Nuvei Voices: Meet Todor Stefanov

When a payment challenge arises, Todor Stefanov is the person teams turn to. As Senior Manager of Nuvei's Technical Payments Experts (TPE) team, Todor sits at the centre of the business, ensuring even the most complex needs are resolved efficiently. With nearly 13 years at Nuvei, he combines deep technical expertise with a talent for guiding and developing the teams around him.

From resolution to prevention

Todor’s role is as much about foresight as it is about troubleshooting. Sitting at the intersection of multiple functions, he translates technical details into clear guidance for the business, while ensuring business needs are fed back into technical solutions. His goal isn’t just to fix issues - it’s to prevent them.

“Nuvei is fast-paced, ambitious, and sometimes demanding. But if you’re proactive, adaptable, and willing to learn, you’ll grow more than you ever expected and discover skills you didn’t know you had.”

By building context, explanations, and feedback loops into every process, Todor helps colleagues understand not just what went wrong, but why - and how to prevent it from happening again.

An unconventional path to payments

Todor’s career journey before Nuvei was diverse and full of unique experiences. He worked in hospitality, rising to hotel manager, and earlier performed as a professional dancer and entertainer, working in Daegu, South Korea and later in Antalya, Turkey.

"My variety of career experiences before Nuvei taught me discipline, resilience, and people skills. Payments offered a new challenge, and once I joined, I never looked back."

His interest in payments started in hospitality, where he often encountered card-present issues without proper support.

"Running into card issues in my hospitality role pushed me to start learning on my own - about card schemes, transaction flows, and what actually happens in those few seconds between request and response. When an issue arises, my instinct is to follow the transaction as far as I can, understand every step, and bring in the right people to go deeper if needed. It's about identifying the root cause, defining an action plan, and preventing the same issue from happening again."

Todor joined Nuvei in 2013 as a Technical Support Specialist, gaining experience across integrations, configurations, client advising, and post-go-live support. Over time, he moved into leadership and eventually built the Technical Payments Experts team - a team dedicated to solving the most complex payment issues across the business.

Leading by example

For Todor, leadership means rolling up his sleeves alongside his team.

"I lead by example. I want to be the kind of leader who says, 'Follow me,' not someone who pushes others forward while staying behind. My team knows they have a partner in me - we might not have the answer immediately, but we'll find it together."

He encourages his team to challenge themselves, approach familiar problems from new perspectives, and leverage tools like AI to streamline tasks, freeing them to focus on strategic thinking and creative problem-solving.

“Change at Nuvei doesn’t happen daily - it happens constantly. Even small technical changes in one part of the system can have ripple effects elsewhere. Our job is to understand the full picture and respond effectively.”

Staying ahead

Todor's approach to payments is grounded in adaptability, continuous learning, and a commitment to understanding the full picture.

“We treat tools like AI as accelerators. They help us handle routine work so we can focus on analyzing, strategizing, and solving creatively. The more effectively we do that, the stronger our team becomes.”

Outside of work, music is Todor’s main way to recharge. He plays guitar and recently started learning the ukulele with his daughter - a creative and grounding way to switch off while spending time together.

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