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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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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Jeff Barton is an Executive Consultant in the Information Technology Practice at Global Vision Group. He has an extensive track record of successfully developing key business strategies and translating them into pragmatic implementations. Jeff’s combination of skills and expertise has ensured successful project completions in transaction and payment processing, data communications strategy, procurement management, operational reviews, process improvement, fraud management, electronic trading, systems integration, and applications development. He has managed a series of global projects focusing on Visa commercial card enhanced data strategy and the design and development of a processing platform to underpin multinational data consolidation and reporting, lodge card matching, data warehousing and reporting, and the flow of XML invoicing across the T&E sector. Jeff has worked closely with travel agencies, car rental companies, and hotels to gather and match/merge information with financial transaction details, and with banks throughout Europe and the US to aid their understanding and implementation of processing solutions. Jeff was instrumental in assisting Visa Europe ensure the retention of many client commercial card relationships by developing a reporting solution to deliver multinational consolidated data. Jeff’s experience further includes: working with a global leader in travel transaction processing and data intelligence to review operational systems and processes; defining the requirements and procurement process for telephone-switching facilities for the British Royal Household; he also developed, managed and implemented trading via EDI for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Jeff holds a BSc with Joint Honors in Computing and Electronics from the University of Durham, England, and an MBA from the Cranfield School of Management, England.
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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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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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Johnny has thirty-three years experience in both operations and finance, with two payment processing industry leaders. During his career, Johnny held executive management positions that oversaw transaction processing operations, finance operations, reporting and financial planning and analysis. Most recently, Johnny was a Senior Vice President at Visa, Inc., responsible for various financial analysis and reporting functions. Major projects Johnny oversaw while at Visa included the design and implementation of an automated, cross-company and comprehensive customer billing system that consolidated all transaction-based charges and related data into one statement. Feeds for this enhanced reconciliation and reporting system came from multiple technology and systems platforms. Johnny was also responsible for reviewing and creating new processes to support the analysis and review of business development opportunities, headed the Visa Pricing committee, served on the investment advisory board and led numerous projects to organize and provide consistent, accurate financial and business data in support of management decision-making processes.
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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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Hannu, who recently joined GVGroup as Senior Consultant, was a senior staff with Visa USA in the Financial Research Division for the past 11 years. His primary responsibility was to manage cost and profitability studies across multiple Visa products with Member banks. Within those studies, Hannu was personally responsible for evaluating and assessing the IT systems and third party processing capabilities and costs for issuing and acquiring banks. The value of these studies has been shown by the ability of issuers to improve overall cost reductions in IT and improved efficiencies in their respective card based operations. Prior to his experience with Visa, Hannu held positions as a consultant, manager, and project manager in Information Technology primarily for financial institutions in USA. In addition, Hannu has held senior systems analyst positions in Finland and Zambia, and worked as an Information Management Consultant for World Health Organization in Pakistan.
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Senior consultant with over fifteen years of leadership experience in the financial services and high tech industries developing client relations, providing value-added consulting services, developing strategic plans, leading projects, and managing products. He has managed partnership programs that successfully generated third-party support of vital payment products and services, led technology and third-party processor projects to optimize the allocation of scarce resources and process-improvement efforts, all of which yielded multimillion dollar cost savings. He is also seasoned in financial, economic and competitive intelligence analysis.
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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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Dawn Greiner Kasten is a widely respected business leader, known for her innovative approach to growing new businesses and functions in venture-backed start-ups, managing the marketing operations as a senior executive at Fortune 500 companies, and guiding the restructuring of organizations in turn-around. With over 20 years of banking and internet business experience, she has established a superior track record in sales, marketing, general management, consulting and project management. Dawn helps companies grow and strengthen their business through her talent for and depth of expertise in:
- Direct marketing: disciplined testing and optimization, profitability/return analytics
- New product and channel development
- Lead generation and lead conversion: program creation and process management
- P&L management and pricing strategies
- Inside sales, field sales management, sales operations, and web-based sales and service
- Project management of multi-functional initiatives critical to company growth, including new platforms and web-based tools, customer service, and new IT infrastructure
- Building, guiding and motivating large cross-functional teams.
From 2005 through mid-2009, Dawn was a key executive at Bella Pictures, the leader, and only national player, in the wedding photography business. Prior to Bella, Dawn’s career was focused on financial services and the card payment business in particular. From 1995 to 2003 she rose to the position of EVP Marketing at Providian Financial (later Washington Mutual/Chase), where she headed marketing for the credit card business from 1999 to 2003 – and was accountable for revenues up to $8 billion and marketing budgets up to $840 million. Dawn began her career in strategic planning at American Express Company and returned there after business school to continue in a variety of customer marketing and cross selling roles. Dawn holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA, summa cum laude, in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. |
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Armen, GVGroup Executive Consultant, is a seasoned global payments expert with over 25 years of strategic, hands-on business experience in global payments systems and new business development. He is a dynamic and multicultural specialist offering unique skill set to clients involved in payments around the world. As a trusted partner with vision to understand his client’s future business he has helped design and evaluate new products and services in today's changing marketplace. Offerings include:
- Development of connectivity products for payment cards
- Merchant card acceptance and capital funding solutions
- Cross border money transfer and bill payment services
- Alternative payment products and services, prepaid & gift
Armen has also served in executive positions at several top ten financial institutions and helped them maximize growth and revenues in today’s challenging electronic payments marketplace. As a Vice President of JPMorgan Chase’s Prepaid Product in Treasury Services he was responsible for designing and launching prepaid cards in the EU market. As a Senior Vice President at Visa USA, he expanded Card acceptance to new markets such as supermarkets, recurring payments, Quick Service restaurants and Federal Government Agencies. Armen’s expertise in card products extends to issuance of credit, debit, prepaid and commercial cards. He is also an experienced manager of technology solutions including development of best practices, BSA/AML guidelines, network policy, third-party processor contract negotiation and problem resolution.
Armen earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and a Master of Science degree in computer science from the San Jose State University in California. He authored the “Basics of Data Communications” textbook and lectured at College of San Mateo, CA. He was awarded an honorary teaching credential from State of California. Armen is a member of the United States National Masters team; represented United States at four world championships. He is an accomplished marathon runner and tri-athlete, having completed in seven Ironman competitions.
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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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Marc Perl a Senior Consultant, brings over 30 years of professional experience to GVGroup. Marc’s diverse experience includes risk management, acquirer processing, merchant POS equipment certification, product development, software development and software quality assurance. During his 20 years at Visa, he was a key member of Visa’s Risk Management team, where he developed and managed the compliance program for the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) as part of the Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP). As a merchant acquiring expert, Marc built and managed Visa’s Integrated Debit platform to support merchants such as Walmart, Radio Shack, Kmart and others. His in depth experience with merchant terminals and PIN entry devices enabled him to manage the design and implementation of Visa’s Integrated Debit PIN encryption technology, called Derived Unique Key Per Transaction (DUKPT). Marc also served as project manager for Visa’s Y2K effort and assisted with the spin-off of Visa’s acquiring processor business into a joint venture with Total Systems Services (TSYS) called Vital Processing Services. In addition to his Visa experience, Marc spent four years at Bank of America developing bankcard solutions. Marc has consulted to organizations as varied as Jet Propulsion Laboratories to TSYS Acquiring Solutions and others. His early experience included computer operations, programming, creation of software development methodologies and software engineering. Marc holds a BA from California State University at Northridge. |
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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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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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