Advisory Board - EMEA

An inspiring payments expert with strong customer focus, commercial and delivery credentials. Global experience with deep understanding of market complexity, drivers and participants. At Payment Matters, Teresa helps customers to deepen client insight to steer strategy, enhance propositions and build compelling Thought Leadership programmes. During her career at NatWest / RBS Teresa led international market engagement programmes leveraging knowledge & expertise in payments, cash management, client insight and product. Teresa is a highly regarded industry spokesperson, she is also a published author contributing to The PAYTECH Book 2020 and as a primary author of the market leading World Payments Report. A strong advocate of diversity, Teresa is a member of the UK Women in Payments Board, she is also an Ambassador for the Emerging Payments Association.

Business and sales leader with 20 years multinational experience in banking and fintech with P/L responsibility (FIS Global, Investec Bank, NetTreasury, Nedbank, First National Bank). Led strategic change initiatives and expanded business operational capability in different regions including defining & executing growth strategy, championing innovation and expansion into new territories. Outcomes focused with strong cross-functional collaboration to achieve business goals. Successfully developed business frameworks that deliver sustainable value through empowering people, contributing to culture and leading by example. Inclusion & diversity champion as FIS Empower Global Steering Committee member responsible for Partnership Development. MBA candidate with Alliance Manchester Business School.

Susana is Managing Director, Global Head of Consumer & SME Payments Strategy at Swift. In her role, she defines long term strategies for Swift to support its banking community in delivering instant and frictionless payments.

In her 20 years of professional experience, she has worked for financial institutions such as Santander, where she was COO of a cross-border payments business and lead digital strategies within the consumer fintech ecosystem, and earlier on in her career she worked for Citi in its credit cards business in Spain and Italy. She has also been a management consultant for McKinsey and a member of its payments practice.

In addition, she has relevant experience outside of the payments industry, having worked for Amazon as a Marketplace business leader, and in the software industry as Director of Corporate Strategy at Wolters Kluwer, where she drove global digital transformation programs.

Kate has worked in financial services for over 20 years. Through a number of diverse roles in Marketing, product development and marketing, technology and payments, the common thread for Kate is the delivery of great customer journeys and solutions. Kate has a very strong focus on innovation, driven by consumer demand and global market movements. Kate actively works with Fintech companies and this has given her further insight into the types of problems that customers experience in a purchase journey and how to go about providing relevant solutions. Kate now leads the Strategy and Standards team in Pay.UK with the purpose of driving innovation in the payments ecosystem, enabling a vibrant UK economy

Vivi is the VP – General Manager for Global Network Partnerships EMEA. Joined AXP in 2005. Worked in sales enablement and business development at 4 management levels and 2 Business Units

She is a graduate of the Leadership Program of United Technologies – Pratt & Whitney, where she worked in the USA/France, selling jet engines and services.

Vivi’s Ambition is having options, exceling in what she decides to do and having fun while doing it. While her professional ambition has evolved, core to Vivi has always remained making an impact on family, friends, team, and community.

Vivi earned: MSc in Finance from London Business School, MBA from Purdue University, USA, MSc in Information Systems from London School of Economics and is an Electronics Engineer.

She is a Member of 2 AXP Boards, sits on the Executive Women EMEA Committee, speaks Greek, English, French, and basic German and Spanish. Lives with husband and 17-yr old son. Vivi loves deciphering language structures, tennis and dining.

Rufaida Hamilton (nee Banoobhai) is the Head of Payments for South Africa at Standard Bank Limited  of South Africa and is currently based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Arts at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa, and after finishing Law School in 1998, pursued a Bachelor of Commerce Honours degree.  She is an alumna of Harvard Business School, with several programmes in executive management and leaderhip under her belt.

Rufaida has 22 years of extensive experience in financial services and payments, traversing the investment, corporate and retail banking segments in South Africa. She has worked for 3 of the largest banks in South Africa, and served in various payment industry roles within the South African payments eco-system including as a Board member of the Payments Association of South Africa and the Chairperson of the Board of DandyShelf Limited, which held ownership of the local payment system operator. She has led the South African, Rapid Payments Programme board from its design phase to execution of the programme to implement a new payment rail in the country. As the South African payments industry transforms, Rufaida led the banking industry programme to contribute to the design of the new South African payments industry body.

