Meet our team of partners and advisory network who have real-world experience leading organisations from start-up environments to some of the largest corporates in the sector. This group bring a desire the help your organisation through growth and change, and provide a close confidant through periods of reflection for your organisation.

Roger Bracken

Executive Chair

Roger Bracken is a senior commercial leader with experience across the UK and International payments landscape. He has held leadership positions in international payments technology businesses, at NCR, First Data and most recently TSG.

At NCR he led the UK banking business and held a European Services role. He joined First Data in 2007 at the time of KKR’s takeover. He rose from UK Country manager to lead the European region with over 5000 staff, $1.2bn revenue and $350m EBITDA. In 2016 he joined a small, NZ based software, payments and service business as Europe CEO and helped sell the business to Advent in 2019 for US$850m.

He chaired the Board of AIBMS (an independently regulated merchant acquiring JV between AIB and FD) for 5 years until 2015 and was an Approved Person by the Central Bank of Ireland. In the UK he has been an Approved Person by both the FSA and the FCA.

He is currently providing advisory services to both Fintechs and Investors and is a Special Advisor at Vitruvian Partners, an investment firm.

He holds an undergraduate degree from Nottingham University and MBA from London Business School, the Sloan Fellowship.

He lives in North London with his family and has been a season ticket holder at Arsenal from the glory days of Ian Wright and Thierry Henry to the present day. He is happiest skiing, or in warm water.

Gregor Dobbie

CEO

From cash and cards to alternative payment solutions, Gregor has always been driven by innovation and the desire to discover the next big thing.

With more than 20 years in payments, Gregor began his career at NCR, before joining De La Rue in 2005. In 2014 Gregor joined Vocalink’s Card Transaction Services business before being appointed Managing Director of Sales in 2015 as part of the Vocalink executive team. Gregor has led Vocalink as CEO since 2019, working to ensure the business delivers on its commitments to customers and overseeing growth beyond its core product and services.

Gregor holds an advisory position on the Payments Advisory Group for Pennies, the “digital charity box” and he is the Chairman of Loyalzoo, a loyalty solution for the digital age.

Alongside his business career, Gregor has a keen interest in sports, particularly golf. He is married with a seven year old son.

Steve Wright

COO

Steve has a long record of driving sales and growth in payments technology over many years as well as general management. He has a strong understanding of developing strategy, growing and retaining highly skilled commercial teams, and delivering consistent success. One of the founders of TFPA, Steve is passionate about helping organisations navigate the challenge of change and growth.

Steve began his career in IT development before moving into a commercial role with Rank Xerox, and then into the payments industry with ACI. Following an initial 7 year period in an individual contributor capacity, he joined ICL/Fujitsu to head up its Lifestyle Banking team in Northern Europe. He returned to ACI in 2000 as part of the turnaround team during a difficult period for the company. He was VP, Sales and Marketing from 2003 to 2005 and then President EMEA until 2009. During that six years period he led the team that drove growth from $30 million pa to $205 million.

Steve left ACI to form Lusis Payments, a start-up with a French technology company. He established the company and set up its US entity during a period when Lusis Payments secured its first clients on three continents. His next role was integrating the Alaric acquisition into NCR, which he completed at the end of 2015, at which point he took the option to operate as an independent consultant. In that role Steve has worked across a number of areas of the industry and was instrumental in helping a UK based testing company refine its business to drive a focus on Immediate Payments, deliver 200% growth over 4 years and implement a subscription model. He also spent some time working with a number of leading sports teams evaluating the introduction of modern technology into their stadium set up.

Beyond work Steve enjoys cricket and football (as a spectator these days) and the odd glass of red wine or two. He also spends quite a lot of time in the gym trying to stave off the effects of the red wine!

John De Lavis

Founding Partner

John, in his career in banking and payments, has been lucky enough to be directly involved in a number of significant changes, in the UK, USA and internationally. He has been Head of UK technology for a major UK bank, Head of Group Cards for HSBC, and then Head of all of its UK payment businesses and future technologies.

At MasterCard, he was responsible for global franchise operations and special projects and then global Chief Product Officer. He became COO for two highly successful start up businesses – NetSpend and Metabank. More recently, he has been involved in a very wide range of start-ups, including digital banking, data management, cyber-security and people development.

Some of the highlights of his career include:

  • Rolling out the first client-server customer information system in a UK bank
  • Designing, planning and the initial development of First Direct
  • A member of the Card Payment Group – the most senior UK interbank payment forum
  • Leading the development and implementation of MasterCard’s chip program
  • Leading the end to end acquisition and integration of Europay
  • Implementing MasterCard’s data/information strategy and associated products
  • Co-founding MasterCard Advisors
  • At NetSpend part of the team that launched the first non-bank “bank” targeted at the unbanked – “The End to No”

He has degrees from Trinity College, Cambridge University, a post-graduate degree from MIT. He now lives in the UK after 25 years in the US – and becoming a US citizen. He is life-long supporter of Bath RFU, and has many interests from hill-walking, and studying philosophy, art, economics and cognitive sciences. He is also involved in mentoring and philanthropy.

John Goodale

Founding Partner

John’s experience has been gained whilst working in several senior sales, technical, management consulting and product roles across a variety of organisations within the payment and retail industries. He has worked across the globe with a particular focus on Europe, North America, Brazil and Russia.

John is a very experienced sales leader and market maker with a proven track record of taking complex solutions to market to create significant revenue growth across industries, products and markets. His sales experience, coupled with his technical knowledge enables him to develop compelling sales propositions that has helped win significant new business across the world. He is an established thought leader on a number of transformative concepts within the financial services industry and has a strong understanding of the market across many countries.

Key roles include:

  • Zwipe AS – Chief Commercial Officer
  • Crosscard SA – Head of Sales
  • TSYS – SVP Sales and New Market Development
  • KPMG Consulting – Principal Consultant
  • DMR Consulting – Principal Consultant
  • Retail Business Solutions – Technical Director

John is a keen runner and follows his local rugby and football teams.

Roger Van Scoy

Founding Partner

Roger Van Scoy has over 35 years of experience serving the financial services industry working with banks and processors globally. Roger has demonstrated success in managing software, platforms, professional services, consulting and managed services businesses and is an advocate of the evolution of payments in the public cloud.

