as a Forces child, he spent his first seven years in Malaysia – and has steadily built throughout a career which most recently included working with development teams in Milan, Munich and Atlanta for NCR.
These days, he likes to escape closer to home, to the ‘wilder’ parts of the UK from Northumberland to the New Forest, in his trusty caravan. At his side you’ll variously find his wife, two adult stepdaughters and three rescue dogs – a Doberman from Spain, Ridgeback-cross from Romania and ‘the most trouble’ a Daschund from the UK.
He juggles these trips with training for marathons and helping to organise his local Park Run in Rotherham. And, when he isn’t running, he’s walking with his beloved hounds. He says it is a ‘great way to unwind’ – although we wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘relaxing’ as his ‘little hikes’ can extend to 25 miles at the weekend!
This impressive energy and work ethic will be a great boost to STL and our customers. Andy’s work here will include overseeing the transition of all legacy products to a single source code which will help our customers benefit more seamlessly from future enhancements and innovations. He will also work closely with customers on real-world product trials, which currently include our smart new Android handhelds.
In turn, this will free Mark up to accelerate the introduction of exciting additions to STL’s ever-expanding portfolio – including MMS Evo Cloud. This next-generation, browser-based iteration of STL MMS Evo will be multi-tenanted with one primary platform supporting exclusive databases for each wholesaler. This distributed structure will allow users to immediately gain from any new updates and ‘anywhere/anytime’ access while benefiting from the highest levels of security, integrity and resilience.
