Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based VP’ operating in the Payments space. If you think a VP’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Nilan Peiris
VP of Growth of Wise
Nilan Peiris is VP Growth at TransferWise, the international money transfer platform. TransferWise is the low cost and fair way of transferring money internationally. Using peer-to-peer technology and without any hidden fees, it makes sending money abroad up to ten times cheaper compared to using a bank. TransferWise customers send £500m every month using the platform, and it’s attracted $91m from investors such as world’s largest VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, Sir Richard Branson, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, the co-founders of PayPal. Prior to TransferWise Nilan was VP Growth at HouseTrip, in charge of scaling the company’s growth in the European market. He’s also worked as Chief Marketing Technology Officer at Holiday Extras, where he was responsible for all areas of technology, marketing and customer acquisition. Nilan also advises a number of early stage startups on growth and getting to traction.
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About Wise: Wise is a money transfer service allowing private individuals and businesses to send money abroad without hidden charges.
Maor Fishman
Deputy General Counsel, VP Data Protection of Checkout.com
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About Checkout.com: Checkout.com is a global payments solution provider on a mission to enable businesses and their communities to thrive in the digital economy
Marc White
SVP Information Security of Checkout.com
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About Checkout.com, CR7 Services: Checkout.com is a global payments solution provider on a mission to enable businesses and their communities to thrive in the digital economy
Paul Baker
Vice President Product Management, Identity Solutions, Cyber & Inteligence Solutions of Mastercard
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About Mastercard, Mastercard: Mastercard provides payment processing products and solutions, and related consulting services.
Matt Blanks
VP MasterCard Enterprise Partnerships of Mastercard
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About Mastercard: Mastercard provides payment processing products and solutions, and related consulting services.
Edoardo Volta
VP, Head of Fintechs of Mastercard
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About Mastercard: Mastercard provides payment processing products and solutions, and related consulting services.
Louise Holden
Vice President, Humanitarian & Development of Mastercard
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About Mastercard: Mastercard provides payment processing products and solutions, and related consulting services.
Neil Taylor
Vice President Data Strategy of Mastercard
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About Mastercard: Mastercard provides payment processing products and solutions, and related consulting services.
Liz Oakes
Executive Vice President of Mastercard
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About Mastercard: Mastercard provides payment processing products and solutions, and related consulting services.
Hélène Alunni-Botteri
Senior Vice President, Innovation Group of Wells Fargo
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About Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion assets providing banking, insurance, and investments.
Marc Cantwell
Vice President of American Express
Marc is a product guy. Well, he used to be. Nothing makes him happier than hunting for the most important customer problems to solve – and right now, streamlining and supercharging internal customer journeys are where he can make the biggest difference. That means Marc and his team need to think bigger and broader than any one product as they focus on the digital workplace experience for their fellow employees. With fifteen years at American Express under his belt, Marc currently is an executive within the company’s Digital Workplace team, with responsibility for strategy, transformation, and the colleague experience. Although Marc’s interests skew more towards the value and impact of technology, as well as a relentless focus on the end-to-end customer experience, he secretly knows more about engineering than he lets on, having earned a BSc in theoretical and mathematical physics from the University of Nottingham and an MSc in Information Technology for eCommerce from the University of Sussex. When not hard at work creating the world’s best colleague digital experience, Marc puts his knowledge of emergent collaboration and communication technology to practical use, running his Dungeons & Dragons campaign without the headache of trying to schedule half a dozen adults to be in the same place at the same time.
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About American Express: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
Antonio Gagliardi
Vice President – Strategy, Product, and Analytics – Merchant Services of American Express
Before founding CompareEuropeGroup, Antonio was an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company in their UK Financial Services practice. Prior to this, Antonio worked at Bain & Co and at JP Morgan Chase. Antonio holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, with a special distinction for finishing in the top 10%, and graduated summa cum laude from Bocconi University.