Prior to joining The Strawhecker Group, he served as ACI’s Managing Director of Global Customer Success where he and his team created value through the development of strategic relationships at the executive level of the industry’s leading banks and processors around the world.

Prior to the Customer Success role, Roger led ACI’s Global Retail Banking Solution Consulting Team (presales) supporting over $150M in annual sales and renewals. He joined the company in 2013 to manage the Retail Digital Banking group, a $100M business which served Tier 2 and 3 FIs in the US prior to its being acquired by Fiserv. Earlier in his career, he ran First Data’s Issuing and Acquiring businesses outside the Americas as well as TSYS’s expansion into Europe. Roger also served as VP of the Cards Payments Practice for Capgemini.

Roger holds a bachelor’s degree from The University of Texas at Austin. He is married and lives in the Austin, Texas area with his wife Julie. He has served as a Board Member of Help Worldwide, Baseball Softball UK, ABUA-GB and actively volunteers in support of local charities.

Adam Wright

Founding Partner

Adam is an entrepreneur, executive search specialist and advisor within the Fintech, Payments and Banking sector. His early career was spent  in the payments sector, operating for a cutting edge fintech, going head to head with the legacy transaction processing suppliers where he gained real world exposure to working with some of the globe’s largest and most innovative financial institutions.

Adam began his payments career in marketing, before progressing into professional services where he helped launch the fintech’s new look professional services organisation.

Adam then had a brief hiatus within the sports sector, before co-founding one of the industry’s leading and highly agile specialist Executive Search firms where he is now Managing Partner.  In this capacity he works with some of the payments landscape’s most established organisations and fastest growing Fintechs to locate the industry’s best executive talent. His extensive understanding of the global ecosystem sees him operate as a close confidant of a number of EXCO’s and he has assisted in the development of strategy from a people and competitor perspective in several new market entry projects.

Adam’s belief that the sector is calling out for an advisory organisation with true subject matter experts who have walked a day in the respective leaders shoes led to the formation of TFPA.  His vision was to evolve an organisation consisting of people with strong general management and domain experience to provide strategic advice, married with the true ability to both execute and pin-point where and why those strategies have been successfully implemented. Adam was core to bringing the founding team and wider network together; in the process, helping a number of his existing clients address challenges across commercial optimisation/new market entry, operational change and product strategy.

Adam is also the founder of a new and upcoming podcast which is due to be launched later in 2022, bringing some of the industry’s most entrepreneurial and successful minds to the table sharing open views on the sector, areas of opportunity and the ever changing landscape of the industry; be it legacy vs the innovators, regulatory change and the implications or discussing the battle scars of success.

Outside of business, Adam enjoys Football (although his beloved Manchester United are not quite the team they used to be) watersports, outdoor activities, travelling and culinary experiences.

Linda Mahy

Partner

Linda is a long time payments professional. She has deep domain knowledge of the convergence of core banking and payments, as well as the confluence of retail and wholesale payments. Linda is recognised globally as a strategist specialising in these areas.

Throughout her career, Linda has been at the forefront of major core banking initiatives for some of the industry’s leading names. Her experience has enabled organisations to maximise their use of technology to drive both market growth and revenue, as well as delivering genuine innovation to their clients.

In 1990, Linda founded a major leading payments consultancy focussed on servicing preeminent global card issuers and acquirers. The organisation grew to include 1,500 banks and processors across 34 countries within its client base before it was sold to Retail Decisions (now part of ACI Worldwide).

Linda has been key to the complex conversion decisions of major processors and payment platform providers. She has delivered help, insight and expertise that has ensured their investments delivered environments that positioned them for decades hence.

Linda also has in depth knowledge of customer success and the benefit it can bring to major technology vendors. In this guise, she helped a Customer Success practice for a market leading payments platform vendor.

Outside of work Linda is heavily involved in fund raising for a number of juvenile diabetes organisations including JDRF, Joslin, Boston and Dell, Austin

In the spare time she does get, Linda is a patron of the arts, and has deep personal involvement in Fine Arts, though her son, a talented and accomplished artist.

Angela Yore

Partner

Angela is an entrepreneur, PR leader and an influencer in the Fintech sector. Since co-founding SkyParlour, a Fintech and Payments PR Firm in 2009, she has raised the profile of 100s of brands from dynamic start-ups to market leaders in the fintech, tech and ecommerce sectors.

Listed on the Innovate Finance Stand out 35 Women in Fintech Powerlist 2020, Angela is a Chartered Institute of Marketing MCIM.

Angela sits on various Advisory Boards including the Emerging Payments Association, Fintech Connect and the European Women Payments Network. She is the Chair of The Inclusion Foundation Executive Committee and a Governor of Wilmslow High School. Her latest project is being part of DIGISEQ’s Non executive board.

Angela is an international speaker and presenter with previous engagements at world class events including Money2020, Finnovate, Fintech Connect, Internet Retailing and Pay360.

She believes passionately in citizenship, the power of communities and striving to make the world that little bit better.

Lana Tahirly Abdullayeva

Associate Partner

Scientist by education, strategist by experience and visionary by heart, Lana is motivated by her curiosity and passion for new inventions. She is driving an evolutionary shift in the business world today, taking inspiration from her great grandfather (Mirza Alakbar SABIR Tahir-Zada), who revolutionized modern Azerbaijani language and poetry in 19th century.

A seasoned Exec & NED, Lana has spent the last three decades in Tech & Fin launching, investing, and growing successful businesses and well-recognised brands, across developed and fast-growing economies. She has played an instrumental role in the global transformation towards the digital economy.

Lana brings a strong vantage point on how businesses evolve in the digital age and advocates for reshaping economics and governance, over traditional models, in order to drive growth.

As a Founding Director of Chez FinTech, she works with public and private sectors to drive progress in the digital economy. Chez FinTech is a board-level advisory, working with investors and inventors, as well as economic regulators, driving evolution through Tech & Fin globally. Our clients are award winning businesses, industry pioneers and market leaders, leading economic regulators and blue-chip investment firms.

Nick Barnes

Associate Partner

Nick has spent his entire career working in the Banking and Payments industry while performing in progressive IT & Leadership roles while living and working on 4 continents.  He is a well-rounded executive having held leadership positions in InfoTech, Product Portfolio Management, Business Development and General Management.

