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Mike Peters, formerly chief executive of TSYS Merchant Solutions, is succeeding Robert O. Carr, who said last week he would step down as chief executive of Beyond Inc., the payments provider he founded in 2017. A longtime payments-industry veteran, Carr remains executive chairman of the Princeton, N.J.-based company.
Peters, whose appointment at Beyond was announced early Wednesday, says he is looking to reinforce the company’s sales and technology operations. “I come from a strong sales background,” he tells Digital Transactions News. Peters’s experience includes executive rolest at processors Chase Paymentech and TransFirst, the latter of which TSYS acquired in 2016 for $2.3 billion. TSYS itself became part of Global Payments Inc. in a $21.5-billion deal that closed late in 2019.
Peters’s appointment follows meetings the two men held over time after Peters left TSYS in March 2020. “We ‘dated,’” Peters says. “He asked, would I be interested in day-to-day operations. I said I would be.”
“Mike understands our model,” says Carr, who adds he has spent time over recent years looking for a successor. “I started talking to people probably five years ago. Mike was the clear choice.”
“I’m 76, soon to be 77,” the industry veteran adds. “It’s a business that needs younger blood.” Carr is perhaps best known as the founder and chief executive of Heartland Payment Systems, a 25-year-old company that Global Payments acquired for $4.3 billion in 2016.
Now, Carr says, the move to cede the CEO role to Peters will allow him to spend more time on Give Something Back, a non-profit that focuses on coaching homeless and foster children to succeed in school or in trades.
As for Peters, the way forward, he says, is to build on what Carr established. “I like Bob’s style and the organization he built,” he says.
