Payments Leaders' Summit

What Payments Leaders' Summit does

Payments Leaders' Summit (PLS) is an invite-only executive summit series operated under Clarion Events, a privately held UK-based events company headquartered in London. The summit targets senior leaders and C-suite executives in the global payments industry, providing a curated, vendor-light environment for peer-to-peer networking, strategic relationship building, and closed-door industry discussions. It is the flagship of a five-brand portfolio of vertically focused Leaders' Summits that also covers Fraud, Gaming, Delivery & Logistics, and Cybersecurity, all unified under the Clarion Events Leaders' Summit umbrella.

The product is fundamentally an event, not a software platform. Distribution is selective rather than open: attendance is by direct invitation to qualified senior payments executives, while corporate sponsors purchase access to that curated audience. The underlying infrastructure — registration, sponsorship sales, attendee vetting, content programming, and venue logistics — is provided by Clarion Events' established events operating platform. There are no disclosed APIs, integrations, mobile applications, or proprietary technology components; the moat is the brand, the audience curation, and the operational backbone of the parent company.

PLS monetizes through two streams: attendee registration/attendance fees and event sponsorship. Pricing is not publicly disclosed and is presumably negotiated individually with both invitees and sponsors. Marketing leverages cross-promotion across the five Leaders' Summit properties and Clarion Events' broader portfolio. The company is privately held with 11-50 employees, was founded in 2013, and operates on a global hosting footprint despite its UK domicile.

Name

Payments Leaders' Summit

Legal name

Clarion Events

Website

https://payexpo.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2013

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Payments Leaders' Summit is an invite-only executive summit, operated by Clarion Events, that connects C-suite and senior leaders in the global payments industry for peer networking and strategic discussions, alongside four sister summits in adjacent verticals.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

B2B Executive Events

NAICS

Convention and Trade Show Organizers (56192)

SIC

Services-Membership Organizations (8600)

akta.pro primary industry

Executive Leadership Summits (C-Suite, Board, Strategy Offsites) (THAHAMAA)

akta.pro secondary industry

Executive Summits & Invitation-Only Forums (MPAGAGAK)

Keywords

• Executive networking events
• Invite-only summits
• Payment industry events
• B2B conference services
• Industry leadership summits

Headquarters

HQ city

London

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Summit Registration and Attendance Fees: Revenue generated from senior leaders attending the invite-only Payments Leaders' Summit. The event provides exclusive networking opportunities for C-suite and senior executives in the payments industry.
2. Event Sponsorship: Corporate sponsorship opportunities for brands seeking to engage with senior payments industry leaders at the summit.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels1 record

Core offering

The Payments Leaders' Summit is an invite-only executive summit for senior leaders and C-suite executives in the global payments industry. It operates as a branded event within Clarion Events' Leaders' Summit portfolio, delivering curated, closed-door networking and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing experiences for verified senior decision-makers, deliberately excluding vendor-dominated open conference formats.

Product overview

Payments Leaders' Summit is an invite-only event series hosted by Clarion Events, connecting senior leaders across multiple industries globally. The offering is a portfolio of five dedicated summits: Payments Leaders' Summit (PLS) as the primary focus, along with Fraud Leaders' Summit (FLS), Gaming Leaders' Summit (GLS), Delivery and Logistics Leaders' Summit (DLLS), and Cyber Leaders' Summit (CLS). Each summit operates as a separate branded event targeting senior professionals in its respective industry, unified under the Clarion Events Leaders' Summit umbrella with the tagline 'Connecting leaders, empowering communities, inspiring change.'

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Payments Leaders' Summit: Invite-only summit connecting senior leaders in the payments industry.
• Fraud Leaders' Summit
• Gaming Leaders' Summit
• Delivery and Logistics Leaders' Summit
• Cyber Leaders' Summit

Products and services

• Payments Leaders' Summit (PLS) An invite-only executive summit for senior leaders in the global payments industry, providing a closed-door venue for peer networking, knowledge sharing, and strategic relationship building among C-suite executives.
• Fraud Leaders' Summit (FLS) An invite-only executive summit for senior leaders focused on fraud prevention and security, part of the Clarion Events Leaders' Summit portfolio serving a vertical adjacent to payments.
• Gaming Leaders' Summit (GLS) An invite-only executive summit for senior leaders in the gaming industry, part of Clarion Events' global Leaders' Summit series.
• Delivery and Logistics Leaders' Summit (DLLS) An invite-only executive summit for senior leaders in the delivery and logistics sector, part of Clarion Events' Leaders' Summit event series.
• Cyber Leaders' Summit (CLS) An invite-only executive summit for senior cybersecurity leaders, part of Clarion Events' Leaders' Summit portfolio.

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves1 record

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• PayExpo: The same company's original broader-attendance payments expo brand, from which Payments Leaders' Summit was carved out. Operates in the same payments-vertical events space with a more open registration model, representing the closest sibling format for comparable audience development.
• Money 20/20: The flagship large-scale payments industry conference series. Directly comparable in audience (senior payments executives) and content, though Money 20/20 operates at a much larger open-attendance scale — a useful benchmark for the upper bound of payments industry event monetization.
• Finextra: Long-running financial services industry events, news and community platform. Reaches many of the same senior banking and payments decision-makers and operates comparable sponsorship-led event revenue streams, making it a direct audience-overlap peer.
• Evanta (a Gartner Company): Operates a large portfolio of invite-only executive summits (CIO, CISO, CHRO, CFO) under a community membership model. Highly comparable to the Leaders' Summit portfolio in format (invitation-only, peer-led, no vendor pitches) and sponsor monetization approach.
• Money LIVE: A senior-executive financial services event series covering banking, payments, and fintech. Comparable in targeting senior decision-makers with curated conference formats, and competes for the same sponsorship pool.

Broad incumbents

• Shoptalk: Large retail and commerce event covering payments, ecommerce, and digital retail at senior-executive level. Overlaps significantly on payments content and sponsor base but operates at larger open-attendance scale across a broader retail commerce agenda.
• The Economist Events: Runs a portfolio of invitation-only and ticketed executive summits across industries including finance and technology. Comparable curated-summit format and senior-executive audience targeting, with established sponsorship monetization.
• Sibos (SWIFT): SWIFT's flagship annual financial services conference for senior banking, payments, and treasury executives. Comparable audience and global event scale, with significant sponsor competition for the same senior payments buyer pool.
• Reuters Events: Operates a portfolio of senior-executive financial services and payments conferences and digital events. Comparable audience (C-suite banking and payments leaders) and overlapping sponsor base with the Leaders' Summit portfolio.

Others

• Clarion Events: The parent company and operator of the Leaders' Summit portfolio. Not a market competitor but the underlying platform that provides brand credibility, shared services, and distribution to Payments Leaders' Summit.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/LeadersPayments
• Facebookfacebook.com/PayExpo
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/payexpo

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Payments Leaders' Summit