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Rasheed Behrooznia: Beyond the Student ID & The Future of Campus Commerce and Experience
00:29:31
How can universities create a seamless, safe, and connected experience that meets the soaring expectations of today's students? In this episode of Edtech Connect, host Jeff Dillon sits down with Rasheed Behrooznia, Executive Vice President and General Manager at Transact+ CBORD, who leads a $250 million business serving over 1,500 institutions. Drawing from his unique background in defense systems engineering and transportation tech, Rasheed explains why the modern campus is like a "smart city" and how mission-critical technology—from mobile credentials in digital wallets to AI-powered dining—is the key to navigating it. They dive into the explosive 90% adoption rate of mobile student IDs, how his team balances massive scale with rapid innovation, and why the convergence of FinTech and EdTech is creating powerful new insights. For any leader looking to reduce friction and build a truly integrated campus ecosystem, this conversation is a masterclass in leveraging technology to put t...
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- [00:00]
A
I think that the rate of innovation continues to increase. I mean, it's been doing this for decades for sure, and now it's just even more. What I've noticed is that the technology and innovation rate change is matched by expectation. So anything is literally possible. And that's what student expectations at some level are as well. The table stakes of the past are not the table stakes of where we are today. And so how are we kind of adapting to meet those needs?
- [00:42]
B
Welcome to another episode of the EdTech Connect podcast. Today's guest is Rashid Baruznia, Executive Vice President and General Manager at Transact C Seaboard. Rashid brings more than two decades of leadership across technology, engineering and product strategy at Transact Seaboard. He leads a 250 million dollar business serving over 1500 higher education institutions, delivering secure, scalable and student centered ID and commerce solutions. His work empowers universities to create seamless, safe and connected campus experiences through cutting edge cloud and mobile technologies. Rashid's background spans senior roles at Cubic Transportation Systems and Lockheed Martin where he led large global teams and drove innovations in enterprise software, payments and cloud platforms. A holder of multiple patents and a recipient of the Hughes Career Achievement Award, Rashid is not only a tech visionary but also a passionate mentor and collaborator. His leadership at Transact Seaboard is transforming the way students live and learn on campus. So, Rasheed, it is great to have you on the show. Thanks for being here.
- [01:56]
A
Jeff, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to chat today.
- [01:59]
B
Well, let's start with I want to know what one surprising thing about your college experience that shaped your career today.
- [02:07]
A
Yeah, I think for many of us college is kind of an enlightening thing experience where you get an opportunity to kind of explore some new areas that you never thought maybe was, was interesting before. I think, you know, I, I was a, an engineering student but I would say a couple of things that definitely caught my attention was I really got attracted to kind of philosophy and, and some of those, you know, I like the strategic and long term thinking of a lot of philosophical questions which was a part of me that I never really thought would be part of my journey. But yeah, the engineering curriculum was something I was very, very attracted to. Kind of going into college and exploring kind of new thoughts and technology ways of doing things. It was just kind of an eye opening experience, just that mind expanding kind of journey that you all hope for and I was very thankful for that.
- [03:02]
B
I love the book by Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers and it's all about timing. When you were Born what was around. And it's crazy how people fall into things just based on when they were born and what's happening.
- [03:14]
A
That's so true.
- [03:15]
B
And you've had a diverse journey from Lockheed Martin to Qubit to now leading Tranzact Seaboard. What key moments guided this path to edtech?
- [03:27]
A
It's a good question and it kind of follows that previous question you were asking me. You know, when I, I kind of started my career getting the opportunity to serve and in defense with Lockheed Martin was something I was exceptionally proud of. Giving back to our nation and the things that I could do in my own way was exciting. I was always intrigued by how could I also have experiences that I could share more with my family and friends, you know, because, you know, the things that we could do at Lockheed, though exceptional, were not so much things you experience on the day to day, which kind of led me to my experience with cubic where public transit and the things that we provided out for some of the largest transportation agencies in North America and across the world. I got to interact with and I found that very, very cool. There was a number of occasions where I could take my family and my kids on some of the systems that my team had built and I really, really liked that. And so then taking that kind of one step further. Higher ed has always been kind of near and dear to me. I work very closely with the University of San Diego, serve on a number of advisory boards and helping them with sort of their future mission and the things that they're looking to do. And when the opportunity came to where I could help provide that technology on, you know, working with Transact Seaboard, I had a jump on it. It was kind of that dream come true moment where I can be in higher ed but I can also work on technology innovation, something that my family and friends can get an opportunity to see. And it was just that, better to be lucky than good kind of experience where I found a company that kind of meshed very well with desire. So it was great.
