Top Expertise in Payments
Tap GVGroup's uncompromising expertise and experience.
This page profiles our principals and senior associates. Please see the Team page for an overview by practice group and our Management page for an overview on GVGroup management.
Team Profiles |
(listed alphabetically by family name) |
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A GVGroup senior consultant, Dennis is a 27-year veteran from Visa U.S.A., with extensive experience in research design, inferential statistics, bankcard operations, the US economy and consumer behavior. As senior project manager in the Business Research Department, he pioneered many of the early studies into the characteristics of credit and fraud losses, new product development modeling, and bankcard policies and practices. Dennis is the primary author of many card-based industry reports based on numerous surveys and field studies to analyze the impact of macroeconomic events on bankcard performance, the efficacy of various solicitation practices, and the effectiveness of risk management controls. Throughout his tenure, Dennis participated in many functional cost studies, and oversaw a seminal ten-year study on bankcard holder spending patterns. Prior to joining Visa, Dennis headed the consumer behavior and satisfaction section of Wells Fargo’s Marketing Research Department in San Francisco. Dennis holds a MA from the University of Michigan in general experimental psychology and completed the course work for his PhD in Organizational Psychology while working for Michigan’s Survey Research Center.
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As a senior consultant and head of business development for GVGroup, Kevin Atwood brings over 23 years of domestic and international experience in the financial services and electronic payments industry. Kevin’s career includes over 20 years at Visa, attaining the position of Senior Vice President, responsible for sales and partnerships with multiple top 10 issuing and acquiring banks that generated more than $40 billion in annual card sales volume. During his tenure at Visa, Kevin was instrumental in delivering numerous new products and services to Visa’s banking clients including the initial launch of several fraud reduction programs—such as the Issuers’ Clearing House Service and Anti-Counterfeit Terminal Program—which, since their introduction in the late 1980s, have continued to save issuers millions of dollars. In 2002, Kevin joined Wells Fargo Bank as Vice President and National Relationship Manager for the Merchant Processing Business. Kevin also served as a mortgage lending officer at Washington Mutual Bank, where he brought card marketing innovation concepts to the Home Loan Mortgage Banking Division. Given this deep domain experience in financial service with some of the largest card issuing, merchant acquiring and mortgage lending institutions, Kevin’s expertise covers a broad range of areas, including marketing, debit, credit and ACH products, customer life cycle management, relationship management, product innovation, merchant processing in both the physical and online environment, co-branding, commercial card products, operations, risk management and collections. Kevin holds a B.A. degree from San Jose State University.
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A profitability benchmarking co-lead and senior consultant for GVGroup, Scott has been a consultant for almost a decade, providing services to US and Canadian-based financial institutions on bankcard and electronic payments issues. He is an expert in benchmarking and efficiency enhancement, helping most of the top 50 credit and debit card issuers to improve operational efficiencies and overall program profitability. Scott is particularly knowledgeable in assessing costs and the potential for process improvements in all operational aspects of card-based programs, especially in the areas of customer service, account relationship management, chargeback monitoring, and credit risk management. Scott holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management from the Brigham Young University.
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Chris is a profitability benchmarking co-lead and senior consultant at GVGroup. He has six years of experience working as a consultant in the financial services industry and has worked on numerous cost analysis and benchmarking studies that included many of the top 25 US-based bankcard issuers. Chris managed the analytic review of all client results from these studies, comparing data, processes, and technology applications against industry averages in order to ensure quality and consistency. He was also responsible for identifying opportunities for efficiency improvements, product and service enhancements, and cost reductions to increase overall profitability for credit, debit, and commercial card products. Chris received a Business Management degree from Brigham Young University with an emphasis in Finance.
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As an associate consultant, Michael brings to GVGroup a twenty-year career as an academic and consultant in international economics, econometrics, and statistical analysis. Besides Michael’s consulting practice, he currently holds the Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of California at Santa Cruz and is co-director of the Santa Cruz Institute for International Economics. As an associate with the GVGroup, Michael has been responsible for development, testing and implementation of numerous scorecard, credit risk management, credit line assignment and response modeling projects. Michael has published numerous articles, books and monographs on financial exchange rate policy, monetary policy and banking crises. His most recent book, Financial Policy and Central Banking in Japan is co-authored with T. Cargill and T. Ito and published in 2000 by MIT Press. Michael holds a BA with Honors from the University of California at Santa Cruz and received his PhD from the University of Oregon.
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Danny is a GVGroup consultant, providing a broad range of research and analytical support. Danny has significant expertise in building and maintaining databases, networks, and assessing business requirements for various projects. Prior to joining the GVGroup in 2005, Danny was Director of Dealer Operations for the Western US with Door-2-Door Auctions, a San Mateo-based internet company providing services to sellers for eBay auctions. In addition, Danny has held positions as operations manager with Worldwide Express, an international shipping company, and as a sales associate for FunXS, which provided video game and sports events at trade shows. Danny holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Colorado at Boulder. |
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As an associate consultant, Raj brings to Global Vision Group over 20 years in the field of data processing and software development. He has worked with a wide range companies, including leading financial services firms. His experience includes work on issuer risk systems at Visa U.S.A., wholesale lockbox and remittance systems at First National Bank of Chicago, design and development of electronic interfaces for key funds transfer systems at Bank of Montreal and IT systems support at HSBC. He is Microsoft Certified and holds a Bachelor of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering. |
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Tom is president and founder of the Global Vision Group and heads the strategy practice. Tom has almost 25 years of international and domestic experience in the financial services and electronic payments industry. Prior to creating the Global Vision Group, Tom was Senior Vice President with Visa U.S.A., holding a number of executive positions during his 11-year career there. He managed the Visa Profitability Consulting practice, as well as all of the business research functions, which included performing cost reduction and benchmarking studies, and served as Chief Economist. As global relationship manager, Tom helped US-based issuers launch programs overseas. He also headed up all of Visa's efforts to mitigate the impact of personal bankruptcies on creditors, and co-chaired a creditor coalition that helped write, introduce, and lobby bankruptcy legislation. Prior to Visa, most of his experience was directed toward assessing the business environment risk of emerging markets. Tom holds a BA from Vanderbilt University and a PhD in international trade and finance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has over 20 published articles on credit card and economic policy issues.
