New CPO Ensures Barclays Payments Maintains Competitive Edge

Barclaycard Payments has strengthened its leadership team with a new senior appointment.

Caroline Smith has been named Chief People Officer, as the business advances its people strategy to support long-term growth and competitiveness in an evolving fintech landscape.

Her role will focus on aligning talent, culture and workforce capabilities with the demands of a rapidly digitising payments sector.

Across the wider Barclays Group, investment in workforce transformation is accelerating, with a growing emphasis on AI readiness and enhanced learning and development programmes.

This comes as Barclaycard Payments continues to scale, supported by its strategic partnership with Brookfield Asset Management.

HR leadership experience

Caroline joins Barclaycard Payments from a Chief People Officer role within the insurance sector, where she spent more than six years leading people strategy across a complex, customer-focused business.

Prior to this, she held a series of senior HR leadership roles, including People Partner Director of Transformation and CIO at Lloyds Bank, SVP of HR Operations at Pearson and Group HR Transformation Director at BT – positions centred on delivering large-scale, technology-driven transformation across global organisations.

She also spent nearly eight years at PepsiCo, joining as HR Director, Change in 2004 and progressing to European HR Director for R&D, Finance and BIS by 2012, building deep experience in aligning talent strategy with innovation and operational change.

Leadership changes at Barclaycard Payments

The appointment of Caroline as Chief People Officer comes amid broader changes to Barclaycard Payments’ leadership structure.

In January, Jason Lalor was named CEO of Barclaycard Payments, bringing extensive experience across financial services and fintech, including senior leadership roles at Square and Mastercard.

Jason describes his appointment as a “crucial moment”, saying he is "proud to have been awarded such an important opportunity, a significant one in our industry". 

He adds: “By partnering closely with Barclays and Brookfield we can bring together innovation, scale, a prestigious brand and drive meaningful transformation – creating great outcomes for our customers and people.

"I am eager to get started and am looking forward to the journey ahead.”

Matt Hammerstein, CEO of Barclays UK Corporate Bank, says: “Jason brings exceptional experience and a clear vision for innovation, which will help us deliver even greater value to our clients and partners. 

“This is a pivotal moment for Barclaycard Payments, and I’m confident that under his leadership, we will continue to set the standard for excellence in the industry.”

Transforming Barclay’s payment acceptance business

Barclaycard Payments has experienced strong growth over the past year following its partnership with Brookfield Asset Management.

As part of the agreement, Barclays committed an investment of approximately USD$539.86m into the business, while Brookfield has brought strategic expertise to support its ongoing transformation and scale within the payments ecosystem.

This strategic partnership is supporting the evolution of Barclaycard Payments into a standalone entity and is expected to deliver “meaningfully improved financial performance” for the business.

Barclays says the collaboration will enable an expanded range of services while enhancing the payments experience for both existing and prospective clients.

Matt says: “Finding a partner to support us in transforming our payment acceptance business, in a way that will enable us both to serve our clients’ interests better and pursue a path to releasing value from the business, demonstrates clear execution of our three-year plan to become a simpler, better and more balanced bank.  

“We have a leading position in the UK, but we know that our payments clients are increasingly looking for integrated connectivity, an end-to-end service and tailored technological solutions from their payments providers.

"Our partnership with Brookfield recognises the opportunity within our business to go beyond the foundations we have built to date.”