In 2022, we will be running three competitions focused on uplifting and supporting underrepresented communities in the United States: Black American, Women, and LGBTQ+ in partnership with StartOut. Special edition competitions are reserved for candidates whose startups/fintechs are lead by a minority founder/co-founder. Each of the finals will be live-streamed worldwide on TechCrunch.
Visa Everywhere Initiative 2022 special edition competitions
Black Community edition finals
Donald Hawkins
Founder and CEO, Kinly
A serial entrepreneur, Donald has held several leadership roles in adtech, healthtech and non-profits. Before leading First Boulevard, Donald founded Griffin Technologies. In that role, he empowered small-to-medium size community banks, credit unions and fintechs with contextual intelligence to better serve their existing and prospective customers.
Donald is an inspirational thought leader on representation and the changing face of entrepreneurship. He has dedicated his work to empowering underserved communities to act and proactively be the change they want to see.
Rubail Birwadker
SVP, Digital Partnerships and Fintech, Visa Inc.
Rubail leads Visa’s global partnerships and fintech teams based in San Francisco and is responsible for Visa’s day to day global engagement with big tech clients (Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.) and global fintech clients. Rubail has led Visa’s many digital initiatives including investments and commercial partnerships in emerging technology players like Stripe, Plaid and Marqeta.
Austin Clements
Chief Information Officer, Slauson & Co.
Austin Clements is a former Principal at TenOneTen Ventures where he played a role in investing into 50+ companies across two funds, primarily focused on B2B, and SaaS. These companies include Ordermark, CREXi, Emotive, Second Spectrum, and Daily. Austin primarily focuses on tools and platforms that support small businesses.
A champion of inclusion in the LA tech ecosystem, Austin is a founding Chairman for PledgeLA, a city-wide initiative that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion in Tech. In addition, he actively supports the expansion of nonprofit accelerator Grid110, a mission focused organization clearing pathways to success for early-stage entrepreneurs of all backgrounds.
Austin is a graduate of Morehouse college, holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, and is currently a Kauffman Fellow.
William Crowder
Founder and Managing Partner, Aperture
William Crowder is a founder and managing partner at Aperture Venture Capital, a $75M venture capital fund based in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Aperture invests early in fintech and enterprise gamechangers that use financial innovation to create a more inclusive economy.
Over the last 10 years, William has played instrumental roles in creating diversity-centric investment platforms for leading corporations including Comcast, Morgan Stanley, Samsung, and Hearst. In 2012, he launched and led the nation’s first corporate-backed diversity venture fund, the Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, a $20 million venture fund designed to invest in entrepreneurs of color. Under William’s leadership, the Catalyst Fund made over 70 investments and the portfolio includes several high growth companies such as Squire, Cuyana, AptDeco, Flutterwave, Paystack (acquired by Stripe), and Partpic (acquired by Amazon).
A former strategy consultant and software developer, William holds an MBA from Duke University and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Computer Science from North Carolina State University.
Don Hobson
Chief Information Officer, Visa Inc.
As the Chief Information Officer, Don Hobson is responsible for building, operating and maintaining the corporate systems and infrastructure necessary to enable a highly connected and collaborative workforce that helps power Visa’s business. His team include all product development for Visa’s corporate functions including Finance, HR, Learning, Legal, Compliance, Marketing, Sales, Risk and others while partnering with the Executive Committee leaders of those functions.
Don joined Visa in 2016 and has 24 years of experience in testing, developing and managing technology organizations. Prior to Visa, Don led engineering and management teams at On Center Software, BMC Software, NetIQ and ITinvolve. He is also a U.S. Navy veteran.
Adama Iwu
VP, Head of North America Government Solutions, Visa Inc.
Adama is Vice President, Head of North America Government Solutions and manages Visa’s commercial and prepaid government payments business. She has been with Visa since January of 2015 and has held roles in Government Engagement and Emerging Payments Solutions.