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Michael is a GVGroup principal and manages the product practice. He is an entrepreneur and proven leader with more than 20 years experience in international financial services, including establishing new ventures, designing and implementing business plans and developing new products. Michael has extensive experience with the internet and e-commerce issues. He has provided services to such companies as the International Herald Tribune (where he helped establish an e-commerce joint venture to provide information through web-based services), AT&T, First Virtual, FDC, Microsoft and Pacific Telecorp. Based on his earlier experience as Senior Vice President of Business Development for InsWeb, an on-line provider of personal insurance products, Michael co-founded eCoverage, Inc., a San Francisco-based internet provider of personal property and casualty insurance. He has also held positions as Vice President with Visa International, in charge of international interchange and pricing strategies, and with MasterCard, where he was General Manager of the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Michael’s academic credentials include a Bachelors of Science from Villanova University and an MBA in Finance from LaSalle University.
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Broox Peterson serves GVGroup as a Senior Legal Advisor, providing legal services and legal strategy consulting to companies, lawyers and consultants. Broox was an attorney at Visa for more than 21 years, retiring in 2005 as Senior Vice President, Assistant General Counsel and Assistant Secretary. Prior to his tenure at Visa, Broox worked at American Express in New York City, and for law firms in Los Angeles. He has in-depth knowledge of the payments industry structure and players, industry economics, payment and related regulations, and Visa rules and regulations. He brings broad governmental affairs experience to his work, having developed and managed Visa’s Washington D.C. legislative and regulatory program in its formative years. He has expertise with technology and intellectual property transactions, and developed and managed the Visa U.S.A. patent program (but is not a patent lawyer). He has handled the legal formation of numerous domestic and international ventures with third parties, and has particular experience with Delaware LLC’s. Broox received his BS from the University of California at San Diego and his JD from UCLA Law School. |
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Johannes is a senior consultant for GVGroup and plays a lead role providing localized information and survey capabilities for Europe-focused projects or deliverables. Johannes brings to the group significant corporate, enterpreneurial and venture capital experience. He has worked on strategic projects for Booz, Allen & Hamilton, McKinsey & Company and Goldman Sachs. Johannes holds MBA and MS, Systems Engineering, degrees from Stanford University. He holds German and Mexican citizenship and resides in Berlin, Germany. |
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John is a principal of GVGroup and leads the information technology practice, where he specializes in financial institution and payment system technology issues, including back-office reengineering and technology auditing. Over the past two decades, John has held positions as a consultant, information technology manager, software product manager, and hardware sales representative. His broad experience makes him a strong player in any business situation that involves creative solutions to technology issues, especially within the areas of financial services and electronic payments. Most recently, John held a senior position with KPMG in their financial services practice. He was also a senior vice president at Washington Mutual, responsible for reviewing and recommending third party outsourcing projects related to IT and systems issues. John has managed numerous projects related to systems selection, implementation and back office reengineering projects for banks, thrifts, insurance companies, and mutual fund companies. John has also run his own management consulting company, which involved a number of high profile projects. His company helped implement a de novo Internet bank for a mortgage bank, select and implement a back office "core banking" system, design a co-branded credit card system for a Japanese bank, and create a customer service and call center program with effective systems support for a bank in California. He also worked with Visa USA to implement a business-to-business EDI and payments system. His experience in selecting and implementing financial institution systems, reengineering back office operations, and technology auditing is a tremendous asset to GVGroup and its clients. John holds a BA with Honors and a Master of Science in Information Technology, from University of Essex, England. |
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Jim is a GVGroup principal and leads the group's marketing practice. He has developed business and marketing plans in both the consumer and business-to-business environments for a wide variety of firms over his 25+ year professional career. Jim has worked with financial services companies, retailers, accounting firms, payment systems organizations and brokerage companies, including such firms as Visa, Chase, CitiGroup, the Bank of New York, FleetBoston Financial, Marshalls, Toys’R’Us, and Quick & Reilly Brokerage. With strengths at both the strategic and tactical levels, Jim has conceived and implemented business strategic plans, new business development campaigns, customer loyalty programs, and database marketing initiatives that have resulted in increased market share, revenue and profitability. Jim has a particularly strong background in direct response marketing and customer relationship management. Jim holds an MBA from Syracuse University.
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Vinod is a GVGroup principal and leads the operations & efficiency practice. He has over 20 years of success in financial services and payment system organizations, developing and managing initiatives that enhance a company’s position, brand-differentiation and competitive strengths in the marketplace. Vinod was Vice President with Visa USA for nearly a decade, where he was in charge of Issuer Risk Management and spearheaded various benchmarking and cost reduction initiatives in risk management to improve bankcard industry profitability. Prior to joining Visa in 1992, Vinod was with Bank of America, where he was on the project team that successfully implemented the Flex Project bank-wide in 12 months. He was also responsible for management of business unit financial reporting functions, spearheading one the major process-change projects undertaken by the bank. His background also includes three years project management experience developing national grid infrastructure in Africa. Vinod earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from Kashmir University and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from San Francisco State University.
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