Advisory Board - USA

As the Director of Industry Strategy & Trade Development at American Express, Donna Arlotta leads a team that is focused on laying the foundation to strengthen relationships with the millions of merchants that currently accept American Express across the U.S. while also increasing the number of merchants that accept and welcome American Express as a form of payment.

Donna and her team lead relationships with strategic trade partners across the U.S. These critical channels enable American Express to keep a strong pulse on priority industries and merchant needs, share thought leadership, and connect with customers in meaningful ways. In addition, they analyze industry trends in order to identify key verticals that are poised for growth, and subsequently develop strategies to grow merchant acceptance within those industries.

Donna has been with American Express since 2012 and has served in a variety of roles across the Merchant business. Prior to joining American Express, she worked at a global utility company where she served in a Financial Reporting and Planning role.

A native New Yorker, Donna currently resides on Long Island with her husband and two young children. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time at the beach, cooking, and giving back to her community – volunteering at a local soup kitchen, the Bethany Hospitality Kitchen, and bringing together a group every year for park clean-up at a local arboretum. Donna is a graduate of Siena College and received her MBA from St. John’s University.

Sarah T. Billings is senior vice president and group manager leading PNC’s Payment Product, Operations and Strategy group. Billings is responsible for managing the product management and operations functions for payments, including wires, ACH, real-time payments and international payments. In her role, she leads a multi-disciplinary team, comprised of Product, Technology and Operations, committed to transforming PNC’s core payments platforms. She is responsible for leading strategic planning and the execution of a multi-year roadmap that enables PNC clients to take advantage of the latest innovations in payments and data to improve their businesses.

Prior to joining PNC, Billings was the managing director and head of global payments and deposits platforms at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Billings serves on the Women in Payments Advisory Board and the Global Client Advisory Board for Finastra and will begin her term serving on the NACHA Board of Directors on January 1, 2021. Billings graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Cheryl Guerin is Executive Vice President, North America Marketing & Communications where she is responsible for driving brand preference and reputation for Mastercard across U.S. and Canada. Ms. Guerin’s team develops and implements coordinated communications and marketing strategies reinforcing the value of our brand, products and services to drive revenue growth and market share for the region. Her responsibilities include directing the brand’s award-winning Priceless campaign, communications, consumer marketing, sponsorships, digital, research and insights, as well as B2B and partner marketing activity to drive greater connection with consumers and businesses.

Prior to this Cheryl led Mastercard Credit Products with responsibility for all aspects of product strategy and development globally. In addition, she also held a general management role, overseeing all Products and Services for North America.

She also previously ran US Marketing where she launched successful marketing platforms such as Priceless Cities, Priceless Surprises and the Priceless Causes Stand Up To Cancer platform. Ms. Guerin joined Mastercard in 2000 and has also run several key Marketing functions including, Global Digital Marketing and Global Integrated Promotions. Key achievements include building organizations around these disciplines globally, as well as continued industry accolades, most recently a 2021 Cannes Grand Prix for creating the breakthrough True Name card feature.

Prior to Mastercard, Ms. Guerin held several account services positions at advertising agencies such as Bates Worldwide, managing campaigns and product launches for clients such as Avis, American Home Products, Best Foods, NatWest Bank and Samsung.

Jane Larimer is President and CEO of Nacha, which governs the modern ACH Network, the payment system driving nearly 29 billion safe, fast payments annually. Jane has led Nacha since July 2019, guiding the association as it builds consensus to advance innovation in the payments industry. She was named one of the Most Influential Women in Payments in 2021 by PaymentsSource, which cited the “key payments milestones” she has helped Nacha achieve and her work to advance the ACH Network, among other factors.

An Ohio native raised in Florida, Jane joined Nacha as its first in-house counsel and has also served as the association’s chief operating officer and executive vice president of ACH Network Administration.

Jane holds a law degree from the University of Florida – Fredric G. Levin College of Law. Prior to Nacha, Jane practiced law in Atlanta at a firm now known as Bryan Cave LLP, and earlier worked at NationsBank, now Bank of America.

Gonca Latif-Schmitt is a Managing Director within Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions at Citi based in New York. Gonca is a member of the Treasury and Trade Solutions Executive Committee as the Global Head of Commercial Cards. In this role Gonca leads a global organization that spans product management, market management, sales and account management for clients across the corporate, financial institution and public sector client verticals. Prior to her current appointment, she was the North America Business Head for the Citi Commercial Card business responsible for Citi’s end to end NA card business as well as management of NA headquartered client’s programs globally.

Over 20 years, her primary career focus has been on managing client relationships across several verticals to include corporate, broker/dealer, mutual funds and public sector. Prior to her roles in Commercial Card Product Management, Gonca was responsible for Development Organizations and Embassy Banking team within the North America Public Sector Group. The team primarily focused on managing a global portfolio of solutions that leverage Citi’s 100 country footprint. She worked closely to develop financial solutions to support these clients as they deliver humanitarian aid in development markets globally.

In addition to her responsibilities at Citi, Gonca is an active Board Member and on the Executive Committee as Treasurer for The National Association for Media Literacy (NAMLE) -- a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing media literacy education. In 2020, Gonca was recognized by American Banker as a “Woman to Watch.” In 2021, Crain’s included Gonca as a “Notable Women on Wall Street.”