Most recently he was Chief Information and Technology Officer at Bread Financial Holdings (Formerly Alliance Data) responsible for defining and executing major technology modernizations programs.

Previously, Nick was Chief Information Officer for the Credit Union Division of Fiserv Inc responsible for driving strategy and cost-efficiency while ensuring security and performance for the more than two thousand Financial Institutions that rely on Fiserv for day-to-day operations.

His background includes other senior roles with ACI Worldwide Inc, First Data Corporation, GE Capital, Experian UK (Formerly CCN) where he has participated in many major platform innovations and migrations driving significant growth.

In 2007, Nick was recognized with the designation of IT Fellow at First Data Corporation.

A dual citizen of the USA and United Kingdom, Nick now resides in Florida and in his spare time enjoys fishing, golfing, and exploring the world with his partner Donna.

Ian Benn

Associate Partner

Ian Benn is an experienced executive, consultant/advisor, qualified coach, and author specialising in the enterprise B2B technology sector.

Ian brings his extensive knowledge and experience from senior industry roles including SVP, general manager, MD, CMO, global head of sales, and global head of strategy. His experience includes business integrations, turnarounds, scale-ups, M&A (buy and sell side) and business transformations. Companies include Ingenico, FIS, Misys (now Finastra) and Unisys.

He is a member of the Pennies Foundation Advisory Board and, in addition, advises exciting early-stage tech start-ups including Obsidian Systems, Sama Coaching and Sealit Technologies.

His books have addressed outsourcing and proposal writing. His next, “The First Time Business Leader: Congratulations… Now What?”, will be published by Bite-Sized Books in May 2024.

Ricardo Calfat

Associate Partner

Ricardo has more than 20 years’ experience in diverse industries across LATAM, with 11 years of expertise in the Payments Industry focused on Acquiring, Issuing and Fraud prevention/AML.
With a successful track record for complex deals, different markets, and a focus on customer experience, he has deep knowledge of the region and its players.

Currently, in addition to TFPA, Ricardo is country manager and partner for Payments Inc, secure and transparent authentication for mobile apps using Veridex Inc tech.

Prior, Ricardo was country manager of southern LATAM for an Israeli startup in behavioral biometric fraud prevention.

For 9 years Ricardo operated for ACI Worldwide, in the beginning he operated in a sales capacity in Brazil, where he brought in Brazil´s largest acquirer as a customer among other deals. He migrated into a customer success role for all LATAM taking care of the top banks, acquirers, processors and merchants in the region, eventually acting also in the Canadian and US markets.

Prior to ACI, Ricardo was responsible for sales with an asset and business valuation company, which across his 12 year tenure grew from a small local Brazilian company to the market leader in LATAM.

Ricardo lives in São Paulo with his wife and two sons and has as special interests history and old cars.

Mike Chambers

Associate Partner

Mike Chambers is a recognised authority on retail payments and, as Chief Executive Officer, led Bacs Payment Schemes Limited (Bacs), the UK’s biggest retail payment system, from 2004 until 2018. During this time he successfully steered the company through a record number of payment processing, technological, regulatory and innovative customer proposition ‘firsts’ including the Bacs’ product offering to include the ownership, management and market adoption of the Current Account Switch Service (CASS) and the Cash ISA Transfer Service.

During his time at Bacs, Mike also led the UK’s systemically important RTGS payment system (CHAPS) as its CEO and operated the UK’s Faster Payment Scheme as its first Chief Executive creating the Payment System Operator (Faster Payment Scheme Limited).

Mike was an integral part of the industry initiative which led to the New Payments Architecture (NPA) vision (including concepts such as Request To Pay and Confirmation of Payee), the regulatory endorsed merger of the UK’s retail payment schemes and the formation of Pay.UK.

Over the past few years Mike has developed a portfolio of roles including chair, adviser, Non Executive Director, investor, ambassador, awards judge and  commentator.

Pedro Pinto Coelho

Associate Partner

Innovative, agile and multi-award winning banking leader with over 25 years’ international financial services experience with leading blue-chip institutions across three continents in progressive leadership roles, both executive and NED, in Investment Banking, Wealth Management, general management, business development, strategy and latterly in FinTech.

His value proposition is centered around enabling challenger banks to establish strategic partnerships with FinTechs to create profitable financial products using an ‘open architecture model.’ Expert in driving digital banking transformations both in terms of creating ‘best in class’ digital customer experiences, and transforming key internal support functions to fully align with the overall digital transformation programs of financial institutions.

Alison Conway

Associate Partner

Alison is an accomplished fintech and payments executive with a track record in building and scaling payment-focused PE and VC backed businesses. She brings significant experience in corporate development, M&A, capital raising and business operations, and works closely with boards and founders to build healthy corporate governance practices and drive effective collaboration between the board and executive teams. Alison is also an adjunct professor at London South Bank University and an advisor and mentor to startups & entrepreneurs.

Brendan Cook

Associate Partner

Brendan worked for HSBC both in the UK and internationally for over 30 years prior to his retirement at the end of 2018. During this time he ran numerous businesses including Marks & Spencer Money and HSBC’s UK retail banking operation.

This comprised 15 million customers across 4 major brands – HSBC, firstdirect, M&S Bank and John Lewis Financial Services – with 22000 employees. He then led the development and implementation of HSBC’s global retail banking strategy across its 35 retail markets internationally, including acquisitions and disposals.

Following this role he helped establish HSBC UK Bank, a new ring fenced bank, and led the development of HSBC’s Open Banking programme, allowing customers access to their banking information to share with third parties including fintechs.

Throughout his career Brendan has been involved with payments, launching new payment cards at HSBC and running the bank’s acquiring operation. He has served on the Boards of MasterCard Europe and MasterCard Debit, as well as the BBA (now UK Finance) Retail Committee.

Now based in California, Brendan is working as an advisor with a few fintechs to assist their growth and development – focusing on payments and data management – as well as continuing to act as a business mentor.

Ian Cox

Associate Partner

Ian has an extensive background in operational / enterprise risk, compliance, fraud management and BSA / AML and is a risk professional with over 20 years of experience in the banking and payments industry.

