Past Winners - 2019

Penny Collins is Vice President, Chief Technology Control Officer for First Data. In this role, she oversees FD's Technology Controls Program coordinating with compliance, legal, cyber security and technology proactively ensuring that IT Controls are effective within FD operational and business processes. Penny leads global Disaster Recovery efforts for Application Development and owns Global Security and Controls PMO driving top security programs globally in partnership with our President, CCO and CISO.

Penny has over a decade worth of experience leading global teams driving some of First Data’s largest programs. She has held leadership roles in Cyber Security, Program Management, Marketing and Operations. Penny serves as Global Advisor for First Data’s Women’s Leadership Council, serves on the Women in Technology advisory board, and drives various charities across Atlanta all in pursuit of bringing more awareness of technology opportunities to our women students in Georgia

Julie Fergerson is one of the industry’s foremost experts on Internet payments fraud and an in-demand conference presenter at events around the world. With over 20 years of ecommerce and fraud management experience, she holds patents for various technologies designed to secure order processing and prevent fraudulent electronic transactions. She joined Ethoca in 2010 to help drive adoption of its collaborative ecommerce fraud prevention platform.

Before joining Ethoca, Fergerson was Vice President of Emerging Technologies at Debix and Co-Founder and Vice President of Emerging Technologies at ClearCommerce. She is a co-founder of the Merchant Risk Council (MRC) and an ITRC board member, where she created and lead the Victim Assistance Program, a collaborative effort between the National Cyber Forensics Training Alliance (NCTFA), the ITRC and Debix to provide notification and assistance to consumers whose identities have been compromised and found on crime servers by law enforcement.

Carolyn is a key member of ACI’s Executive Leadership Team and leads ACI’s Global Sales organization; a dedicated and experienced team of more than 200 payments professionals operating across all global regions, committed to maximizing ACI’s full growth potential.

Under Carolyn’s leadership, the Global Sales team brings in approximately USD $700 million in bookings annually, with the target of 20% year-on-year growth in 2018.Over the course of 12 years with ACI, Carolyn has made a significant impact through a range of roles; VP Financial Planning & Analysis, VP Programs & Initiatives, SVP Customer Management, and Group President -ACI On-Demand. She has led two P&Ls through significant transformation, and brings many perspectives and broad experience to bear on her current position leading Global Sales. She communicates the importance of integrity in the sales role and speaks to vision and future with all she does.

Seema’s career has been defined by a track record spanning almost 20 years in designing campaign and commercialisation strategies, leading teams in their efforts to deliver products around the globe, working both with local start-ups and large international corporations like Microsoft and Skype.

Her current focus is on redefining the notion of online privacy, something that, today, is largely a myth, as evidenced by large- scale data breaches occurring on a seemingly weekly basis. With her team at Nuggets, she is leveraging biometric authentication, zero-knowledge storage protocols and blockchain technology to equip users with a true self-sovereign identity to prote ct their data in an increasingly adversarial digital age.

Hannah is the VP, Head of UK Consumer Products, Marketing & Brand for American Express leading a team of over 60. In this role also heads the UK lending business and has responsibility for Brand for all lines of business.

Hannah joined American Express in 2008. She has held roles across our consumer, corporate and merchant organizations incl. responsibility for the European acquisition, product and marketing CoE, business development and digitization, payment linked marketing and operations, analytics and regional loyalty strategy. Prior to American Express, Hannah’s background is in consulting with the Boston Consulting Group.

Outside American Express, Hannah is an active participant in UK Finance representing American Express on the Cards and Payments Board actively contributing to the evolving strategic direction of the card payment industry.

Hannah holds a MBA with distinction from London Business School and a first class MEng from the University of Oxford.

Brittany is a director and head of the Global Industrials Treasury Sales team, a position she assumed in 2016. In this role, she leads the team that manages large corporate Global Industrial treasury relationships. Her team is responsible for delivering a full range of global transaction banking solutions across payments, receivables, liquidity, card, trade and supply chain finance.

Before assuming this role, she was a treasury sales officer on the Global Industrials team. In 2006, she relocated to London to manage European treasury relationships for global US middle market clients. She moved back to Chicago in 2008 as an international business development officer, adding coverage of Asia, LATAM and Canada. Brittany joined the bank in 1995, in Consumer Banking. She successfully led the launch of the branch footprint in Chicago in 2003, followed by a number of regional sales leadership roles.

Brittany earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Missouri.