- [05:08]
B
So Transact Seaboard serves over 1500 higher ed institutions. I'd like to just hear from you what the mission is of Transact Seaboard and how do you stay connected to what students and campuses truly need.
- [05:22]
A
You kind of hit on some of it just in kind of that first piece which is, it's about the campus, it's about the leaders on campus and their mission to provide the best experience for their students. Some of that is safety, whether that's through secure door access, preventing fraud, things that are compliance with Regulations and just ensuring that information security component efficiency. I mean, if you think about what a student is going through on their day to day and the different, you know, they're transitioning from one thing to the next just immediately and then ensuring that all those systems and administrators are all connected, it's kind of, you know, that safe efficiency, connected ecosystem to optimize that student experience. That's what it's all about, how we stay connected to that. We do that in kind of a number of ways. I think, you know, we strongly believe in and listening really kind of hearing and experiencing some of the challenges or opportunities that our clients are faced with. We do that with advisory councils, we have user groups, we do have a user conference where we try to bring all of our clients together. Regular client check ins. We have technology that's aggregating data around the experiences that our clients are using. Looking at time of day usage, where there's peaks, where there's valleys, kind of looking across the landscape. And then I would say we believe heavily on kind of taking a leadership position in the space our clients have entrusted us. And they depend on our systems on the daily. And so we take that very seriously. And looking at ways that we can kind of reinvent or even disrupt ourselves is something that we believe is part of our responsibility back into our clients. And so we have a lot of innovation and R and D that goes into rethinking some of our solutions as we're listening to our client pains. And again, kind of going back to that student experience.
- [07:26]
B
Yeah, I love the mission. I'd love to learn from the practical side. Your work centers on creating this safe, efficient, connected campus. Can you break down what that really means in practical terms for universities?
- [07:40]
A
Yeah, so I think it kind of starts with the vast use case that you have on a campus. At a simplistic level, the students are there to learn. At a more complex level, they are navigating like I was mentioning earlier, they're navigating a lot in their day to day. And it's really a little smart city. If you were around the different kind of use cases that are experiences you can think of residential living. So how they're getting access to their living facilities, how are they eating, whether that's traditional dining halls, whether it's unattended areas where they can grab and go, vending machines, et cetera, parcel pickup, whether they're going to lockers, they're going to mail rooms, the things that they're getting access to, wellness centers, mental health, physical health, gyms, things of that nature, sporting events, all these use cases, bringing them together in. In a seamless experience as opposed to disjoint one off use cases is exceptionally important to those students. While doing that, ensuring that their information is secure, that they're using a technology that they can trust in, that the campus is providing that experience and that our solutions have high uptime and reliability, and then making sure that we can support a wide range of. Of those different use cases too. Because really, when you think about it, there's new things that the students need to get access to on the daily. Like I'll give you a couple examples. You know, there's more. That traditional use case that I was talking about with dining, with parking, laundry, all those kind of traditional things, or even like makerspaces, Students getting access to makerspaces, how can they use a 3D printer for some things that they're trying to cultivate or getting access to other machine technology? How is the campus providing that onto the students in a way that they don't have to manually do that, but it's automated within their system. Either have access to use that facility, or it's on a usage basis, Just bringing that all together in again, kind of that seamless experience while ensuring that high uptime and while ensuring that it's all just a safe and robust ecosystem.
- [09:54]
B
I'm remembering my time back when I was in Sacramento State. The last decade of my career was about mobile. And one thing I think we share here is a passion for really using mobile technology to help students at that foundational level, Almost like a basic needs. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right. You need to have access and have your basic needs taken care of before you can succeed in coursework and excel in your clubs and things like that. So at SAC State, what we did is had an app. It was an app that would allow people to sign up for when there's free food left on campus because California was going through a basic needs struggle. So that's just my quick story, but I think it's a bridge into this question about mobile. What innovations in mobile credentials and cloud technology are the most exciting to you right now?