Adama joined Visa from Farmers Insurance, where she served as Head of CA Government Affairs and managed their political, legislative, and regulatory agenda. Prior to Farmers, Adama had previous roles with Advance America, California Assn. of Physicians Groups, and the State of California. She began her career as a fellow in the Schwarzenegger administration working on healthcare policy.
In October of 2017, The Los Angeles Times published an open letter – led by Adama and signed by over 140 women – on the pervasive culture of sexual harassment, discrimination, and assault in politics. This resulted in the creation of the We Said Enough Foundation, whose mission is to eliminate bullying, harassment, and assault in the workplace. In December of 2017, Time Magazine recognized Adama as a Silence Breaker and featured her on the cover of their People of the Year edition.
Adama has a BA in Political Science from the University of San Diego and lives in New York City.
Glen Murray
VP, Payment Services and Sales, Sutton Payments
Glenn Murray currently serves as Vice President of Payment Services and Sales for Sutton Payments Division. A 20-year veteran of the payments industry, he has held strategic positions at Discover, MasterCard and PayPal. A graduate of DePaul University Murray’s current role sees him working with a number of emerging fintech players to help direct them down the path to product launch. Earlier positions included business and product development, retail payments space as a strategic growth manager at PayPal and working with international payment platforms for PayPal’s Global Operations team. He hopes to leverage his knowledge of the business to help more people discover the opportunities the ever-expanding payments landscape provides.
Dr. Jen Welter
Motivational speaker, former NFL coach
Dr. Jen Welter is a groundbreaking, barrier-busting force of nature. She is a female trailblazer, a sports pioneer, PhD, passionate leader, world-renowned speaker, entrepreneur and source of inspiration around the globe. Her relentless pursuit of individual excellence and success in challenging the status quo time and time again, fuels her current drive to help others achieve their best—in sports, health and wellness, professional pursuits and in life.
Deidre Cohen
SVP, Head of US Acquiring, Visa
As the Senior Vice President, Head of US Acquiring for Visa Inc., Cohen leads the team of Account Executives supporting the Visa’s acquirer partners, and has responsibility for business development for Acquirer Solutions and Global Acquiring Center of Excellence.
With more than 20 years of experience in financial services with over 15 years specifically in the acquiring industry, she joined Visa from Wells Fargo Bank/Wells Fargo Merchant Services where she was a Senior Vice President. During her tenure she held a variety of roles including financial operations, gateway management, international acquiring including the initiative to establish Wells Fargo’s Visa acquiring license in Canada. Most recently her focus was on business management, strategy and development of Wells Fargo’s acquiring sponsorship and Payment Facilitator/Service Provider businesses.
She has been active with the ETA – The Electronic Transaction Association and was a member of their Professional Development Committee focused on creating an avenue for education and certification programs for the payment industry as well as the Larger Processor Committee. She currently representing Visa as the ex-officio member of the ETA Board.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Smith College and a Masters of Business Administration from San Diego State University. Actively involved in non-profit organizations focused on children and education, she has served on the board of Kids’ Country, a non-profit providing after-school childcare, and mentored high school students for Build.org, an organization that ignites the potential of youth in under-resourced communities through entrepreneurship-based experiential learning. Currently, Deirdre is a member of the Bay Area Board for Generation Citizen, a non-profit focused on action based civics education in middle and high schools. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her 3 children and hiking the hills with her four legged friends in the Bay Area hills.
Brian Cole
SVP, Head of North America Product and Solutions, Visa
Brian Cole is Senior Vice President, Head of North America Product and Solutions. His team is responsible for product management and distribution as well as solutions development in support of local market and client needs in North America.
Prior to Visa, Brian was the CEO of Barclaycard, UK and held various board and advisory roles across private equity and non-profit.
Brian spent 17 years with Capital One Financial Corporation between the US and the UK markets. He held a variety of roles, the last of which was CEO of the lender’s UK division from 2009 to 2013. Prior to that, he was the Chief Financial Officer of Capital One’s European bank.
