Beyond the Booth: HITEC 2025 with BirchStreet Systems’ Phil Beck and David Schloss

How can AI and smarter payments help hospitality procurement teams reduce friction, cut costs, and unlock strategic value?In this episode of dojo.live, we sit down with Phil Beck, General Manager of Payments, and David Schloss, General Manager of Payments at BirchStreet Systems, to explore how AI and digital transformation are reshaping procurement in hospitality. Often overlooked in the guest-facing tech conversation, procurement and payment systems are ripe for innovation—especially as hotels face growing complexity in payments, fraud risk, and supplier networks.Phil and David break down where AI is already making an impact, how smarter workflows are streamlining operations from invoice to reconciliation, and why procurement technology can drive broader business goals—from cost control to ESG compliance to guest satisfaction. They also share what BirchStreet is showcasing at HITEC 2025, the evolving role of ecosystem partnerships, and the future trends the industry isn’t paying enough attention to—yet.About Phil BeckPhil Beck has been at the forefront of payments and technology for more than twenty-five years, serving in senior executive roles at Capital One, SAP, Ariba and FreeMarkets. He has launched and scaled multiple payments platforms serving as Head of Treasury Management for Capital One, as SVP and GM for SAP’s payments and business network and multiple card, real-time settlement, dynamic discounting and working capital finance solutions across the US, EMEA and APJ. He has been a mainstage speaker at Money2020, AFP and PYMNTS.com and is regularly sought out by innovative payments companies to develop next-generation solutions to solve B2B use cases around the world.Beck has also served as a board advisor for Series A-C companies in the payments space, including most recently at Trovata.io, Transactis (acquired by MasterCard) and Apparent Financing (an SAP.io company), and as a non-profit board member and advisor across Western PA.About David SchlossDavid Schloss comes to BirchStreet with more than 20 years of SaaS experience. He is an accomplished leader with a proven track record of leading and transforming revenue teams to achieve accelerated growth. His teams pride themselves on collaboration, transparency, execution, and having a customer-centric mindset.Previously David worked at ADP, Convergys, Oracle, and most recently Vice President and General Manager of North American Sales at Certinia, delivering over 60% revenue growth.