- [10:40]
A
Let me maybe a little bit kind of a rewind the clock when mobile first come out and when I'm talking about mobile, I guess mobile credential is one area that I want to focus in on. And when I'm talking about mobile credentials, really what I'm talking about is the student and their profile, most commonly known as their student id. Who is this? What is their student ID number and what are they able to do? What we've done is we've taken that student ID and that person credential and then worked with some very large companies to put that into the handsets, whether it's iPhone or Android based phones, to where their ID is digitized in the secure element of those phones. They're then able to use their phone, their watch and that technology to kind of go about those experiences that we've been talking about. So kind of rewinding, when we first brought that out, we were very, very excited about bringing that technology. And I think the students that got access to it, they saw that as well. Of course it was as exciting and new. And this is a first of its ever kind being rolled out. I think their expectation was, well, yeah, that makes sense, it should be that way. And I think what I've seen is the adoption rate of that solution just skyrocket. For one, we've rolled out Mobile to over 200 institutions within North America and then we've seen an adoption rate of nearly 90% of those institutions. Their students have adopted that digital credential in their digital wallet. And that's an exciting time. I think that's kind of the first thing. I think the second is what can we do with that? And I'll give you kind of another example. So one of our solutions is using a mobile ordering app where the students can order their food and have it ready for them when they arrive. Well, if you think about it in a traditional sense, you order something, yeah, there's a standard time that it will take to kind of create that and when it'll be available. But the other things that are going on, the time of day, the time of year, the kitchen load, all those factors could create differences in how long it takes for that to be prepared. And provided we rolled out some machine learning and AI to help one calculate all those things and provide more precise time around that when that order will be ready for the students. And so I think what's exciting to me right now is that the table stakes of having that digital credential is here, it's here and now. I think it's what can we do on top of that to continue to optimize and provide more, I don't know, higher level experiences and more, even more advantage to that student experience.
- [13:30]
B
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- [13:35]
A
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- [14:00]
B
So Rasheed, you talked a little bit about the mobile technology there. I'm curious how your background in systems engineering and defense has helped you in this leadership role in the edtech space.
- [14:12]
A
Yeah, a few things for sure. I mean I, I kind of hinted on this earlier and I think it's worth renoting the systems that we provide out to our, our clients are really mission critical. I mean they rely on them for their daily operation and we're talking about millions of students across our campuses. The operations of whether it's collecting money, distributing money, ensuring that transactions are flowing so students can eat, so they can access their facilities for living and secure facilities for the things they're trying to do. These are truly mission critical applications. I think the diligence around systems engineering and that elaboration and elicitation of requirements, both functional and non functional requirements, that's kind of core to system engineering practice. I think that has helped kind of round out at least how I view the space. I know our engineering teams, which I know I'm biased, but I believe they're world class engineering teams. I think they, they think in those same fashions they really think about ensuring the high, well, all the functional and non functional requirements. And I think, you know, system engineering is a practice is important and you leverage that with some of the methodologies that development teams use today with agile and other practice. I think the combination of that provides a very strong output for our clients. I mean our focus on product management starts with elicitation of requirements and that's really what system engineering is all about.
- [15:51]
B
So with a $250 million business under your wing, how do you balance innovation with this scale and reliability?
- [16:01]
A
I'll start off by saying it's not easy. I don't mean what I do is not easy, but the decision making is not easy. Any given day there's hundreds of good ideas around stability, enhancement, information security, compliance, innovation and we're weighing the prioritization of those on the daily. And then when you have such a broad reach of clients, if there's, you know, specific client needs that you're also weighing in all those, the way that we do that is really kind of looking at the portfolio, kind of stepping back and looking at it in aggregate. You know, where, where are the solutions in the life cycle? Are we on a phase where we've got a heavy innovation cycle because we're trying to bring something new and disrupt is the solution that we have in a phase where we're maturing and growing or we later in the cycle where we're ensuring reliability and safety and kind of stepping back and looking at that. And then of course, like I was mentioning earlier, kind of weighing the input that we received, the listening that we've done, where are the pains we try to elicit so much feedback that we use that data to drive a lot of our decision making. Like you start to get where you get a number of, you know, for lack of a better word, more votes in an area where something is needed and that becomes kind of a prioritization. I think in regards to that too. Like one of the things that I'm very excited about with cloud and some of our technology is that we can support all of that at a faster cycle. So our clients use a multi tenant cloud architecture. So when we innovate or we provide an update or we're enhancing the solution, it goes instantaneously out to all of our clients. And so that cycle time between innovation, ideation and then our client realizing that is much shorter. And so it's an exciting time. And that cloud technology coupled with rapid innovation and ideation that's going on in the space today, I love that kind of intersection. But yeah, like you said, it's with such a big portfolio, the decision making and really the what we're not doing, decisions are very hard.