Melissa McKendry is vice president of retail banking implementation services at ACI, having held numerous different roles within the organization over the past 20 years. Additionally, she is site leader at the UK Watford office, providing visible leadership to a group of more than 100 payments professionals covering sales, product, marketing, customer support and technical services. Her in-depth knowledge of the company, having progressed over the course of 20 years with ACI, has proven to be a huge asset in this leadership role. In her time at ACI, Melissa has managed a variety of practice groups, as well as managing customer-facing delivery teams. This has required management of a wide variety of employees from across the globe and she is well respected within the ACI community, gaining recognition from the company’s executive leadership team for the positive impact she's had in re-energizing the Watford site.

An award-winning executive and accomplished industry speaker with more than two decades of experience in financial technology, Serena serves as Division Executive of Open Payments and Global Head of International Payments Strategy & Product Management. She is responsible for the real-time payments and enterprise payments businesses. She also leads the $1B international payments strategy, innovation and product organization.

Serena joined FIS in 2003 with the Image Solutions Division and has continued to excel and establish herself as a leader in the company. She has managed the debit business in Georgia and served as Chief Client Officer for North American Retail Payments. Along with her professional excellence, Serena founded Team FIS (2012) for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training, raising more than $1.84M. Serena is a stage 4 blood cancer survivor who has personally raised more than $250,000 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society by sharing her story.

Lynda McMillan, Head of Payments Representation, Commonwealth Bank

A seasoned payments expert with 30 years’ experience in Financial Services (including 15 years in Payments Strategy, Development andRegulation), Lynda McMillan is highly regarded within CBA and throughout the broader industry for her deep understanding of payments - both from an operational and regulatory perspective. As Head of Payments Representation for Australia’s leading bank, Lynda utilises her developed communication and negotiation skills, and financial and commercial acumen to advocate on behalf of the Commonwealth Bank and champion positive change in the payments industry.

Prior to this, Lynda has held senior roles in payments, card issuing and transaction banking. An experienced governance professional, Lynda is a Non Executive director of AusPayNet and BPAY and sits on a number of NFP Boards. A graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, she has completed an MBA and a number of qualifications in Financial Services, Advertising and Banking. Lynda additionally dedicates her time to a range of mentoring and volunteering activities.

WHY THE AWARDS COMMITTEE SELECTED HER NOMINATION

The winner for this year’s Thought Leader award has an established long history of actively participating in the payments debate through serving on Boards and Management Committees and engaging with industry and regulators. A seasoned payments expert with 30 years’ experience in Financial Services, she has actively participated in numerous industry working groups through which she has contributed to payment roadmaps, improvements to the payments systems and the strategy of major payment organisations.

As a Board member, this person has enthusiastically contributed to developing the strategy for major payment organisations in Australia, such as BPAY, EFTPOS, & AusPayNet. She was part of the industry team that developed the business model for the New Payments Platform. As Chair of Fraud in Banking Forum, she has advocated for a closer relationship between law enforcement and banks to combat fraud. This person is a much sought-after public speaker for her genuine and passionate interest in payments and has spent many years mentoring young women in their careers. She is seen as a credible thought leader who is respected for her candid views, and extensive knowledge of payments.

She sets high standards for ethics and integrity in payments by using insights from her volunteering and Not-For-Profit Board experience to ensure that the development of the payment’s ecosystem is aligned with community expectations. A standout nominee, from what was a hugely talented pool of nominations for the 2019 Women In Payments Thought Leader award this year;  Congratulations, Lynda McMillan, Head of Payments Representation, Commonwealth Bank. 

Carolyn Breeze is General Manager of Australia & New Zealand at GoCardless.

Carolyn is the General Manager, Australia andNew Zealand at GoCardless, leading the team in its entry into the ANZ fintech space. Carolyn istaking up the role after more than 15 years in the technology sector, including extensive international experience within fintech, e-commerce, and telecommunications sectors. For more than 20 years, she has been actively supporting brands to amplify their presence in relevant markets, elevate their customer experience, and form long-term partnerships. An experienced leader, Carolyn’s work within GoCardless, Braintree a PayPal Service, eBay,Vodafone, and Telstra has seen her sharpen her sales, marketing, and leadership expertise, as well as her knowledge in conversion, payments and digital transformation.

Carolyn’s effervescent personality has naturally enabled her to become a sought-after keynote speaker locally and internationally. She is passionate about creating opportunities for local businesses in the region, within areas such as the future of payments and automation. She’s an advocate for workplace diversity and is focused on creating an inclusive working environment. Her primary goal is to empower organisations to drive inclusion and equality through technology and choice. Her astute leadership and professionalism have resulted in Carolyn being awarded one of CEO Magazine’s IT and Telecommunications Executives of the Year in 2018 and recognised as one of Business Insider’s top 20 Women in Fintech.