Gonca holds a BA from New York University. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two daughters.

Laura Miller leads the J.P. Morgan segment of Merchant Services, the global payment acceptance and merchant acquiring business of JPMorgan Chase and a leading provider of payment, fraud management and data security solutions. As J.P. Morgan Merchant Services President, Laura oversees merchant acquiring and payment processing for U.S.-based companies with annual revenue between $20 million and $2 billion, and global corporations with annual revenue above $2 billion.

She has more than 20 years of financial services experience, joining JPMorgan Chase in 2009. Most recently, Laura served as President of the U.S. Commercial Bank segment of Merchant Services. She also previously led the Small Business Segment of Merchant Services, leading a team that worked directly with business owners as well as through 5,300 Chase branches.

Before coming to Merchant Services, Laura was President of Chase Ink, the firm’s small business credit card, and she has held progressively responsible positions in the J.P. Morgan Global Commercial Card business.

Laura is also co-chairwoman for the Northeast Region of JPMC’s Market Leadership Team, which is dedicated to delivering the firm to clients on a local level and being leaders in their communities. She is a well-known advocate for Diversity & Inclusion at JPMC and a strong supporter of business owners and the entrepreneur community.

Laura earned a bachelor’s degree in Marketing from the University of Arizona, serves on the board of directors for Accion East, and resides in New York with her family.

Marie Mui is currently Senior Vice President and Head of Account Management for Wells Fargo Merchant Services. She is an accomplished payments professional with over 20 years of experience in developing high-performing teams and managing complex relationships with an emphasis in the startup, technology and Fintech sectors.

Marie joined Wells Fargo Merchant Services in 2001 where she has successfully designed and architected multi-channel payment environments and negotiated complex business partnerships. Before her current role, Marie was responsible for growing business and leading the both the Service Provider and Technology, Media, and Telecommunications sales teams for Merchant Services. Prior to Wells Fargo, Marie was an early adopter of the ecommerce ecosystem having worked at both CyberSource and Escalate Retail during their early start-up days.

Marie has a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication from the California State University, East Bay and is a Certified Payments Professional. In addition to Women in Payments, Marie sits on the Award and Nominations Committee for the Electronic Transaction Association and is active with the Association for Financial Professionals. When not thinking about payments, Marie enjoys traveling, cooking and spending time with her family and friends.

Mary Anne has over 30 years of experience in client-driven relationship management roles and joined FIS/WP in 2020 as a member of the NA Merchant Solutions team responsible for advance analytics team and accepting accelerated responsibility to lead Retention Strategies and SMB Retention teams. In February 2022, she accepted the role of Chief of Staff Global Operations teams responsible for client and colleague experience.

Prior to joining FIS/WP, Mary Anne was Senior Vice President, Client and Partner Management for Oasis Outsourcing, a Paychex Company, through which she supported more than 8,500 clients, improving portfolio retention year over year.

Mary Anne held a number of positions in her 20 years at Bank of America Merchant Services and First Data Corporation, where she led teams in client and executive management across all merchant verticals and segments.

She is a native to Florida where she currently lives with her husband and son. When Mary Anne is not working, she enjoys tennis, pickleball, time with friends and days on South Florida beaches.

Rossana Thomas leads the Product Management organization for Enterprise Payments Platform at Fiserv, and has over 30 years of strategy, product development and executive leadership experience within the Financial Services industry. Prior to joining Fiserv, Rossana worked for KPMG and supported several U.S. financial institutions with their Real-Time Payments implementations. Rossana provided strategic direction to The Clearing House’s ACH, wire and check image exchange solutions during her career at the TCH. Rossana is an Accredited ACH Professional (AAP), an established payments industry leader and a member of multiple industry initiatives including NACHA. Rossana is the winner of the 2020 PayTech Leadership Award.

Elena Whisler is Senior Vice President of Sales and Relationship Management at The Clearing House. Elena is currently responsible for overseeing the customer relationship, sales and marketing teams to manage and expand its client base across The Clearing House’s core payments products (RTP® network, CHIPS, ACH and check image exchange). Current priorities include growing the RTP network across the US financial system participants and evolving the customer engagement model for all TCH Products.

Prior to joining The Clearing House, she held regional and global product management positions at FIS, Clear2Pay and Fiserv as well as working at the Federal Reserve Bank within the Retail Product Office and Monetary Policy Divisions working on cross-border activities and economic policy in Latin America.

Elena has served on multiple industry councils such as the Board of Directors for BAFT (Banking Association for Finance and Trade) and the NACHA Alliance. She also currently serves on the Women in Payments Advisory Board as well as the Girls on the Run Central Ohio Board.

Jennifer Williams is a Senior Vice President of Global Finance at Elavon / U.S. Bank. She is a 25-year veteran in the payments industry and has a background in multiple financial disciplines including Accounting, Pricing, Financial Planning & Analysis, Sales and Partner Compensation, and Revenue Reporting & Analytics. Her current emphasis is Executive reporting and Financial Insights for Elavon / U.S. Bank.