The people behind paymentvibes
About Vassilina Walford
Vassilina Lapteva Walford, Founder & Managing Director
Back in my corporate days at one of the world’s most demanding luxury brands, nobody wanted responsibility for payments. It was buried in back-office operations, treated as a cost — not a capability. Finance was too slow to act on it, so Tech filled the vacuum with its own priorities: integration speed, lowest cost, least effort. Nobody was thinking about the customer. Nobody was thinking strategically.
I spent almost 20 years proving that wrong. I started alone and built payments into a strategic function from a blank page. By the time I left, teams were competing to get ownership of what I’d built.
Now I do the same for luxury brands that need the transformation but don’t have the capacity to drive it alone. I embed as their Fractional Head of Payments and work from the inside — starting with the business, not the technology. I don’t sell blue sky. I start with what’s broken, fix what delivers ROI fastest, and build from there.
Why I do this: Every luxury brand deserves a payments function that works as hard as the rest of the business. I founded PaymentVibes to close that gap.
My Approach
Business-first
Every engagement starts with the business problem, not the technology. Your payments strategy should serve your growth ambitions — not the other way around.
Diagnostic before prescription
I don’t come with a pre-built solution. I start by understanding what’s actually happening — the costs, the gaps, the quick wins — before recommending anything.
Embedded, not external
I work alongside your team as a true extension — not as an outside consultant who delivers a deck and disappears. What I build is designed to stay.
Merchant perspective
I’ve sat in your chair. I know what questions the CFO is asking, what the board needs to hear, and what the tech team won’t tell you. That perspective changes everything.
Like my approach? Let's see what it can do for your payments.
If the way I work resonates with how you want to run your business — I’d love to hear what you’re dealing with.