- [18:18]
B
It's a challenging with such scale as you grow a business like this, how do you foster that culture of collaboration and continuous improvement?
- [18:29]
A
Yeah, it could be harder. I would say this might be one of those areas where I got lucky. And what do I mean by that? Our teams, they kind of operate this more inherently. I could rattle off a number of names of my team and across our company, where people have been working in higher education for 10, 15, 20, even 30 plus years and they do it because they love it, they're passionate about it. They wake up every single day thinking about how can I make this better? And that was one thing that when I came to transact Seaboard, it really resonated with me. You want to work with people that are inherently curious, interested and kind of want to always make something better. And in that spirit of I think I got lucky is I think our team has that culture inherently now. You can't just sit back and rely on that in the go forward. And so we try to definitely make sure we've got a culture of continuous improvement. We've got a number of ways that we do that with retrospectives, evaluations, how things rolled out. We have this concept of being very data driven in our solutions. So I think it's good to have a hypothesis, it's good to think about all the input that we've received. But at the end of the day, how did it actually roll out when we got that out into the field? And so that transparent continuous improvement is kind of core to that.
- [19:54]
B
Yeah, it's all about customer engagement. And I also see a lot of companies at this stage really struggle with that. How do you personally stay close to your clients?
- [20:05]
A
Yeah, there's a number of things that we do. I kind of talked about the regional user conferences. We've got a big user conference. We've got a number of client panels and advisory boards. I think on top of that, we do look for as many situations where we can have engagement with the client, whether it's being on campus, regular connecting points. We take issues or challenges that is ongoing very seriously to where we engage a large part of our organization. Frankly speaking, all the way to our executive team. I can tell you there's a number of scenarios that I engage on on a regular basis and it keeps us, I think it keeps us grounded. There could be ways where other companies may want to segment that out into another area and keep it more compartmentalized. We haven't done that. We keep that across our entire teams all the way to our executive team. I think that does make sure that we stay very connected with, with that engagement at a personal level, like, you know, truly our team with the client through any of those challenges, things that they're facing. And I, you know, I'm very proud of that, to be honest.
- [21:20]
B
Well, the question I really want to get to, because you have a different perspective than a lot of my guests, is how you think students expectations are evolving and how Transact Seaboard is adapting to meet those shifts.
- [21:35]
A
Yeah, I think that the, the rate of innovation continues to increase. I mean, it's been doing this for decades for sure, and now it's just even more. What I've noticed is that the technology and innovation rate changes is matched by expectation. Anything is literally possible. And that's what student expectations at some level are as well. The table stakes of the past are not the table stakes of where we are today. How are we adapting to meet those needs? Well, our rate of innovation has had to increase. Our adoption of AI and solutions to help optimize how we're operating, what we're bringing to our solutions and helping our campuses has also increased. And you know, we're, we're kind of leaning into ways that we can one collaborate with our clients and some new technology and solutions that we're bringing out. And then we're also seeing like, what can we do more to kind of help them so they can focus on that student experience? I mean, I think we understand it well. Our clients understand it exceptionally well. They are the, they are the experts in that student experience because they're on their day to day. The way that we're really leaning into it is what can we do so they can focus on that student experience. We of course want to provide technology that supports it, but we also want to take things out of their hands that they're having to worry about so they can focus even more and more on that student expectation.
- [23:14]
B
Yeah, well, Transact Seaboard is a leader in payment tech and student experience. How do you see if you see fintech and edtech converging any further?
