Northwind Payments is a 340-person payments infrastructure company replacing a third-party processor stack after a Q2 outage that cost $340K in disputed transactions and SLA penalties. The incident created direct board-level pressure on Linda Chen (CFO) to resolve payment reliability before Q4 peak volume. That pressure is our tailwind. Marcus Webb (VP Engineering) has been our champion since August and has walked us through every technical gate: PCI-DSS Level 1 scope review cleared Sep 9, p99 latency benchmark passed Sep 30 at 178ms against their 200ms ceiling. He introduced us to Linda on Sep 22 — that meeting established CFO-level awareness of the deal and the Q4 timeline urgency. The commercial path is clear but not closed: procurement needs a vendor registration completed by Oct 25 and Linda needs the security review memo in hand before she'll authorize the PO. Adyen is expected to counter in mid-October. Their PCI compliance story requires an enterprise add-on at comparable cost, which is our sharpest differentiation point. On a forecast call, I would say: "Northwind is a Dec 19 close. Technical gate is done — latency, PCI scope, and architecture review all passed. CFO is engaged. The risk is Adyen's counter coming in before our security memo lands. I'm pushing security review to Oct 18 and procurement registration to Oct 25. If those hit, I'm calling this Commit."

[CONFIRMED] Q2 processor outage post-mortem shared Aug 14 — $340K loss documented, board-mandated resolution [CONFIRMED] PCI-DSS Level 1 audit scope review cleared Sep 9 — written sign-off from Northwind security team on file [CONFIRMED] Latency benchmark Sep 30 — p99 178ms, beats 200ms requirement (test report attached in Salesforce) [CONFIRMED] CFO Linda Chen engaged Sep 22 — intro via Marcus Webb, attended 45-min architecture review [ASSUMED] Contract value $420,000 ARR — quoted, not countersigned; Linda verbally confirmed budget range [ASSUMED] Dec 19 close — Marcus confirmed Q4 fiscal pressure; no formal procurement milestone issued yet [AT RISK] Adyen counter-proposal expected mid-October — competitive pricing unknown, champion loyalty unconfirmed [AT RISK] In-house build option not formally ruled out — board capex vs. opex preference unclear post-outage

1. Adyen counter-proposal (mid-October window) Mitigation: Accelerate security review memo delivery to Oct 18 — before Adyen's expected counter. Prepare a side-by-side PCI compliance cost analysis showing Adyen's enterprise add-on cost parity. Request CFO decision gate at Oct 21 budget meeting so procurement opens before counter arrives. 2. In-house build option still live Mitigation: Quantify build cost with Marcus: 3–4 engineers × 6 months = $900K–$1.2M fully-loaded vs. $420K ARR. Request 30-minute CFO session to walk ROI model before Oct 25 procurement deadline. 3. Procurement registration delay could slip Dec 19 Mitigation: Begin vendor registration process with procurement contact (Ashley Moore, confirmed by Marcus Oct 1) this week. 4-week processing window requires submission by Oct 25 to clear before close.

1. Oct 18 — Deliver formal security review memo to Linda Chen Owner: AE (Jordan Park). Coordinate with security team to produce memo: PCI-DSS Level 1 certification, latency SLA, uptime SLO. Required for CFO PO authorization. 2. Oct 21 — CFO decision gate: request inclusion in Northwind's Oct 21 budget meeting Owner: AE (Jordan Park) via Marcus Webb. Objective: establish vendor preference before Adyen counter lands. Deliverable: verbal commit from Linda or clear objection to address. 3. Oct 25 — Vendor registration submission deadline Owner: AE (Jordan Park) + Procurement (Ashley Moore). Submit all required vendor forms. Missing this window pushes close to Jan.