Ray Clopton is a leading payments industry and technology expert with more than 25 years of experience who has been a featured speaker at conferences throughout North America, Europe and Asia. As President and CEO of STS, a leading provider of innovative technology for small businesses, Ray Clopton is as devoted to building the small businesses his company serves as he is to the success of his own organization. Clopton is a firm believer that every business should benefit every customer it serves, whether directly or indirectly. His goal is to ensure each solution STS offers is easily understood, convenient and reliable. His commitment to this mission led to the company’s latest big-business solution for small businesses: Wilbur, an ultra-simple, privacy-friendly loyalty rewards program built on 20 years of insights. Clopton has become a publicized thought leader in the space since, and Wilbur has been featured in multiple media industry-leading outlets, as a result, including Small Business Trends, TotalRetail, Marketing Dive CSNews Online, Modern Restaurant Management, AlleyWatch, StartupNation, Convenience Store News, DIY Marketers, Customer Think, Specialty Food, Grocery Dive, Pizza Magazine Quarterly and The Wise Marketer.Today STS serves more than 11,000 merchants, helping them grow their businesses. As a result, STS simultaneously supports the local economies and communities in which each small business is located. One of the company’s highly successful distribution channels is LocalGiftCards.com, which makes it easy for customers to purchase email, mobile and physical gift cards from small businesses online. The division also enables merchants to sell gift cards on their websites and Facebook pages. Another tool STS provides to help small businesses succeed is GiftCardSupplyStore.com, which provides promotional materials and display units that empower merchants to sell more in-store gift cards. Prior to founding Smart Transaction Systems (STS) in 1998, he founded Clopton & Associates, a consulting firm that specialized in helping companies in the bankcard, healthcare and telecommunications industries bring new products to market. The firm’s clients included Visa, VeriFone and Merchant Link. Clopton’s business management philosophy can best be summed up by this George S. Patton quote: “A good plan, executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.”