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About American Express: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
Stephen Lemon
Co-Founder | Vice President | Strategic Partnerships & Corporate Development of Currencycloud
Steve has worked in Foreign exchange and international payments, pretty much forever, and participated in the first FinTech of the late 90s wave (before it was even called Fintech) as founding team member of HiFX. The current, product lead revolution has tipped him over the edge and he’s now a fully paid up FinTech geek, of the opinion that we live in exciting times and that Open APIs will change the world. Stephen currently also serves as a Non-Executive Director and Advisor for a number of early stage FinTech companies, and has recently mentored for the 2017 cohort at Techsters. In his personal time Steve is a keen amateur photographer, motorsport lover and live music fan.
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About Currencycloud: Currencycloud specializes in a fully cloud-based platform for B2B cross-border payments.
Judith Shackleton
Vice President M&A Integration of Visa
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About Fraedom, Visa: Visa is a multinational financial services company that facilitates electronic payment systems throughout the world.
Alisa Bornstein
CPO Europe – Vice President of Visa
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About Visa: Visa is a multinational financial services company that facilitates electronic payment systems throughout the world.
Omar Haque
SVP, Chief Product Officer, Merchant Services of Nets
Omar Haque is Nets MS’ Chief Product Officer and over 17 years of experience in managing digital and technology-driven transformation at global organizations. He has helped companies exploit and develop market and technology trends. Before joining Nets he has been with e.g. Worldpay, Vestas, Cisco.
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About Nets: Nets is a provider of payments, card, and information services with an ambition.
Nick Stone
VP Engineering of Bink
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About Bink: Bink develops a mobile application that links card payment to loyalty schemes.
Jon Hodges
VP Product – Head of Buy-Side Portfolio Manager of FIS
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About FIS: FIS focuses on retail and institutional banking, payments, asset and wealth management, risk and compliance, and outsourcing solutions.
Peter Francis
SVP – Global Head of Professional Services – Corporate Liquidity & Insurance of FIS
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About FIS: FIS focuses on retail and institutional banking, payments, asset and wealth management, risk and compliance, and outsourcing solutions.
Richard Wray
Vice President of Operations of Carta Worldwide
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About Carta Worldwide: Carta Worldwide is an international leader in digital transaction technology, specializing in mobile & emerging payments.
Kevin Taylor
VP Communications of Ensygnia
Kevin is a highly experienced PR consultant with an impressive track record of success. Skilled in company positioning and messaging he is an accomplished writer and widely respected commentator on PR issues. Well connected, with wireless technology and telecommunications a particular area of specialisation, Kevin is a valued member of the sales and marketing team.
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About Ensygnia, Jargon PR, Robertson Taylor PR: Ensygnia delivers integration Platform as a Service for large payment companies and corporations deploying omnichannel solutions
Jim Anning
VP Data of GoCardless
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About GoCardless: GoCardless is a payment company that makes collecting payments by direct debit easy for everyone.
Ignacio González-Páramo
Vice President, Global Compliance & Regulatory Affairs of Payvision
Ignacio González-Páramo is Vice President for Global Compliance and Regulatory Affairs at Payvision and Acapture. In this role, Ignacio is in charge of corporate compliance with applicable legislation and acts as point of interaction with authorities and regulators. He also takes care of external engagement and public affairs on behalf of Payvision and Acapture as Payment Institutions. Currently, Ignacio represents both companies before the European Payment Institutions Federation (EPIF), where he sits on the Board and the Technical Committee. Ignacio is a long-standing professional with a legal background and extensive experience in the payments industry. Prior to joining Payvision, he worked at ServiRed, S.A., the major domestic payments scheme in Spain, in various capacities, most recently as Head of Rules and Compliance. Ignacio holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from Universidad Pontificia Comillas (ICAI-ICADE), Madrid, and a Master’s degree in e-commerce and IT from Universidad Carlos III, Madrid. Ignacio is often a speaker and panellist in industry events and is also a contributor on the blogs of Payvision and the Cross-Border Ecommerce Community, providing readers with insights on how to face regulatory challenges and compliance-related issues.
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About Payvision: Payvision, an independent payment solutions provider specializing in global card processing for the ecommerce market,
Samuel Heather
VP, Chief Technology Officer of KodyPay
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About KodyPay: Revolutionising in-person payments to grow your business with a trustworthy and innovative solution.
Sukey Miller
VP Marketing Communications of Bango
Sukey Miller is the VP Marketing Communications at Bango.