- [23:25]
A
We actually have a large portion of our business that operates kind of in that, that hybrid fintech edtech base. You know, my, my businesses are more centered around the EdTech component. We do have. One of my peers runs our payments business, which is centered around fintech. For edtech. What I really love about that is we can look at the ways in which fintech is advancing the types of payment tenders, the technology around fraud and different, you know, use of wallets and payment types and then mirror that in the way that we support education. And so, you know, we've looked very closely on ways that we can kind of bring those two things together. Also I kind of hinted on this earlier, which is we have a big analytics portion of our business where we're ingest information from how the student IDs are getting leveraged, how the dining and food and commerce is happening and then as well as how the payment and tuition is all operating on the campus. And what's kind of, I mean, it's very interesting. The aggregation of that data and the insights that come out of it is very, very interesting. Ironically enough, we call that our insights platform. But you know, I think there's a lot of ways that we can see unique experiences throughout that ecosystem. And then, you know, the way that I look at education relative to kind of fintech is there's a lot of parallels. I mean, you've got, I would say a little bit more of an education focused ecosystem, but it has the same kind of experiences. Like I was saying, that's that smart city kind of a feel where they're navigating, you know, needs like food and living and events. And that's the Same kind of thing that's happening kind of in a city. And so I think that parallel is, is, you know, it provides for a lot of leverage both back and forth.
- [25:26]
B
Well, what's your view on AI, the role in campus technology, how you see it at Transact Seaboard? Will it be an enhancement or a disruption? What's your take on that?
- [25:37]
A
Little. Both. I think the reality is institutions are under a lot of pressure. They're faced with what can they do. They're asked to do more with less, whether that's funding or actual people, resources. And I think AI will help. You know, the way that we're approaching it is I kind of talked about this earlier, like what can we do to solve some of those challenges and how can we provide some AI to help streamline some of the operations? We've actually rolled out three AI products over the last year. A lot of it natural language kind of pieces where operators can ask questions about their operation, about their system and get immediate feedback. And I do feel like that will continue to advance a great deal. I think it will change how some of the operation occurs. I think in the short term it will help streamline the operation. I think long term there will be disruption around how that occurs. I think a lot remains to be seen, but it's clear it's going to change and disrupt.
- [26:42]
B
I have a comment, not really a question, but my son is college age and he is kind of anti AI and very much like does not want to use facial recognition on his iPhone or anywhere. You know, that's kind of where we're all going, right? We just know who's where and it's going to be idea to ideas. But that generation, I think he might be a little bit of an outlier because he's a tech guy, but it's just really interesting to hear him say that people might use that.
- [27:05]
A
Yeah, I mean it's change curve. On any change, everybody's on on the change curve. I, you know, I, I think there's early adopters and there takes a time when table stakes, you know what I mean? And I think we're along that journey.
- [27:20]
B
To close it out. If you could leave one message for university leaders shaping the campus experience for the next decade, what would that message be?
- [27:27]
A
I think whether it's sort of my background with sports, I'm a big believer of a team and I think the message that I would share is work as a team. Nobody kind of goes along these journeys alone. Impactful things that change the world or navigating tough waters I think a team helps you get there both faster and safer. And the rate of change is going to continue to accelerate as we kind of talked about. And the pressures are high. And so I guess the thing I would say is lean on the partners you trust, bring others into the conversation, kind of lean into that collaboration. Just feel like as things are reshaped, that teamwork is going to deliver a higher output. And, you know, hopefully for my clients, if any of them are listening, you know, hopefully they know that we're here along that journey. But for others, just those partners and those companies that you trust, those peers, just do it as a team and together a lot can be accomplished.
- [28:30]
B
Well, thank you, Rasheed. It was great having you on the show. I will put links to your Transact Seaboard company website in the show notes as well as to Rasheed's LinkedIn, but it was a great talk. Love what you're doing.
- [28:41]
A
I really appreciate it, Jeff. Thank you. Bye.
- [28:43]
B
Bye. As we wrap up this episode, remember EdTech Connect is your trusted companion on your journey to enhance education through technology. Whether you're looking to spark student engagement, refine edtech implementation strategies, or stay ahead of the curve in emerging technologies, EdTech Connect brings you the insights you need. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an inspiring and informative episode. And while you're there, please leave us a review. Your feedback fuels us to keep bringing you valuable content. For even more resources and connections, head over to edtechconnect.com your hub for edtech reviews, trends and solutions. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.