He has held Chief Risk Officer roles for international organizations like WorldPay, Deutsche Bank, Citizens Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland and has designed and implemented integrated risk management and governance frameworks at global financial services firms and community banks in the UK, US and on Bermuda.

It is Ian’s strongest belief which centers on the need for risk management to be a business line partner and an enabler, rather than an impediment, to winning and executing good business.

Nick Dargan

Associate Partner

Nick Dargan is an experienced relationship leader in Fintech & Payments across EMEA, with a track record of negotiating and delivering complex multi $m outsourcing deals.

A leader of people across varying geographical and cultural locations, he established growth strategies to deliver on both Corporate and local Client objectives spanning card issuing, consumer lending propositions, card acquiring and non-card payments.

 

With a multi-disciplined career for prominent providers of payment services and technology including Fiserv, First Data and Creation FS, Nick has a deep rooted understanding of how to build and nurture strong client relationships that deliver sustainable value and growth.

Jim Ditmore

Associate Partner

Jim Ditmore is a seasoned financial services executive with a deep knowledge of operations and technology best practices and a unique ability to turnaround poor performing IT and Operations organisations into world-class shops.

Jim has broad financial services experience in both smaller organisations as well as large corporations with global, distributed teams. He has enabled and led sustained high performance for large teams in roles such as COO for Danske Bank and previously CIO for Barclays Retail and Commercial Bank, as well as senior roles previously in JPMC, Allstate, and MCI.

He has also delivered outstanding platforms and results for entrepreneurial organisations like The Bank of London and Ameritrade. Jim has a keen aptitude to ensure there is a clear understanding of business direction and customer need and that business partners receive the desired transparency of technology services.

Jim has an established track record with the Federal Reserve, OCC, UK, FCA, BoE, PRA, and European regulatory agencies, most recently delivering the platform for TBOL to achieve only the sixth clearing license granted from the BoE. His ability to establish practical approaches, provide transparency, and meet commitments are the basis for re-establishing organisation credibility with the regulators.

Jim also has extensive senior leadership and board experience, contributing to strategy, customer focus, technology, and enterprise transformations or digitalisation.

Jim resides in the US, but regularly travels to UK and Europe.

Gideon Fourie

Associate Partner

Gideon Fourie combines more than 25 years of consulting and industry experience within Cards, Payments, and Banking. His strengths lie in Corporate Strategy, Market Development and driving sustainable Revenue growth through new client acquisition as well as partnering with existing clients.

He has held the positions of COO & CFO for Fiserv within the DACH (Germany, Austria & Switzerland) Region as well CCO for RS2. His experience also includes senior management positions at Barclays Group, Deloitte, and the Standard Bank. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law and a Master’s in Economics from the University of Pretoria.

He is married with three children and spends his free time between them, enjoying music (listening and playing) and cycling alpine passes.

Mark Goldspink

Associate Partner

Mark is a well-networked entrepreneurial and innovative senior commercial leader with hands-on practical experience in global solution innovation including:

  • A.I. (real-time machine learning technologies for preventing fraud and for valuable market insight). First to create and launch a fully automated fraud solution (endorsed by Gartner) and a country-wide fuel pricing system with the University of Manchester.
  • Cross-border/alternative payments methods (closed loop fuel cards/post and pre-pay wallets)
  • Universal merchant commerce technologies
  • Adopting new secure cloud services for scaling and best-of-breed ESG practices.

Mark is an ambidextrous leader and as an out of the box forward-thinking executive who has a proven track record of driving profitable growth.

Mark’s involvement in the Institute of Corporate Resilience and advisory roles with fintech organisations demonstrate his commitment to staying at the forefront of industry trends and contributing to the broader financial and mobility sectors. Mark is a board member of the society for storytellers and is a Business School lecturer.

Mark is passionate about his work and his family. He has four children, several of whom are now also involved in the payments and mobility sectors. He is a big rugby fan (Harlequin’s season ticket holder), a keen golfer, and someone who is happy to sing for his supper!

Sameer Govil

Associate Partner

Sameer has over 30 years of global experience across payment network platforms, consumer banking, particularly pivoting and transforming business models driven by regulatory changes.

He has worked with ANZ bank and Visa across a range of geography and global product leadership roles.

Fred Gore

Associate Partner

Fred Gore is an accomplished executive in all facets of electronic payments including merchant processing, portfolio management, market expansion as well as product strategy development. He has worked with major FinTech companies designing and executing payment strategies that are multifaceted and global in scope including major card networks, acquirers, venture capital, risk management and Payfac companies.

In previous roles Fred has served in executive positions at ACI Worldwide providing leadership to all areas that support the Electronic Bill Payment and Presentment P&L, and as Senior Vice President & Division Manager at First Data directly responsible for managing the full product life cycle of eCommerce products globally. He also served as Senior Vice President & Group Head, North America Acceptance, at MasterCard International. While with MasterCard, he directed the strategy for MasterCard’s involvement with every aspect of acceptance and engagement with large issuing organizations to extend the acceptance value proposition and provided consultative services to all of MasterCard’s Global Regions in support of the development of their local acceptance strategies. Additionally, he was responsible for the co-branding practice for the company worldwide which included new sales and partnership management.

Michael Gray

Associate Partner

Michael is a seasoned payments executive with a proven track record in the fields of payment operations, merchant processing, and strategic negotiations.

Michael’s career is highlighted by his role as General Manager of Payment Networks and Strategic Partnerships at NetSpend – Global Payments/TSYS, where he demonstrated exceptional skills in managing payment networks, strategic planning, and business leadership. He led negotiations in brand agreements with the networks valued over $600MM. He was instrumental in funding and managing a Fintech/Innovation team responsible for a processing platform handling over $35B in annual volume.  Michael’s experience also includes extensive experience in payment network interchange analysis and forecasting.

His expertise extends to managing card manufacturing partnerships as one of the largest card buyers in the industry, negotiating contracts with partners and vendors, and ensuring compliance with payment network regulations.

Michael led a team at KPMG Consulting that provided merchant processing gateway services to government departments and commercial customers such as AOL and KB Homes.  He played a key role in developing a card acceptance payment portal for the State of Texas, which previously only accepted checks and ACH.