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About Bango: Bango is the standard platform chosen by leading global stores to deliver mobile payments to everyone.
Peter Walker
VP Strategy of Bango
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About Bango: Bango is the standard platform chosen by leading global stores to deliver mobile payments to everyone.
George Evers
Senior Vice President, Product, Realtime Payments of VocaLink
George has spent the last 15 years driving technology innovations, leading product and strategy development across emerging technologies and enabling digital banking channel transformation. He is a huge advocate of providing more businesses and consumers with access to immediate payments.George joined VocaLink in November 2014 as Immediate Payments Services Director. He oversees the international development of VocaLink’s real-time payments proposition and associated mobile payments solutions. Since joining, George has pioneered the development of international strategies for VocaLink in the US, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East. Before joining VocaLink, George was Head of Channels within the Corporate Banking Division at RBS. It was there that he developed a Corporate Banking self-service channel strategy and managed existing core digital channel propositions. George also held the position of Head of Product Management & Development for RBS Global Transaction Services where he managed the growth development of the UK Domestic Cash product set. Building on VocaLink’s 2014 success of implementing Immediate Payments in Singapore, George’s most recent career highlight has been part of the team involved in the signing of a contract with The Clearing House- a partnership that will bring real-time payments to the United States.
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About VocaLink, VocaLink: VocaLink develops and operates payments infrastructure solutions in the United Kingdom.
Ian Gausden
EVP of VocaLink
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About VocaLink: VocaLink develops and operates payments infrastructure solutions in the United Kingdom.
James Winter
SVP, Europe of Thunes
James Winter is the senior vice president, Europe for Thunes.
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About Thunes: Thunes offers a global cross-border payment network for seamless transfer of funds to 100 countries in 60 currencies.
Michael Brandy
VP, Business Development of Ubio
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About Ubio: Ubio provide direct booking capabilities for travel metasearch websites and apps.
Dave Nicholson
VP Strategy & Partnerships & Co-Founder of Yoyo Wallet
Dave is a co-founder and VP Strategy & Partnerships at Yoyo Wallet, responsible for ensuring that Yoyo continues to innovate and scale in the digital loyalty space through building relationships with partners. Before starting Yoyo, he was co-founder and Head of Product at Zopa – the world’s first peer to peer lender.
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About Yoyo Wallet: Yoyo Wallet is a mobile payment, loyalty and marketing platform.
Geraldine Butler-Wright
VP of People and Culture of Yoyo Wallet
Geraldine joined Yoyo as their VP of People and Culture in June 2018. Her role is to curate an exceptional culture to attract, develop and retain brilliant minds to grow our awesome product. Geraldine, who has more than 15 years’ experience in HR, has worked across industries, to include heading up talent acquisition at Imperial College – the first university to adopt Yoyo, when the company launched in 2014. Prior to Imperial, Geraldine worked at PayPal, where she delivered strategic hires across EMEA during a period of rapid international growth. She has also lead change initiatives with global organisations, to include the US Government.
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About Healthily by Your.MD, Yoyo Wallet: Yoyo Wallet is a mobile payment, loyalty and marketing platform.
Nick Norman
EVP Sales, The Americas of Consult Hyperion
Nick is the EVP Sales Americas at Consult Hyperion, (www.chyp.com). Nick has over 18 years experience in the Retail and Mobile Payments industries, within Gemalto and Consult Hyperion. He has helped Financial Institutions, Transit Operators, Retailers, Processors and their suppliers to formulate their strategies towards card and mobile services, for both local and remote transactions. Recently he has focused on the security of mobile and IOT services, new cardholder verification technologies, identity management and identifying real applications for Blockchain technologies. Grab him in the corridor or bar if you want to know more.
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About Consult Hyperion: Consult Hyperion is an independent strategic and technical consultancy.
