Merchant Link Names Laura Kirby-Meck as Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing

SILVER SPRING, Md., Oct. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Merchant Link, a leading provider of payment gateway and data security solutions, has named Laura Kirby-Meck as executive vice president of sales and marketing. Kirby-Meck is a hospitality industry veteran with over twenty years experience leading successful sales teams and implementing marketing strategies to position leading hospitality companies in the market.

Kirby-Meck's in-depth understanding of the hospitality and lodging market, including her time managing hotel sales, government solutions sales and program management teams at Micros, will be instrumental for Merchant Link, which has been selling into this market both directly and through processor relationships.

"Merchants in nearly every industry are faced with the pressures of offering a safe and secure environment where customer payment information is protected from attack," said Dan Lane, president and CEO of Merchant Link. "No one understands this pressure better than the hospitality and lodging industry. Between the ever-increasing security threat and tokenization and encryption guidance being released by the PCI Council, merchants are looking for partners to help them ease the burden. Laura's vast experience in the market will be key to raising awareness of our solutions within that community."

Prior to joining Merchant Link, Kirby-Meck was the CEO of Sonata Venture Solutions, a public relations, marketing and branding agency that serves B2B, B2G and emerging growth companies. She previously served as Chief Marketing Officer for the hospitality technology solution provider, Multi-Systems, Inc., as a Director at hospitality software-provider, SoftBrands and as a Vice President at MICROS Systems, Inc., the world's leading provider of enterprise solutions for hospitality and retail industries.

"During my career I've had the opportunity to work with companies developing the solutions to help hoteliers, restaurateurs and others succeed," shared Laura Kirby-Meck. "I'm excited to be working with Merchant Link, whose payment gateway and data security services are just as critical as the point-of-sale and property management systems that power their business."

About Merchant Link

Merchant Link is a leading provider of cloud-based payment gateway and data security solutions, removing the risk and hassle from credit card acceptance for more than 150,000 hotel, restaurant and retailers. Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Silver Spring, Md., Merchant Link currently enables more than 3 billion transactions annually for some of the world's best-known merchants, providing connectivity to the major U.S. payment card processors. TransactionVault™, our tokenization solution, and TransactionShield™, our point-to-point encryption solution, mitigate the risk of a data compromise while lowering the cost and effort of PCI compliance. Further information is available at www.merchantlink.com. For our expert opinion on encryption, tokenization and PCI compliance, visit our blog at www.merchantlinksecuritycents.com.

Media Contacts:
Shany Seawright, 240-485-1081
[email protected]

SOURCE Merchant Link