Michael lives in Austin Texas.  He is a graduate of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Michael holds a BBA in Finance, complemented by executive education in Artificial Intelligence from the MIT Sloan School of Management and MIT Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

Ayesha Haque

Associate Partner

Ayesha Haque is a highly accomplished professional in the payments industry, boasting an extensive career that spans over two decades. Her expertise encompasses a wide range of critical areas, including business operations, team and account management, client relationships, and customer service.

Ayesha’s proficiency extends beyond the traditional boundaries of finance, as she navigates seamlessly through the intricacies of start-ups, FinTech firms, Fortune 500 corporations, global payment solutions providers, card networks, and various financial institutions. Her commitment to excellence is exemplified by a proven track record in relationship building and solution selling, consistently delivering exceptional results.

In the dynamic landscape of global payments, Ayesha’s unique blend of strategic vision and hands-on operational acumen has made her a trusted partner for businesses across the spectrum. Her ability to foster meaningful connections and provide insightful guidance has not only elevated customer service standards but has also translated into tangible business success.

Ayesha’s forward-thinking mindset, coupled with her in-depth industry knowledge, positions her as a sought-after advisor in the ever-evolving payments ecosystem. As a beacon of experience and expertise, Ayesha continues to inspire and lead, leaving an indelible mark on the financial sector and serving as a testament to the transformative power of dedication in the world of finance.

Gary Haran Doyle

Associate Partner

Gary’s journey in the world of Financial Services began in 1990, delving into the intricacies of banking operations. Not long after, JPMorgan recognized his potential and dispatched him to Brussels in 1994, followed by an enriching year in Paris from 1997 to 1998.

A decade of honing his expertise in operations laid the foundation for a transition into change and technology. Throughout the 2000s, Gary played pivotal roles as a Senior Business Analyst, Project Manager, and Programme Manager across Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Zurich, collaborating with the leading national banks in these countries.

In 2010, KPMG Singapore sought Gary’s exceptional skills to help establish their Financial Services Consulting practice, a task he executed with unwavering dedication. Following this remarkable stint, Gary was invited to join Deloitte in a Business Development capacity, further enriching his diverse experience.

In 2019, Gary embarked on a new chapter, leaving Deloitte Forensic Services. He ventured to Quantexa, where he assumed the role of head for Asia, stationed in Singapore. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic imposed a pause on this trajectory.

Resilient and determined, Gary found his path leading to Complidata in 2021, where he swiftly ascended to the position of CEO, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to the world of financial services and leadership.

Outside of business, Gary likes to get involved in local government and national politics, as well as raising puppies for The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.

Garry Harrison

Associate Partner

Garry is a seasoned technology leader boasting over two decades of invaluable experience serving on various boards. His expertise lies in spearheading the advancement of technology-driven businesses within the Banking and Capital Markets sector. With a multifaceted skill set encompassing Strategy, Sales, Marketing, Production Development, Market Management, and Go-to-Market approaches, Garry is adept at propelling significant EBITDA growth.

Throughout his illustrious career, Garry has demonstrated a remarkable ability to identify lucrative market opportunities and formulate robust execution strategies. His leadership extends to aligning internal and external capabilities, fostering successful, healthy, and sustainable businesses. With a rich background spanning technology and financial services industries, Garry has managed businesses with P&L exceeding $xxxBn, served large global clients, and acted as a Subject Matter Expert in various domains including Financial Crime technology, Capital Markets Middle and Back Office operations, Payments, Consumer Lending, Savings & Investments, Low Latency Trading, and Digital Cheque Processing.

Garry’s professional journey has afforded him the privilege of collaborating with esteemed financial institutions, industry bodies, regulators, and thought leaders. He actively contributes insights and perspectives on critical matters such as risk decisioning, capital efficiency, sustainable growth strategies, and operational effectiveness, through published works and engagements with stakeholders. Garry’s commitment to driving innovation and excellence has left an indelible mark on the intersection of technology and finance, making him a respected figure in his field.

Specialties: Strategy development and execution, Solution & Product development, Partner and Joint Venture Development and Management, Go to market strategy and execution in complex environments, Organisational Enablement. Global environment.

Michael Ryberg Hartmann

Associate Partner

Michael is a UAE-based Product and Technology Executive with a strong track record of creating open platforms and driving transformation across Financial Services and Telco. He has played an integral role in shaping the Open Banking and Finance space, navigating the complexities of digital transformation both in startups and established corporate environments. With his roots set in the innovation-rich Nordic ecosystem, his expertise lies at the intersection of financial services, telco, and the surrounding startup ecosystem.

Throughout his career, Michael has held significant positions at Nordic pioneers such as TDC Group, Danske Bank, Unwire, and Planday (Xero). He has spearheaded the launch of several groundbreaking platforms, including ‘District’, a next-gen financial services platform for businesses, and ‘Paii’, a unified Telco P2P wallet initiative. He also led the transformative ‘TDC NET Platform’, a Telco-as-a-Service solution that split a 140-year-old telco company into two.

For the past two years, Michael has lived in Dubai, where he channels his extensive Nordic experience into the MENA landscape, aiming to bridge the gap and catalyse the region’s digital transformation – most recently, bringing an Open Banking Platform, FINX, to life. His insights from academics and real-world leadership offer a unique blend of theory and practice, making him a trusted advisor and a regular public speaker at leading events across the region.

Michael lives in Dubai with his family and spends most of his weekends at the go-kart track, supporting his son’s passion for speed.

Steve Hine

Associate Partner

Steve is a vastly experienced payments professional who has held Senior Management and Executive positions in a number of organisations, including Sema Group, ACI Worldwide, Ingenico, Wincor Nixdorf, Vivotech, IDTECH and BBPOS.

Outside of the Payments world Steve is a keen golfer and he also spent over 10 years as Chairman of the Board of Governors of a small independent School in Cheshire.

He has extensive experience of card issuing, merchant management, EMV, fraud monitoring and management, acquiring, POS hardware and contactless payments. Over recent years Steve has specialised in mobile payments, SmartPOS, contactless payments, SPoC and the unattended payments space. Throughout his career Steve has worked across EMEA and has particular experience and networks in the UK, Russia, France, Spain, Italy, Turkey and the Middle East.

David Hopkinson

Associate Partner

David is an experienced and proven business leader with a successful track record in senior sales and commercial roles with companies including TSYS, Experian, Raytheon Technologies and Lynx Financial Systems. His early career was spent in IT delivery of solutions for asset backed and vehicle finance, before he moved into senior roles in cards and payments covering the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe.