WHY THE AWARDS COMMITTEE SELECTED HER NOMINATION

The winner for this year’s Advocate for Women award has a strong track record of demonstrated leadership and professional excellence in the payments industry. With more than 20 years’ experience in the technology sector, including extensive international experience across the finch, e-commerce and telecommunications sectors in both traditional and online environments, she has actively supported companies to amplify their presence in relevant markets, elevate the customer experience and form long-term partnerships.

Her references speak to her qualities as a “world class leader” with a “talent for uplifting and supporting her teammates - whether at the frontlines or at her peer level - to be the best version of themselves”. Her actions in driving changes across business and mentorship in the finch space are summed up in this reference “her guidance has led me through some of the most difficult times a founder can experience in business, her mentorship has kept me focused, on task, and helped our team deliver the right results. Every word of advice is delivered with the utmost integrity, respect and with the purest intention. She is committed to our success”.

A standout nominee, from what was a large and hugely talented pool of nominations for the 2019 Women In Payments Advocate for Women award this year; Congratulations, Carolyn Breeze, General Manager of Australia & New Zealand Organization: GoCardless.

Susan Nicholson, Head of Business & Government Payments and Financial Services at Australia Post

As the Head of Business and Government Financial Services at Australia Post Susan develops and provides financial solutions to connect target segments with their customers through digitising their payments and supply chain process to help them deliver both efficiencies in internal processes and a better customer experience.

Susan was at WEX for over 4.5 years as the Director of Product and Marketing, Australia and then for Asia Pacific where she was responsible for developing and executing the marketing strategy, new product development and existing product enhancements, optimising the customer experience at all times. Susan held various leadership roles within GE Capital focusing on their card and personal loan products and while at Coles (Myer) Group (Wesfarmers) obtained deep experience in all the company’s major card and loyalty programs. Committed to ongoing education, Susan holds a Bachelor of Economics and Masters in Marketing.

WHY THE AWARDS COMMITTEE SELECTED HER NOMINATION

The winner for this year’s Distinguished Payment Professional Award has diverse experience in the payment industry. Her payment expertise cuts across industries including corporate & intermediary organizations, specializing in B2B payments, digitizing payment architecture for both retail and business segments. Her current focus is on building the payment platform capabilities and digitizing the payment options to key customer segments.

As her nominees described: “She brings clear customer focus & commercial outcomes”. “She is a passionate advocate of next generation of payments for consumer and corporates alike”. “Her curiosity and drive has a very positive impact in the organization she has worked so far. “ An active member of the WiP global mentorship council in 2017, Awards Committee member in 2018, she demonstrates leadership through supporting other women advance in career within her current organization and as part of the network.

She has completed a Masters in marketing from Monash University and Bachelor of Economics from LaTrobe University. An outstanding nominee from the multiple nominations received under this category , the Distinguished Payment Professional Award goes to: Congratulations, Susan Nicholson, Head of Business & Government Payments and Financial Services at Australia Post

Carolyn Young, Head of Domestic Payables, Receivables and Account Services at ANZ

Carolyn is an inspired leader specialising in Transaction Banking with experience across all aspects of Cash Management. With over 27 years experience in various large organisations, Carolyn has made a strategic emphasis on harnessing people and technology to best effect in the delivery of financial products. Carolyn has been an integral leader for our Domestic Payments, Receivables and Account Services Product team Australia, having joined ANZ more than 10 years ago and having a successful career at Citibank prior to her commencement at ANZ.

Carolyn brought with her to ANZ, a vast understanding of the Payments Industry and a fresh, pragmatic approach to collaborating across the Bank, keeping abreast of industry initiatives to advance payments innovation. Carolyn has shared her extensive knowledge and highly skilled capability; she has a unique relatable approach having established relationships at all levels of staff to support growth and development within the business.

WHY THE AWARDS COMMITTEE SELECTED HER NOMINATION

The winner for this year’s Emerging Leader award has extensive payment expertise and leadership across both the domestic and multinational banking sector. Carolyn is known for her pragmatic approach and ability to collaborate across complex organizations. She has been part of the team responsible for ANZ being the number 1 bank in institutional transaction banking from 2016 to 2019 according to the Peter Lee Survey.

Some of her achievements include: 1) Building an innovative and market leading agency clearing solution for ANZ, cementing their position in this market; 2) Enhancing her organization’s transaction banking products to support clients in digitizing and streamlining their processes greatly reducing costs by streamlining processing and reducing manual work; and 3) Delivering the first automated receivables reconciliation capability in the Greater Mekong are for a large global insurer.

