About

Casey Furman heads legal affairs for the Latin America and Caribbean operations of Verifone, an electronic payment company that sells merchant payment devices and operating systems to businesses across the world. Furman works closely with the executive function for Latin America and the Caribbean to oversee all deals in the region. He has also played an important role in supporting Verifone’s wider evolution from a device sales company to a solutions provider by making sure the Latin American aspects of this change run smoothly. ‘As part of the expansion of our services business’, says Furman, ‘we are striking new deals for field services and repairs, software development and licensing, professional services, payment gateways and commerce enablement solutions. These expanded services offerings grow our recurring revenue base and allow us to more comprehensively serve the needs of our clients in a market that is seeking better ways to solve the growing complexity of payments with ever more frictionless and secure solutions’. From his base at Verifone’s regional headquarters in Miami, Furman has had to find creative ways to manage a legal team spread over a number of jurisdictions. ‘For an in-house lawyer, being close to the ground and understanding the culture of the region, and how to do deals there is important’, says Furman. ‘Like many LatAm counsel, I have had to develop new ways to use things like video conferencing so the team feels like a team and not a collection of isolated individuals’. The number of territories in which Verifone has operations is also a complicating factor from a legal point of view: ‘Each country in which we operate has its own often highly specific standards’, says Furman. ‘At the same time, all point of sale devices need to be up to Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards around things like data security. Part of the value that a legal team adds is finding that difficult balance between the local and the international while ensuring that major clients trust our offering. A prerequisite for making a sale in this industry is that clients are first and foremost comfortable with security. The security of our devices is one of our big competitive advantages, and finding ways to communicate that makes a front-line contribution to the business’. Before moving in-house, Furman spent eight years at White & Case, with the bulk of this time spent in the firm’s São Paolo office. ‘Working at a large international firm but being based outside the major hubs of New York or London is some of the best preparation you can get for the move in-house’, says Furman. ‘You end up in more of a corporate generalist role and that experience enables you to move in-house and get comfortable with a broad mandate very quickly’.