Specialising in driving profitable growth through relationship driven sales, effective sales management and clear proposition development, David combines strong commercial acumen with delivering long-term client value.  His experience covers all stages of the business development cycle from lead generation and qualification, through to commercial negotiation and contracting.

He is currently providing market insight and business development advice to fintechs in open banking and payments.

Guy Houghton

Associate Partner

Guy has spent 30 years in business development and leadership roles working for global technology companies serving the payments, banking and fintech markets.

 

Most recently he worked with Thredd (formerly Global Processing Services) to provide commercial leadership and support as the business underwent major transformation following investment from private equity firms Advent, MissionOG, Viking & Temesek. Prior to this he was at Fiserv leading client and market expansion across the EMEA region with additional responsibility for a number of large global FIs headquartered in region. Prior to this he held senior leadership roles at First Data, De La Rue and the Harpur Group (now part of Fleetcor).

Career highlights include: entering lateral markets in debit, pre-paid and lending generating new processing revenues in excess of $100m ACV. Entering more than 15 new markets across region. Building and leading regional sales teams to deliver growth.

Guy’s skills set covers: business strategy, market entry and development, strategic sales at C-Suite level, building and leading sales teams, business transformation, M&A, partnerships,  product and value proposition development.

Guy is experienced across the payments and technology landscape having worked with many clients on all forms of card issuer processing, card acquirer processing, consumer lending solutions, SaaS and customer servicing solutions.

Peg Johnson

Associate Partner

Peg Johnson is a global payment operator, having led diverse and complex operations and customer experience teams for some of the most innovative multi-national payment businesses and high-growth fintech companies in the world including First Data, Ubiquity, i2c and Curve.

PJ is a payments organization whisperer due to her unique blend of high impact leadership skill, industry knowledge and management of end-to-end operational processes developed through a variety of high-profile executive leadership roles. This combined with her deep industry relationships make her a trusted advisor and operator to CEOs and executives as she consistently delivers operational observations, actionable improvements and hands on management that move growth businesses forward.

In addition to PJ’s career experience she devotes personal time to emerging businesses and fintechs as a Board Member on the Omaha Chamber of Commerce Startup Collaborative, and she has worked for nearly a decade with Project Pink’d as an Executive Advisory Committee member supporting breast cancer survivors.

Dave Joyce

Associate Partner

Dave has several decades of leadership experience in a wide range of payment, fintech and software technology businesses ranging from established international businesses (Visa), multinational software businesses (CREALOGIX) through to start-up and scaling businesses (Ixaris and Weavr).

During his time at Visa, Dave held numerous senior management roles across a wide range of functions, including managing the P&L for the processing business, as well as leading business operations across Europe.

At Ixaris (a pioneer and industry leader in the delivery of virtual cards and accounts to the travel industry) as COO, Dave drove the rationalisation of both business lines and the organisation, resulting in a doubling of revenue and achieving breakeven, as well as establishing strategic partnerships with global distribution partners and scaling the business across Europe and APAC territories.

Dave has also worked with emerging payments platform Weavr, a market leader in embedded finance. As COO Dave led the executive team and built the operating model and execution framework for the business, key to securing $40m Series A VC investment in 2021.

Dave’s consultancy experience includes projects in Dubai, Jersey, and the UK, all of which centred on fintech/financial services.

He brings a wealth of real-world experience building venture-backed businesses in payments, fintech, and software. His specialism is supporting founder CEOs and leadership teams in start-up and scaling businesses, helping to turn strategy into execution, and putting in place strategies to help the business make the most of the talent and resources at its fingertips. Currently advising a number of fintech businesses across the UK, Dave is also a coach & mentor for a Manchester-based accelerator.

He lives in the North West of England with his family where he enjoys outdoor life in the Forest of Bowland, the Dales, and on the coast. A long-suffering Oxford United fan, he gets misty eyed about the halcyon days of the Milk Cup!

Martin Kearsley

Associate Partner

Martin has enjoyed a distinguished career over 40 years in the telecoms, e-billing and banking IT business in companies such as GEC, Northern Telecom, Datacard, Vocalink, Monitise and Post Office.

His specific expertise is in card technologies, personalisation systems, cash strategies and cash management, including support systems for vulnerable customers. As a strong executive team leader, ensuring cash remains a viable option for those who need it in amongst the rapid move towards a ‘less cash’ society relying increasingly on card-based and digitised services, Martin’s expertise includes the migration programmes involved in moving from one to another.

Alex Langridge

Associate Partner

Alex is a consultant, adviser, and angel investor in the Payments and FinTech sector with over eighteen years experience.

An executive search consultant operating at ‘C’-suite and Board levels, he has made key placements and specialised in fintech and payments for over a decade. He previously worked in a hypergrowth payments fintech backed by leading West Coast investors.

Todd Lesher

Associate Partner

Todd is an accomplished business leader with over 20 years of experience leading and growing FinTech companies (cards and payments focus).  Skilled in general management, business development, contract negotiation, company & financial strategy and M&A.  In his various general manager roles, he led businesses through seven acquisitions, five as the selling company and two as the buying company.

Todd currently serves as an advisor/board member to FinTech companies.  In 2021, he rejoined Fiserv via the acquisition of Ondot Systems where he served as Chief Strategy/Revenue Officer, leading a team responsible for sales, relationship management and strategic business development.  Prior to Ondot, Todd was CEO of Santa Barbara Tax Products Group (sold to Green Dot Corporation), and, before that, a division President for Fiserv, with responsibility for their online banking, bill pay and mobile banking.  Todd also previously held general management positions with CheckFree Corporation (sold to Fiserv), VerticalOne Corporation (sold to S1 Corporation in 1999, and then again to Yodlee/Envestnet in 2000), BellSouth (now part of AT&T) and The Boston Consulting Group.

Todd resides with his wife in the U.S. in La Jolla, California. He enjoys adventure travel, warm conversations over dinner with friends and feeding his creative side, dabbling in some oil painting and prose writing.

Jan-Pieter Lips

Associate Partner

Jan-Pieter (JP) Lips is a UK based, international senior executive with a strong track record of leading growth businesses in Fintech, SaaS, analytics and loyalty.