Carolyn is relied on by her organization for her wisdom and strategic thinking in the area of payments and is helping ANZ chart its vision for the future of payments. At the same time she plays an active role in the industry mentoring and supporting others. Please join me in congratulating our most deserving winner of the Emerging Leaders Award – Carolyn Young, Head of Domestic Payables, Receivables and Account Services at ANZ
 

Debra Taylor, Founder and COO of Open SparkzServices at ANZ

Debra has been an established start up entrepreneur in the fintech space for over 25 years. She has been a founder in over 10 businesses ranging from telcos, electronic payments and fintech. She has exited four, including two which reached 8-figure exits each within 24 months. Debra is a specialist generalist in business, a very rare commodity indeed!

Debra’s long standing entrepreneurial endeavours were recently recognised (1st August 2019) when she won the Financial Services Industry award for Fintech Leader of the Year for Women in Finance. Debra is a non-executive Director of Stone & Chalk. Previously Debra has held leadership roles within her own companies in the provision of services as a preferred supplier to global giants such as Oracle, IBM, Unisys, NCR, MasterCard and Visa. Debra has championed women in fintech for over 25 years and is sought after as a panellist for women’s and industry events.

WHY THE AWARDS COMMITTEE SELECTED HER NOMINATION

The Women in Payments Award for Innovation is awarded to a nominee who has promoted payments innovation through creativity, vision, and perseverance in her organization or the payments industry. The nominee has been instrumental in promoting innovations or creative re-engineering.That is certainly true of this year’s award winner. She is a proven entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in fintech. She’s initiated 12 start ups, and successfully exited 4. She has delivered services to global giants like Oracle, IBM, Mastercard and Visa demonstrating the recognition in the industry of an outstanding service provider.

She is passionate about building leadership capabilities in her teams and creating a sense of ownership. The embedded gender bias in today’s culture has inspired her to excel as a female leader in the fintech space. Our winner is also known to be a strong advocate of gender diversity and is a sought after mentor to founders in fintech and associated industries, who approach her for her valuable insights and advice.

In her current role she is digitally transforming existing rewards programs and offers by creating a frictionless experience for both consumers and merchants without the need for separate loyalty cards, POS integration, offer codes or coupons. Please join me in congratulating Debra Taylor, Founder and COO of Open Sparkz.

As a member of CIBC Technology and Operations – Enterprise Payments group – John oversees payments solutions for retail, business and corporate and institutional customers. He also leads the specialized teams that support payment modernization initiatives in Canada.

John joined Enterprise Payments from the technology group at CIBC where he led the technology teams that supported CIBC’s Business Banking, Payments and Wealth Management businesses. John also acted as CIBC representative for technology to CIBC First Caribbean Bank. Prior to joining CIBC, John worked as aconsultant with CGI, as General Manager for the Commercial and Professional Division of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. He also worked in Retail, Business Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking at Australia and New Zealand Banking group.

Throughout his career in both consulting and banking John has focused on creating and executing successful strategies to drive business transformation and growth. John holds a Bachelor of Business from Charles Sturt University; is a graduate with a Master Certificate in Risk Management and Business Performance from Schulich School of Business at York University; a Certificate of Business Sustainability Management from University of Cambridge; and Certificate of Fintech innovation Future Commerce from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). John is the Chairman of CMI Mortgages Inc, Member of Board of Directors of INTRIA, Member of the Board of Directors Interac Canada. He is also a Senior Member of the Advisory Council of Payments Canada and Executive Council member of Canadian Bankers Association.

A payments industry veteran with over 25 years’ experience spanning business development, operations and finance, Ms. Denoncourt currently serves as Managing Director responsible for all aspects of the Canadian operation. Prior to this role, she held the position of VP Sales & Business Development where she achieved consistent growth through both traditional and strategic channels with a focus on driving innovation. Prior to joining Ingenico, Ms. Denoncourt spent 7 years in an executive role at Maxwell Technology where she secured strategic contracts and built the operational structure to support new business. During her tenure at Marleau Lemire Inc, she was part of the most innovativeresearch team of its kind, contributing to its #1 ranking in 1994.

Perfectly fluent in both English and French, Ms. Denoncourt holds an MBA from Concordia University and a BA from McGill University. In addition to serving in an advisory capacity on various industry boards, she is Chairof the ACT Canada board, Advisor for Women in Payments Canada as well as Chair of the Global Mentorship Council. She was recently acknowledged by Payments Source as a 2017 Honouree for Most Influential Women in Payments.

Elena has extensive experience in both the technology and financial industries, and has a deep passion for innovation. Elena is currently responsible for defining the product strategy for liquidity management and borderless payments solutions at nanopay Corporation. She previously spoke at WWW, IBM Insights,Payments Summit, Women in Payments and other events.

