Pago eTransaction Services GmbH — Senior Partner Manager, March 2003 to December 2005. Responsible for building and managing sales partnerships with German and international payment service providers. This role marked the transition from digital agency work into the payments industry that would define the subsequent 20 years of the career.
As Senior Partner Manager at Pago eTransaction Services, Michael Brinkmann was responsible for building and managing partnerships with German and international payment service providers. This role provided deep immersion in the payments ecosystem — merchant acquiring, transaction processing, and partner channel development — during a formative period of digital payment adoption in Germany.
The experience at Pago laid the groundwork for the subsequent 14 years at Wirecard, where partnership management and payment ecosystem development became central leadership responsibilities at a much larger scale.