Kjell Petridis – President and Founder

Kjell, President and Founder of L3 Payments, has spent over 20 years providing services in the payment processing industry. The founding of L3 Payments followed Kjell’s departure from Jettis Inc. in 2005. Kjell was a Founding Director of Jettis Inc. and its President for six years. He served on the Board of Directors for Jettis Inc., from 1998 through February of 2005. During his tenure as President, he successfully led the company through the formative stages of raising capital and product development, as well as overseeing the day-to-day operations of the company and firmly establishing Jettis as a leader within its target markets. These experiences culminated in his success assisting in the negotiations of a multi-million dollar sale of Jettis’s IPSP portfolio to its largest competitor, Paycom.

A native of California, Kjell earned his Bachelors Degree in Psychology from Azusa Pacific University, a private liberal arts university in Southern California.

Kjell is the resident expert on productivity tools and MAC shortcuts. Creating a culture of trust and friendship, L3 Payments is an extension of how Kjell likes to operate. When Kjell is not tending to the needs of the business, he enjoys traveling, time with his family and supporting the USC Trojans. Fight On!

Thomas Kraus – Vice President

Thomas Kraus began his journey with e-commerce and client relations in 2002 when he worked with the payment services provider, Jettis. In 2008, he joined the L3 payments team as the Director of Client Services.

Thomas applies his extensive 17 years of experience to satisfy the needs of his clients in many ways. He tackles everything from risk management, chargeback reduction, and the implementation of successful and wide-ranging billing strategies.

Never missing an opportunity to impress, Thomas also improves the throughput of his clients. He works closely with L3’s banking partners to ensure each merchant’s individual needs are met, and does not stop until they are 100 percent satisfied.

Thomas is known affectionately as L3’s resident technical problem-solver. Using his comprehensive knowledge of several gateway platforms, he problem-solves and troubleshoots everything technical on all levels of the processing chain from gateway to processor to acquiring bank.

Furthermore, Thomas is the internal project manager for the development team, focusing mainly on creating analytics that aid in monitoring and offering consulting to merchants in areas such as risk management and throughput optimization. He also works closely with L3’s domestic and international call centers to facilitate merchant and call center integrations.

In his spare time, Thomas enjoys spending time with his wife and three kids, playing guitar, collecting records, and watching baseball and basketball.

Melody Lashmar – Advisor, Payment Technology Solutions

Melody has been active in the financial services industry for over 20 years, working on projects in the USA, Canada and Europe. Melody rejoined L3 Payments as an advisor in 2017 after expanding her experience in mobile, online, walk-in and telephone payments. Melody was COO of L3 payment starting in January of 2009, bringing her expertise in alternative payment options to online merchants. Prior to L3 Payments, Melody specialized in Remote Deposit Capture, ACH processing and Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) for both Financial Institutions and Merchants. Rounding out her payments experience with credit card processing, Melody brings an extensive and unique perspective regarding online payment acceptance.

Melody graduated from the University of Waterloo with an Honors Bachelor of Mathematics degree. Melody furthered her payment expertise through completing MIT’s Fintech: Future of Ecommerce certificate program in April of 2017.