JP was Head of Unified Commerce and member of the Leadership Group at Adyen between 2018 and 2023. There he was responsible for development and driving adoption of the Unified Commerce offering – enabling omnichannel companies in Retail, F&B and Hospitality to create seamless shopping experiences, gain Insight in their Shoppers and engage them with recognition and loyalty.

Prior to Adyen, JP was one of the founders of the successful Nectar UK loyalty programme in 2002. After the sale of Nectar to Canadian listed loyalty and analytics company Aimia, he was Managing Director of Nectar from 2009 to 2013 and President of Aimia’s EMEA division from 2013 to 2017. In this role JP was responsible multiple business units in branded Loyalty, SaaS marketing systems and data monetisation using financial data and fast moving retail data.

JP lives in London with his family. He enjoys cycling, hiking and is a big fan of Fulham football club.

Jana Mackintosh

Associate Partner

Jana is the Managing Director for Payments, Innovation and Resilience at UK Finance where she leads discussions on payments, fintech and digital agendas.

Before joining UK Finance, she was head of the Worldpay (then FIS) Global Government Affairs team, shaped competition and regulatory policies at the Financial Conduct Authority and Payments Systems Regulator and prior to that supported companies across public and private sectors globally through her various roles.

She has added commercial credentials delivering and implementing policies in practice, holds several board positions and works with a number of charities.

Nigel Motyer

Associate Partner

Nigel’s forty year career started in retail banking in AIB Bank before moving from the Banks branch network into Change Management, Business Transformation and Value Systems Control before laterally moving into merchant acquiring and payments.

He was part of the bank management team that set up a joint venture merchant acquiring business with First Data in 2007. Nigel went onto become General Manager of that business doubling the EBITDA over two years. He then moved to First Data to take on responsibility for six of First Data’s European businesses and joint ventures. Prior to First Data’s IPO the company asked Nigel to take responsibility for expanding the wholly owned First Data Acquiring portfolio in Europe. For over seven years and following the merger with Fiserv, Nigel held P&L responsibility for over a third of Fiserv’s EMEA revenue.

He is an experienced senior leader in acquiring and payments with a proven ability to form new teams and significantly grow the P&L. Nigel is a Board level professional who chaired both the First Data Europe Ltd and Fiserv Services Europe Ltd boards. He has also served on the Boards of a number of acquiring entities including NetPay Ltd and internationally in ICIC Ltd in Mumbai.

Sara Parker

Associate Partner

A product strategist through-and-through, Sara has a 30-year career in financial services technology. She has held senior roles within large organisations including ACI and VocaLink and smaller businesses such as Mutual Vision, ParentPay and Panintelligence.  Her experience as Chief Product Officer and Chief Commercial Officer includes major product development, strategy, sales, and fundraising.

With experience of successfully fundraising for growth within a business Sara has also advised 100s of entrepreneurs seeking funding.  Her laser focus helps organisations to scale valuable products by ensuring they are solving real customer problems.

Sara believes in innovation to create globally successfully fintech solutions and that innovative solutions can come from anywhere.  That’s why, after 30 years growing international businesses, Sara has a particular passion for supporting globally ambitious Fintech businesses in her native North of England.

Sara is a Non-Executive Director of Finance Yorkshire (an SME finance fund) and was a director of NorthInvest (tech Angel network) for several years.

Sara is married with three (semi-grown up) children and is a keen runner, skier and an enthusiastic, if inept, artist.

David Poole

Associate Partner

David is an advisor and strategic consultant for face to face payments and specifically Mobile Payment Acceptance Solutions. Previously he led the global business development teams at MYPINPAD, as Head of Global Mobile POS Solutions and was Head of Sales and Marketing at Verifone where he led a team of 70 professionals and was responsible for annual revenues of $250m.

David Rich

Associate Partner

David Rich is a visionary and strategic fintech and payments industry leader. He is renowned for his ability to pioneer industry-disruptive solutions and drive significant revenue growth across global markets. As the Founder and CEO of Vision Practical, David leads an enterprise specializing in executive leadership and strategic consultation, focusing on creating innovative, data-driven insights and commercializing cutting-edge products. His expertise in leveraging fintech, analytics, and artificial intelligence has been instrumental in establishing competitive business and sales strategies for a diverse range of clients.

Previously, David was Executive Vice President at Mastercard in the Cyber and Intelligence and Vocalink divisions. In these roles, he led cross-functional teams to develop ground-breaking cyber and security solutions across card and non-card payment networks. His initiatives in launching new products using advanced data science, AI, and machine learning significantly enhanced the company’s global offerings. These efforts grew revenue by 400% and earned Mastercard numerous awards for their analytics and AI solutions in addressing financial crime.

During his tenure at Citigroup, David demonstrated exceptional leadership as Region Director of Business Banking and Head of Sales, Products, and Marketing for Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East Region. He was pivotal in driving sales, product management, and marketing strategies, achieving record revenue growth and strengthening client satisfaction scores.

David’s career is also marked by his impactful stint at Telstra, where he developed and executed a visionary business plan to create a subsidiary in the USA focused on Global Electronic Payment Services. His efforts in managing alliance partners and executing strategies for business-to-consumer and business-to-business initiatives contributed significantly to Telstra’s global expansion and revenue growth.

With a track record of successfully leading high-performing teams and developing and implementing strategies that drive profitable revenue growth, David has established himself as a motivational thought leader. His resilience, agile thinking, and tenacity reflect his ability to translate strategic intent into concrete action. Recognized for his patented innovations and multiple certifications from prestigious institutions such as MIT, MBS, and NOLS, David is also a passionate advocate for environmental sustainability, integrating this ethos into his professional endeavours.

David Rich’s career is a testament to his unwavering commitment to innovation, learning, and technology, making him a distinguished figure in the fintech and payments industry.

Gavin Sadler

Associate Partner

Gavin is a strategic, client driven professional with 35 years experience in Payments, Banking and Technology Consultancy. His focus has been focused on delivering measurable success for Financial Service clients across Europe, North America & Australasia.

Driving collaboration with facilitation techniques across groups using a combination of Business Market knowledge and how best to embrace Technology Solutions as a key enabler.

