Article
My Start at Adyen: Aman
Amanvir "Aman" Mullee, Head of Account Management, North America, Platforms and Financial Services, shares his path to Adyen, and why genuine curoisty is key to being successful on his team.
Walking away from a career in law for an entirely new industry, skillset, and country is a bold move. Luckily as the saying goes, fortune (and Adyen) favors the bold.
We sat down with Amanvir "Aman" Mullee, Head of Account Management, North America, Platforms and Financial Services, to talk about that career leap and the growth that can come from starting over.
The word “adyen” translates to ‘to start again’ in the Sranan Tongo language. How does the concept of starting again fit into your story professionally or personally?
Funnily enough, I looked up the meaning of the word “adyen” before my interview just so I'd sound like I knew what I was talking about. But it ended up resonating on two real levels. On the career side, I did start again. I went from law, into payments and account management, both of which I knew nothing about going in. On a personal level, it maps to how I think about work generally. Fail fast, try something, if it doesn't work, pivot, and try again. It sounds corny, but it's genuinely how the culture operates day to day. We build new processes, new approaches, adjust, and go again.
You mentioned starting your career in law, not fintech. What inspired that pivot?
I was a tax lawyer at KPMG in Sydney on the M&A tax team, then moved to the US to practice tax law here. It was a completely different world from where I ended up. But I'd always been curious about payments. My sister worked in the industry back in Australia, and it always struck me as an industry that was constantly evolving and innovating. I didn't actually know what payments as a career could look like. I started by talking to people in the industry. One of our clients at the law firm happened to work at Adyen, and he basically said if you want to truly understand payments, go to the source. That is how the conversations started.
What was that transition like, coming from a more traditional background?
Honestly, a bit disarming. I came from a world where you account for every six minutes of your day and everyone's in a suit. Walking into Adyen interviews, I felt overdressed just wearing a collared shirt. Everyone was just human. For a second I thought I was being pranked. At the same time, there was a lot of autonomy and the payments industry is incredibly complex. The learning curve was a lot steeper than I gave it credit for and I can say it took at least a year to feel comfortable in the world of payments.
What separates a good Account Manager from a great one here at Adyen?
Curiosity, honestly. Account management here isn't just sales or support. We grow as our customers grow. Curiosity is what lets you understand what a customer is dealing with before they've fully articulated it themselves. Combine that with being bold enough to act on it, and you've got the core of what makes someone successful in this role.
How does that curiosity and boldness show up day-to-day?
The industry moves fast, and you're often learning alongside your customers rather than ahead of them. The strongest account managers aren't just reacting to what a customer needs right now. They're thinking two or three steps ahead about where the industry is heading and how Adyen should shape itself for that future.
Bold, to me, is about the amount of autonomy people are handed here at every level. Not every company lets people make decisions and own outcomes the way Adyen does, and that comes with real risk. It's baked into how the business runs. Some people thrive in that kind of environment, and others find it's not the right fit. That is okay too, but if you want ownership, this is a place that gives it to you.
What does career growth look like inside the Account Management team at Adyen?
Account Management plugs you into nearly every part of the business, whether you plan for it or not. You work with Product, Operations, and even Engineering. Some people even pivot into those areas from here.
There's an individual contributor track, which includes account manager, senior, and principal roles for people who want to go deep as subject matter experts. Those folks often understand a customer better than anyone else in the business. There is also a people management path if you want to lead a team.
You made that jump yourself, from an Account Manager to a Head of Account Management. What did that look like?
I joined not really knowing what account management even was. About six months in, Covid hit and reshaped the whole payments industry overnight. From there I moved into a senior account manager role focused on our platforms business, working with some of our biggest customers like eBay and GoFundMe. As our customer base and team continued to grow, I was given the opportunity to build and lead that platforms account management team, and now as the team has really evolved, I am lucky to run account management for platforms across North America.
My journey is a good example of “owning your career” at Adyen. At every turn, I have been deeply curious about what our customers need to grow, and built systems and structures to ensure that we are best placed to support that. Having the autonomy and incredible people around me opened doors to allow me to continue growing within leadership.
How would you describe the Account Management team culture and way of working together?
We spend a lot of time together, not just at work. Trust comes from that. Even right after this chat with you, we're heading to a park for a team outing. It's those small, ordinary moments that build something real over time.
From a team structure perspective, we often have two people working the same customer account, which forces a structure built on trust rather than competition. We focus on making sure the customer is covered, not who gets credit. In a space like embedded payments, where we're all still learning, the mindset is that when one of us figures something out, the whole team needs to know. If we hoarded that knowledge instead, we'd all lose.
Outside of the people, what continues to keep you here at Adyen, almost seven years in?
7 years in and I feel like we are just scratching the surface on the impact we can have in the industry. We continue to build on a truly unique foundation of technology and banking licenses which allows us to think differently. Layer in the huge amount of data we have and the work we are doing with AI and ML and there is really something special in the works. That feeling of knowing there is more to do is what keeps me energized here.
Is there anything else that stands out to you about Adyen's culture that you’d want potential candidates to know?
Authenticity. We genuinely encourage people to be themselves and always show up as your authentic self.The culture is built on individuality, with people learning from each other's different backgrounds and experiences. That's really what holds it together.
Interested in starting again? Our account management team is hiring across North America and our global offices. Explore open roles here.