Rebecca Goudman-Peachey
Vice President and Head of Risk of OSMM
Rebecca has special expertise in the online payment market having had many years of experience, working with leading Merchant Acquiring Banks and IPSPs. Rebecca is also responsible for spearheading OSMM’s branding and go-to-market strategy with a large knowledge of the card payments, business operations, systems management, issuing/acquiring operational set-ups and migrations, and project and supplier management. Rebecca serves as the Company’s Compliance (MLRO) Officer and is registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority as an individual responsible for the management of Onestopmoneymanager Ltd. Rebecca holds a Master of Laws in International Finance and Banking Law, Bachelor of Laws and is currently undergoing a PhD regarding the regulatory environment of merchant acquiring.
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About OSMM: OSMM is an innovative e-commerce acquirer whom understand the needs and desires of merchants.
Teemu Sorvisto
Senior Vice President – EMEA of JUNO TELE
Teemu brings over 15 years of professional experience in Business Development, Sales and Marketing from Mobile, Apps, Information Technology and Software businesses across markets globally. He has been in leadership positions in multinational mobile and cloud solutions companies such as Nokia, BlackBerry and F-Secure, being responsible for business development, partnerships and operator channel sales in mobile application ecosystem and VAS divisions. Teemu has a thorough understanding of various mobile solutions, related technologies and modern business models. He comes with a broad experience in leading and developing business across regions in EMEA, Asia Pacific, Latin America and North America, while he has been living in the UK, Singapore and Finland.
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About JUNO TELE: JunoTele is a mobile payments technology company.
Nicky Koopman
SVP Business Solutions of AEVI
Nicky is a pioneer in digital innovation and is responsible for bringing together AEVI’s digital business solutions. She has over 15 years’ experience working in broadcast media, eCommerce and FinTech industry – developing digital business & growth strategies and scaling these across markets and customers.
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About AEVI: AEVI provides a platform for merchant-facing businesses that enables them to upgrade to more agile, more data-driven propositions.
Ian Lindsay
SVP Sales of Soft-ex
Ian graduated with a BSC in Electrical and Electronics and took his first step into Telecommunications with Mitel, where he worked in R&D on the first digital switches and moved through the organisation from Customer Support onto Sales supporting BT. In his role as SVP Sales at Soft-ex Ian has responsibility for direct sales, partner sales and global sales for CPE & Hosted in EMEA with key clients such as BT, KPN, Telia & Ooredoo.
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About Soft-ex: Soft-ex is a leading supplier of Online Bill Presentment and Analytics solutions.
Mark Roberts
SVP Sales & Marketing of Miura Systems
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About Charity Engine, Miura Systems: Miura Systems provides secure electronic payment hardware for the retail, hospitality, financial, government and healthcare markets.
John Sebastiano
Co-Founder and Executive Vice President, ebilling and payment solutions of ebpSource
Co-founder John also joined ebpSource from CheckFree where for over five years he was responsible for international software sales. John has a highly successful track record in global business, having negotiated numerous enterprise software agreements and multi-lateral partnerships in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. John’s prior IT background includes senior international sales and divisional management roles with Lanier Corporation and Harris Systems, Canada. John graduated with a BA in Political Science from the University of Toronto.
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About ebpSource: ebpSource is the most experienced team in the international electronic billing and payment industry.
John Sebastiano
Co-Founder and Executive Vice President, ebilling and payment solutions of ebpSource
Co-founder John also joined ebpSource from CheckFree where for over five years he was responsible for international software sales. John has a highly successful track record in global business, having negotiated numerous enterprise software agreements and multi-lateral partnerships in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. John’s prior IT background includes senior international sales and divisional management roles with Lanier Corporation and Harris Systems, Canada. John graduated with a BA in Political Science from the University of Toronto.
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About ebpSource: ebpSource is the most experienced team in the international electronic billing and payment industry.
Steve Wright
Founder & EVP, Commercial Operations of ebpSource
Co-founder Steve also joined ebpSource from CheckFree where for seven years he was responsible for global marketing, partner management & sales. Prior to CheckFree, Steve ran international marketing at e-billing pioneers BlueGill Technologies and Lasercom. Steve is a recognised industry spokesperson in the billing and payments fields and in 2005/6 was Chairman of the Payments Initiative at the Global Billing Association. Steve holds a BA (Hons) in Business Studies & HND in Business & Finance from Humberside University, now University of Lincoln, UK.
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About ebpSource: ebpSource is the most experienced team in the international electronic billing and payment industry.