She was a Money 20/20, Amsterdam Rise Up Cohort member in 2019, and has continued to support the programme. She has a great passion for capacity building in payments expertise and skills, particulary women in payments, and in emerging economies. As a mentor both in South Africa and on the Women in Payments, Canada | Mentor programme, she ardently supports the development of talent in payments and is determined to have a positive impact on women in the space.

Alison is a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan and the Global Head of Market Management, the Head of Business Transformation and Strategic Execution in Europe, Middle East and Africa; and the Western European Country Head within the Payments business in the Corporate and Investment Bank.  She has responsibility for analysing market and industry trends, competitive intelligence and delivering thought leadership for our clients, alongside driving key regional strategic programmes of work and driving business growth, market visibility and governance within Western Europe.  Alison has worked in a variety of different roles across the Payments business and Compliance in New York, Frankfurt and London. 

Alison has been featured in a number of industry publications and newspaper articles including a 2018 article on The Women Driving J.P. Morgan’s EMEA Push – Transaction Banking featured in The Banker Magazine. 

Alison is a member of the Board of J.P. Morgan Bank Luxembourg S.A. and the EMEA Diversity Council. 

Alison has an LLB Law degree from The University of Hull and is a qualified barrister in the UK and a member of Lincoln’s Inn. 

A hands-on and highly experienced banking and payments professional with over 17 years of extensive experience across the Middle East and Africa. Vaanathi has worked across verticals from product conceptualization to growth and P&L management. She has worked expansively with fintech’s across the region and her pulse of the market combined with deep understanding of regulations across the region allows the fintechs to greatly benefit in terms of how to take a product to market and make a business out of it. Her experience extends across the BFSI sector and financial inclusion to cross-border payments. She is committed to the cause of women entrepreneurship and leadership particularly and evangelizes the cause of women inclusion and diversity for long-term sustainability. She is also an acknowledged industry expert making her presence felt at multiple expert panels by presenting her views on the fintech ecosystem in the region and its growth. She has co-authored and contributed to multiple payment industry reports with leading consultants and is also the co-chair of SHIFT, the payments arm of the MENA fintech association and a key member of the MENA fintech association team and often mentors start-ups in using the power of technology to solve financial challenges.

Vaanathi is the business head for the MENA region at M2P Fintech, Asia’s largest API infrastructure company. In her past roles, she has worked with organizations such as Finablr, ICICI Bank, and Citibank, and has also set up and run her own enterprise in the UAE, for over 5 years.

Gema Montoya has a wealth of experience across the financial services industry globally, particularly in the payments and securities space. She has worked at leading companies in the financial services sector such as Banco Santander, SWIFT, and on top leading FinTech providers of payment and technology solutions like Deposit Solutions and Icon Solutions.   And she has been appointed as Int’l Business Development Director at Worldline’s, leading provider of payment and technology solutions. 

Gema is specialized in transforming and making businesses grow through the design and implementation of innovative commercial strategies in financial markets. She is a firmly believer of ecosystems, moving away from old egosystems mindsets, collaboration is the key to success. 

She has a Bachelor’s in Business Management and Marketing and a PDD for Instituto de Empresa and Master of Banking at the Universidad de Alcala de Henares, Madrid 

Gabriela Nguyen-Groza has 14 years of experience on the local and international market. Prior to founding Amrop Luxembourg, she started the local office of another leading executive search international network in Luxembourg, being a Senior Client Partner and working on C-Suite and Board search assignments as well as on Advisory mandates. ​

She commands an extensive national, regional and international experience and Board and C-Level network. Her work in Executive Search spans a multitude of non-executive and executive positions (Chairperson of the Board, Independent Director, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Risk Officer, etc.).​

Her expertise in search is completed by her activity as a trusted advisor for Boards, Chairs, CEOs and their executive teams, working across a range of leadership topics in Finance and Digital, across various global and fast-growing payment companies. She is specialized in topics such as Leadership Assessment and Development, Succession Planning, Board Effectiveness, Diversity & Inclusion, Sustainable Leadership (ESG).  She is quick to grasp the sector challenges and nuances while bringing rigor, insight, care and pragmatism in her approach. ​

