Pay.com.au's new CMO David Walsh talks AI and expansion

Melbourne-founded B2B fintech pay.com.au has promoted three internal leaders to newly created executive roles, as the payments and rewards platform pushes further into the US market after processing more than $20 billion in payments for its network of over 30,000 Australian businesses.

David Walsh moves from Head of Digital, CX & Marketing to Chief Marketing Officer. Base Emera steps up from Head of Growth to Executive General Manager of Revenue. Yvonne Gilmour is promoted from Head of Operations to Executive General Manager of Customer Operations.

As chief marketing officer, Walsh will oversee marketing, the company's loyalty program, company-wide AI enablement and the platform's US growth strategy. 

He joined pay.com.au early in its history and previously spent four years as head of product and marketing at frequent flyer publisher Point Hacks.

 

 

 

 

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Pay.com.au's David Walsh answers questions after new appointment

Mediaweek asked Walsh for some insights after the announcement of his new role.

MW: How does it feel going from your early start with the company to being in this position now? Do you have any advice for others wanting to do the same?

DW: Scaling pay.com.au from an early-stage startup to supporting over 30,000 Australian businesses and processing $20B in payment transactions has been a huge run for me. 

We’ve never operated like a traditional marketing team – whether we're building rewards programs or deploying internal AI tools, my goal has always been to drive tangible commercial value rather than chase vanity metrics. 

In my new role, I’d like to focus on scaling that same performance mindset globally across our brand, loyalty and AI operations.

My advice for marketers looking to step into executive roles is to learn the economics of your business. Stop relying on generic marketing theory and get deeply involved in the product mechanics. 

When you understand exactly how your platform makes and saves money for the customer, knowing how to drive real commercial growth becomes straightforward.

MW: What do you think is the appeal of your particular loyalty program model?

DW: Cost of living and margin pressures are hitting Aussie businesses hard, so owners are looking to squeeze every bit of value out of their existing cash flow. 

That’s where the appeal lies — it comes down to unlocking value from money businesses had to spend anyway. 

Australia has a massive points culture, but businesses here are still spending a lot on bills like BAS, payroll and invoices — areas where rewards traditionally don't exist. By unlocking points on those expenses and letting people transfer them across 17 major airline and hotel partners, we turn routine operational overhead into flight upgrades, travel perks and real commercial value.

MW: In what way is AI supporting the platform's US expansion?

DW: For us, AI is about operational speed and enabling our teams to do more with less. Expanding into the US means we need to test ideas fast without pulling engineers off critical product work. 

Additionally, our new AI Solutions and Automations Lead, Yujin Tan, built an internal platform called the Pay Build Kit, which lets anyone — whether they're in ops, marketing, or sales — request, build and test their own simple work tools without needing a coding background. That keeps our engineering team focused on building for our customers, while our broader team continues to get the tools they need to run the US expansion and innovate at the same time. 

Today, a marketer at pay.com.au can ideate, design and deploy new experiences at speeds not possible 12 months ago.