Elena is a senior influential leaderwith a deep passion for technology and innovation. With extensive experience in both the technology and financial industries, she currently serves as Director of Banking and Capital Markets Solutions at nanopay Corporation. In her role, she is responsible for defining the product strategy for liquidity management and borderless payments solutions. Elena is also focused on a digital economy vision that enables digital identity, central bank digital currencies (CBDC), and new ways to pay.

Prior to nanopay, Elena spent two years at TD bank leading a startup-like, Blockchain technology team. This included working with internal stakeholders and external companies on proof-of-concepts. She was one of the key participants in Project Jasper(Bank of Canada), focused on understanding how distributed ledger technology (DLT) could transform the wholesale payments system.

Elena’s career began at IBM where she spent 15 years. She led global virtual IBM teams on various projects, defining IT strategy, consulting on adoption of cloud and emerging technologies, and working closely with business and technology teams, and C-level executives. Elena worked on numerous enterprise architecture solutions across a broad range of technologies including: Machine Learning, Big Data, SOA,Cloud, Big Data, and Business Intelligence. Elena is a frequent speaker at conferences, has co-authored numerous technical articles and academic papers, and has several pending patent applications, as well as granted patents. She also serves as a senior advisor for the TreasuryManagement Association of Canada in Toronto.

With over 20 years experience in the telecom. Prepaid and financial industries, Grace is VP and General Manager of Now Prepay, the retailnetwork of Payment Source. In this role, she manages more than 30 staff handling new productdevelopment as well as the day to day operations of Sales, Customer Service, Fulfillment andProduct Operations Departments. Previously, at VendTek Systems, Grace was responsible fornew product development and building turnkey prepaid programs. She was a key part of thestart-up Go Prepaid and spent 8 years at Roadpost building and managing international cellularand Iridium Satellite phone rental programs. Speaking specialties include: Canadian prepaidindustry, connecting retail to online, and fraud prevention.

Grace exemplifies thecharacteristics that define this award. She is someone who always delivers what she commits to,regardless of her workload. She is able to inspire her team to follow her vision and achievemore together than they had considered possible. She communicates very clearly and effectively- without hyperbole or panic - and in doing so, helps those around her work better together andbe more productive. Grace is passionate about mentoring and passing her hard-won knowledgeand experience onto others. She is a tremendous example of a strong, capable and inspiringperson. And as it happens, she works in the Payments Industry, and in her own calm and low-key way, is extremely successful and influential.

Rania Llewellyn is responsible for Scotiabank’s global payments vision and strategy. She oversees an enterprise-wide payments mandate, including technology infrastructure development, enhancing operational efficiencies, & key initiatives to drive growth & create a seamless customer experience.

With a global team of 450 employees, she’s also responsible for the execution of the Bank’s Cash Management, Treasury Services, Trade Finance, Digital & Mobile Channels & Correspondent Banking businesses.Rania has a keen understanding of the impact to the global business community and particularly the benefits to customers looking for a simplified & seamless way to send & receive payments globally & manage their deposits.

Joining Scotiabank in 1994, she’s held progressively senior roles in Commercial, Retail & Corporate Banking. She lives in Toronto with her husbandand two children, and holds a B.Com, MBA & honorary doctorate from Saint Mary’s University.

Daniela is responsible for enterprise-wide low-value payments channels including mobile wallets, e-Transfers & bill pay applications. In addition, Daniela supports payments strategy & modernization initiatives. Having spent 10 years in the FinTech space prior to joining CIBC, Daniela is a passionate payments, retail sales and product leader with experience in driving change and delivering results. A finalist for the 2018 Women in Payments Rising Star Under 40 Award, Mentor with the #MovetheDial – Mentorship Program for CMICWMT, and member of the CIBC Technology & Operations Inclusion sub-committee, Daniela is an advocate for gender balance, diversity & work life balance. Daniela is a mom to three young daughters, who constantly keep her on her toes.

Andrea manages a team of treasury advisors, delivering working capital and cash management solutions to Middle Market and Business Banking clients.

She began her career with BofA Merrill in 2000 as a real estate credit analyst. Andrea has been an active champion of diversity and leadership at BofA Merrill and in the community. She was chair of the Bank of America North Texas LEAD for Women chapter from 2009-2011 and has led various committees since the chapter’s inception. She was a member of The Real Estate Council’s 2012 Associate Leadership Council, a leadership program focused on inspiring Dallas’ future leaders to take an interest in the community and to instill a life-long passion for giving back.

She has donated her time in support of the community and has been actively involved, through mentorship and activism, with several non-profit organizations. Andrea is a graduate of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin with a major in Finance.