Mansour Aaron Karimzadeh - Partner - Managing Director, USA
Mansour Aaron Karimzadeh applies nearly 25 years of experience to his leadership role at SCIL. His background includes payment and transaction processing systems in the financial industry, an in-depth understanding of how to create new businesses and drive demand for emerging products and technologies. He has been instrumental in implementing many large card and payment processing projects worldwide specializing in smart cards and EMV systems - including projects in the UK, Canada, USA, Latin America, Middle East and Australia. He served as a Board member of Global Platform and Chair of its Marketing Center.
He previously managed a smart card consultancy and software company that was acquired by ACI Worldwide. At ACI he served as VP of Operations and Director of Smart Cards Unit. Mansour has been involved in the smart card based healthcare card in the USA.
David Rogers – Partner - Managing Director, Canada
David Rogers is a leading industry expert in the Financial Services Industry, specializing in the fields of Smart Card/Chip Technology management, and overall Payment Systems Transaction Processing.
He has worked in these areas for over 30 years, and has acted as an advisory member to many financial institutions globally, including several major banks in Canada, US, UK, Asia-Pacific region, PRC, Africa and currently is a member of the European Corporate Finance Association, American Academy of Financial Management, and the Prince of Wales Trust Leadership committee.
He was also a member of a Governmental multinational banking committee, ‘Futurebank’, charged with the responsibility of developing interlinked banking regulations and standards for the Mercosur countries.
His primary focus is on the strategic and tactical planning associated with adopting and integrating new technologies into major banking operations’ infrastructures, seamlessly and with minimum risk and disruption.
Jan Dart – Partner – Managing Director UK
Jan Dart has extensive experience in payments architectures & processing, payment products & services, business development, product development, mobile banking payments strategy and managing major project deployments. Advisor on product strategy, development and deployment with particular focus on EMV and mobile NFC products market growth and runs the consultancy practice in payments, smartcards and mobile payments.
He previously managed a smart card consultancy and software company that was acquired by ACI Worldwide. At ACI he served as VP of Operations and Director of Smart Cards Unit.
Dr. Toni Merschen - Partner
Toni is a recognized expert on all aspects of chip-card based business solutions particularly focusing on the financial, telecommunication, and transportation industries. He consults investment banks, retail banks, payment schemes, and technology companies on innovative payments trends and their strategies to create and deploy successful consumer solutions. His focus is on efficiently turning technology platforms, products, and services into viable business solutions and managing the creation and adoption of appropriate international standards to support emerging technologies.
Toni has worked in senior roles at MasterCard’s Global Chip Centre for Excellence, Citigroup, and IBM.
He is a board level contributor for EMVCo (EuroPay / MasterCard / Visa), Global Platform, Global Chipcard Alliance, JavaCard Forum, and PC/SC; and speaks extensively at major conferences about EMV related topics.
Kathy Lawton – Partner
Kathy Lawton has over 15 years experience in the electronic payment business. During her 12+ years experience as a Senior Vice President at JPMorganChase, she led the design and implementation of many electronic payment systems fully-integrated into the retail bank. Major accomplishments include the first fully integrated Mondex smart card system, debit card systems, and online banking applications.
Jan McGrath - Partner
Jan McGrath is an experienced payments industry executive with a proven track record playing key roles in defining and implementing new payment products and value added services, strategic marketing plans and industry changing innovations on a global basis.
She has worked in and consulted to several large financial services organizations around the world; in Australia, UK, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Mexico, Norway and South & North America. Her experience encompasses; credit/debit, issuing and acquiring, mass transit, marketing, product development and operational process design and re engineering, stored value cards, loyalty program design and implementation, EMV planning and integration, smart and contactless card deployments and large scale project and change management. Her practical experience as an industry executive and consultant has provided her exposure to a wide range of organizations, business models and cultural diversity across many regions of the world. This gives her a unique and truly global view of the payments industry and the innovation within.
David Cole - Partner
David Cole has over twenty five years’ experience in cards, computing and management services. He has excellent knowledge of applications in the credit, debit, loyalty and payment card industry. Over the last fifteen years he has been involved heavily in the emergence of smartcards and the EMV standards. His areas of expertise include project management, strategic technical and business investigation, business studies, fraud investigation, company investigations, marketing plans, business and financial plan preparation, market surveys, on-going technical review of Card and EFT systems, training and team management.
His experience has covered Card Launch, Loyalty applications, Online customer interfaces, Credit card account system development, EMV Smart Card developments in all market sectors, Secure Electronic Commerce and other related applications. In addition he has worked on ATM, Eftpos, Acquiring, Fraud Systems, Card Management, Billing Systems, ACH Clearing Systems and the International Payment systems. He has worked with Financial Institutions, Card Schemes, Processors, Retailers, Loyalty Providers, Travel Companies, Oil Companies and Telecommunications Providers.
He has produced and delivered courses, seminars and workshops, explaining and exploring all aspects of the business and technical side of smart card based applications, including EMV migration projects, across a number of countries including UK, Uruguay, Trinidad, US, Nigeria, Bahrain, Russia, Poland, Romania and Croatia.
Nick Collin – Partner
Nick Collin is an experienced management consultant based in London UK and specialising in the banking and payments industry, with a focus on EMV chip card payments. Particular areas of expertise include: EMV chip and PIN; chip-based added value applications; card and non-card payment systems; e-commerce; on-line banking; e-trust and information security; application of advanced technologies; speech recognition; information systems strategy; business process improvement; product development; marketing and communications; delivery strategy; scenario planning; workshop facilitation; and training.
Over the past 10 years, Nick has worked extensively as an independent consultant for MasterCard’s Chip Centre of Excellence in Brussels, helping to develop and deploy added value propositions based on EMV chip. Prior to that, Nick held senior consulting posts at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in London and California, and at Ernst and Young in London and New York. He is also the author of a major research report for Retail Banking Research (RBR) on “EMV Chip Applications: Catching the Next Wave”.
Lindsay Robertson – Partner
Lindsay Robertson is a CxO level advisor specialising in (smart) cards and payments across the financial services and public sectors. Previously with PA Consulting, he advised the Department for Transport in the UK on the implementation of a nationally interoperable ticketing strategy, and delivered of the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme. He has also worked with the Home Office on the UK's Identity Card Programme, and developed an international growth strategy for the leading Scandinavian transaction processor.
Before consulting, Lindsay worked in the financial services industry, in banks and for related suppliers, in a range of roles including the set-up of new, and the re-organisation of poorly performing, business units. Lindsay has an MBA from the University of Edinburgh and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland.
Walter Lemon – Partner
Walt Lemon is an experienced executive and consultant with over 35 years of management and marketing experience in the Information Systems industry, primarily with IBM and Visa. The last 9 years of his career have been focused on credit card and smart card initiatives, as VP, Emerging Products at Visa Canada Association and as a consultant. Walt has implemented Stored Value programs, plus developed strategies and business cases to migrate the Canadian credit card market to smart card. Walt also understands the global and domestic payments systems. He represented Visa Canada on global policy committees for 5 years, leading to a strong knowledge of many emerging applications, technologies and methodologies.
Fred Namdar – Partner
Fred has 8 years experience in leading edge technologies of today. He has designed developed and implemented systems for financial transactions, smart card payments, high resolution digital imaging and distributed internet applications. He has implemented high throughput e-commerce web based systems.