Brian began his career at First Union Financial Corp and holds a Bachelor’s in Communications from Virginia Tech.
Veronica Fernandez
SVP, Regional Head, North America Business Solutions, Visa
Veronica is Visa’s senior vice president and Regional Head of North America Business Solutions. Visa Business Solutions (VBS) enables businesses to thrive through products that provide better cash flow, productivity, administrative efficiency, control and acceptance. From small business to large corporate and governments, VBS products cover all forms of business spending, including Small Business, Commercial, Virtual Cards and New Payment Flows. Veronica is responsible for the business, strategy and operational responsibility for the U.S. and Canada.
Veronica joined Visa in February of 2007, and has led numerous teams across Visa Business Solutions, North America Merchant and Prepaid. Prior to joining Visa, Veronica held product management and business development roles at U.S. Bank Corporate Payment Systems in Minneapolis, MN.
Veronica earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota. She is passionate about the advancement of underrepresented at Visa and in Silicon Valley. She serves as an executive sponsor of Visa Latinx Connect Employee Resource Group and sits on the Advisory Board for Latinas in Tech Bay Area. Ms. Fernandez is a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina and lives with her husband and eight-year-old daughter in the Bay Area.
Anabel Perez
President and CEO, NovoPayment
A member of the Forbes Finance Council, an Endeavor Entrepreneur, and the first Hispanic-American woman recipient of the Paybefore Industry Achievement Award for her contributions to the payments space and financial inclusion, Anabel is relentless in her pursuit of finding ways to take financial services to new places and moments in people’s lives.
As CEO and Co-Founder of NovoPayment, a pioneering FinTech infrastructure company that enables traditional players and disruptors to create new ways of embedding financial services and payments into different commercial and consumer experiences. Anabel has led the expansion, integration, and scaling of the company across 14 of 20 markets in LAC and the US. She has worked tirelessly building a team to create the largest financial application network across the Americas, where organizations from different sectors can converge to serve common clients. As a result of her vision, NovoPayment created a regional network -- or fabric – that is helping to expand the digital economy and integrate the Americas financially in novel ways.
Trained as a banker but a techie at heart, Anabel is a frequent speaker and thinker on technology's transformation of financial services, as well as the power of APIs, open banking and new delivery models. Anabel has more than 20 years of experience in banking and payments including commercial and retail banking, product development and financial services.
Elle Rustique
Founder and CEO, TipBrightly
As a postdoctoral fellow, researcher and published scholar at Stanford University, Dr. Rustique spearheaded education initiatives throughout the United States between 2003 - 2015. She also taught high school in underserved communities early in her career. Her experience teaching in these communities, along with her work at Stanford on organizational change and systemic reform have been key influences in TipBrightly’s mission in designing products with empathy and emotional intelligence, and for creating solutions to complex problems around inequity, access, and opportunity.
As the CEO and Founder of TipBrightly, Elle led the award-winning design of the first mobile-based cashless tipping solution that would provide appreciative guests with a method to tip through QR codes, enable tipped employees to recover tips, and provide a tool for employers to recruit and retain employees. Integrating digital tipping, real-time feedback, and business analytics into a single platorm,TipBrigthly is expanding across the US and Europe in Marriott, Hilton, and IHG-Kimpton hotels.
Dr. Rustique holds a Ph.D from University College London, a Masters from Columbia University, and a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis.
Adriana Saman
Principal, Clocktower Technology Ventures
Adriana is currently Principal at Clocktower Ventures. Prior to Clocktower, Adriana was a Strategy Associate in Chase’s Digital Payments team where she worked closely with all consumer-related payment products to develop consolidated roadmaps, business cases, and strategic initiatives. Before joining Digital Payments, she worked at J.P. Morgan as an Investment Banking Analyst focusing on M&A transactions across Latin America. Adriana is originally from Ecuador and holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
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