Gabriela is a lecturer on Corporate Governance and the Vice-Chair of the Board Composition Committee at ILA (Institut Luxembourgeois des Administrateurs), the Luxembourg Board Members representative body. ​

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Nicole is a commercially astute and highly customer-focused professional with 20 years’ experience in the payments ecosystem. She has a reputation for driving results and strategy, galvanizing teams, embracing change, and delivering strong business performance. She is passionate about developing female talent and actively contributes to Diversity and Inclusion initiatives both in and out of the firm. Nicole is the Managing Director of Payment Partnerships for Barclaycard Payments where she is focused on delivering integrated payments solutions by connecting payment capabilities to the software used by clients and prospects, ensuring clients can grow their business with payments powered by Barclays. Further to this she is a Board Member of Entercard, a joint venture between Barclays and Swedbank in Scandinavia. In her previous role as Managing Director of the Barclaycard Payment Integration team, Nicole led teams delivering payment strategy, innovation and product development across payment gateways, hardware and software. She has previously worked for organizations including VeriFone, Discover Financial Services, and NET1 (Prism). She has worked across SMB and Corporate segments spanning retail, banking, petroleum, mobile network operators and financial institutions both locally and internationally.

Gilda has over thirty years of experience in the Financial Services sector across Operations, IT transformation and change delivery, in the UK, Ireland and the US.

As an accomplished woman leader, Gilda is a vocal advocate for psychological safety, emerging diverse talent, employee engagement and wellbeing.

Maria-Clara joined Mastercard in 2015 as part of the Digital Payments team for UK & Ireland and participated in the design of the digital strategy and roll out of Mastercard’s tokenization platform in the market. She was then appointed Chief of Staff to the President International, who at Mastercard is responsible for all sales activities in over 200 countries and territories, and this for 2,5 consecutive years. She supported the President and the executive team in a broad range of strategic and operational activities. Currently part of the Product & Innovation group, Maria-Clara is Vice President, Market Development, New Payment Platforms and supports Mastercard’s go to market strategy of real time and account to account, domestic and cross-border payment programs worldwide. Prior to joining Mastercard, Maria-Clara was Area Manager for Southern Europe at Nosto, a Finnish ecommerce and personalization start-up. Maria-Clara held various positions at Skrill, now part of Paysafe, a FCA regulated e-money issuer operating out of London. Maria-Clara opened the French market for Skrill and headed up their Channel Management team. She then went on to be Head of Payments Network. Born in Bogota, Colombia, Maria-Clara started her professional career structuring the Export business unit of a local company and as lecturer in Colombian Diplomacy and International Relations at a leading Colombian university. Maria-Clara spent her first years between France and Colombia until completing her French baccalaureat, Sciences and Physics elective. Maria-Clara holds a B.A. in Finance and International Relations from Universidad Externado de Colombia and a diploma in Social and Political Sciences from Sciences Po Paris. Maria-Clara then completed a double degree Masters in Management and Masters in European Business from ESCP Europe, in France and the UK.

Emanuela is the Global Co-Head of Cross-border Payments & Receivables, in this capacity she is responsible for the management of a very broad and competitively differentiated suite of cross border payments solutions into over 200 countries. She is accountable for the business strategy and execution, P&L, and product development function in partnership with Citi Markets and Securities Services. Recent innovation allows clients to pay close to real time into bank accounts and into Alternative Payment Methods across borders and currencies.

She has been with Citibank for a number of years and held various roles within product management in payments as well as a role in Strategy and Financial Planning & Analysis in New York. Before joining Citi in 2003, Emanuela worked for five years at Goldman Sachs in New York in both M&A and Equity Research.

Emanuela holds a Master’s degree in Economics from New York University (USA) and a degree magna cum laude in Economics and Commerce from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy).

She served as a Non-Executive Director of HealthBeacon plc prior to the company’s IPO, she is very enthusiastic about sport and a passionate Yoga practitioner. She is originally from Venice, Italy and currently lives in Dublin, Ireland with her husband Jim and their two sons.