His background of Senior VP Roles has straddled time with Banks – (NatWest / Barclays / Lloyds), consultancies (Capgemini / Savantor / Quantom Six) and technology solution providers (ACI Worldwide / Flexicom / Dialect Solutions) with a focus of Business growth and developing key strategic client relationships.

Most recently focusing on Banks and Payment providers tackling their transformation journey; addressing the challenges in moving from traditional legacy solutions to a flexible, efficient and resilient future. In all of his roles, the drive has been to ensure focus on the end clients does not waver; whilst driving the commercial target outcomes.

Based close to London, UK he is married with 2 children and has a keen interest in golf and exploring the world.

Russell Saunders

Associate Partner

Russell Saunders is an Independent Director and Chair of several Financial Services and Technology firms.

He has executive experience spanning many years as Managing Director of Global Payments, Financial Crime, IT and Operations across global jurisdictions.

Russell has also represented the UK on Global Market Infrastructures Boards and Utilities.

James Sherwin-Smith

Associate Partner

James is a thoughtful risk-taker who has built several fintech and payment businesses, and now focuses on investing and advising management teams in high growth firms.

James founded Hitmatic, an internet analytics business, in 1999. He spent 8 years at Oliver Wyman, working with large financial services firms as they evolved to become digital first, including building new business units on behalf of clients.

After a brief stint at digital lending firm Wonga, James joined Mastercard Advisors as the global thought leader for Digital Payments. He was then head-hunted to be the CEO and co-founder of Growth Street, an innovative working capital provider to UK firms.

James was then asked to join the management team at Vocalink, following the acquisition by Mastercard, where he served as General Manager responsible for the expansion of real time payments to several major markets outside the UK.

James lives in West Sussex with his wife, enjoys playing and watching cricket, and holds a PPL (aeroplanes).

Rob Sleeman

Associate Partner

Rob Sleeman is associate with The Fintech and Payments Advisory Network. Rob specialises in managed services operations in Financial Services. He has held senior operational management positions with a number of blue-chip companies such as Royal and SunAlliance, Merchants, Silah Gulf and TSYS Managed Services.

He has been responsible for delivering a national e-enablement programme for insurance contact centres, the build and set up of contact centres for both new and existing clients and the successful delivery of ongoing and new start up operational services for a number of clients.

Rob’s team won the prestigious Best Achievement in Customer Service at the UK and Ireland Card Awards for their work Nationwide Building Society. He is Non-Executive Director for FreshVue, a leading European contact centre process automation specialist.

Phil Stunt

Associate Partner

Phil Stunt is a senior technology and operations leader across the UK and international payments world, latterly as the Chief Operating Officer at Barclaycard Payments and previously as International Chief Information Officer for Fiserv.

At Barclaycard, Phil’s focus has been on automation and digitisation of the complex payments landscape and back-office environment to provide enhanced customer capability and experience while simultaneously managing and improving the controls to align with regulatory environment. At Fiserv, Phil was responsible for the delivery of the technology and programs enabling the ten-fold growth of both the Issuing and Acquiring processing portfolios across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Phil also led the product teams driving product modernisation and capability.

Phil was a member of the Board of both AIBMS, an independently regulated merchant acquiring JV between AIB and Fiserv, and Cardnet Merchant Services, a joint venture between Lloyds and Fiserv. In the UK, Phil is an approved person by the FCA.

Phil’s early career started at Shell as an engineer in the UK, Australia, Germany, and Saudi Arabia, followed by leadership of large scale technology transformation at Accenture and Computer Associates.

He holds an undergraduate degree from Loughborough University and is undertaking a second degree at Kings College London.

He lives in West Sussex and has been a life-long Rugby fan. Sadly, his playing days are long gone but is ever hopeful that one day he will get the call up while watching from the touchline at Harlequins.

Klaus Vehns

Associate Partner

Klaus started his career in financial services more than 30 years ago. After a traditional start into project and ship finance he soon moved into the exciting area of digital banking. At the end of the 90’s he joined a start-up Neobank in Dublin building the truly first pan-European internet bank (First-e the internet bank). In a 2 year period he experienced the full cycle of boom and bust during the internet hype at the time.

After leading roles responsible for digital retail banking strategy and business lines with Commerzbank (comdirect) and BMW Financial Services Klaus joined Rabobank from 2012-2023 as European Head responsible for and building their European direct banks in Germany and Belgium. In addition, Klaus took the role as Rabobank’s German country CEO being responsible for the overall country presence in retail and wholesale banking from 2016-2022.

Currently Klaus works as an advisor helping traditional banks with digital transformation of their business, new start-ups building their business with rock-solid governance structures as well as supporting market entries of various financial services players into the European and especially German market.

When business allows Klaus tries to stay fit and healthy with rowing and biking. He is married with a daughter and a son (28, 25) and lives with his family in the beautiful city of Hamburg in Germany.

Gautam Vyas

Associate Partner

Gautam is an experienced and proven business leader with a stellar track record of delivering growth and innovation, creating new revenue streams, and rapid scaling of FinTech, Payments, SaaS, Data and Consulting businesses on a global scale. His experience spans building and leading global businesses at companies including FIS, Equifax, EY and HP where he accelerated growth on a sustained basis.

Gautam spent his early career in management consulting helping clients execute transformations and improving their operating disciplines, executing M&A and divestitures, leading complex programs across the globe, and developing data and business intelligence systems. He led product innovation and product transformation at Equifax, before building out channel distribution and Mobile business. His experience at FIS as its SVP and Global Head of Services includes building out Software and Services business globally across Payments, Banking and Wealth domains, and delivering product and consulting services to FIS’ 2000+ clients globally across all facets of Payments and Banking ecosystem.

Gautam’s expertise is centered on scaling profitable growth through innovative GTM and business development, developing crisp and differentiated value proposition through innovative products and services, assembling high performing teams, embedding power of partnerships for win-win relationships, deployment of efficient and optimal operating models, and delivering game changing transformations for accelerated growth.

Gautam is based in the United States.

Jim Wadsworth

Associate Partner

Jim thrives on bringing bold ideas to life; he has built and led businesses for market leaders such as Vodafone, JP Morgan, Barclaycard, Vocalink, and Mastercard.

He is passionate about innovation, especially in payments (both card and account-to-account), and he has been at the forefront of the global Open Banking movement for the past five years.

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