OUR TEAM

Mansour Aaron KarimzadehCEO & Program Director

Mansour Aaron Karimzadeh applies nearly 25 years of experience to his leadership role. His background includes payment and transaction processing systems in the financial industry. He has been instrumental in implementing many large card and payment processing projects worldwide specializing in smart cards, EMV, NFC, digital payments, online fraud, digital currency, tokenization, 3DS etc. – 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. He was elected to the EMV Migration Forum (US Payments Forum) Steering Committee. He also chairs its Communications and Educations Working Committee and member of its Debit, Mobile, Transit Committees.

Mansour has been providing payments training based on his experiences from the field working with acquirers, issuers, merchants and payment technology vendors around the world for the past 10 years. He runs the training entity www.securepaymentsacademy.com providing training internationally. The Secure Payments Academy™ (SPA) provides payments training workshops for all new dynamic security training based on the EMV technology and other advanced payments technologies, that cover the latest trends and best practices in global payments. SPA’s expertise and knowledge is generated through its consulting business practice under www.scil.us. This unique knowledge base is applied throughout each workshop or training session.

Kathy LawtonEMV Training and Migration Consultant

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.

Ennio PonzettoPayment Advisor

Based in Italy, Ennio Ponzetto serves as our EU EMV – Consultant for Secure Payments Academy. Ennio has more than 30 years of experience managing leading payments technology companies in the United States and Europe. Prior to joining TAS Ennio was CEO of eCommlink, a leading US Prepaid Processor. Throughout his executive career, Mr. Ponzetto has directed the R&D, sales & marketing, and engineering efforts of numerous successful high tech companies. He was President of the Olivetti Advanced Technology Center in Cupertino, General Manger of I.C.S., developer of Olivetti Personal Computers and Servers, and of Compuprint-CPG International. As Managing Director and General Manager, he played a critical role in the strategic focusing of these companies’ technological vision to maximize revenue and expand market share.

Jan DartPrincipal Consultant

Jan Dart has extensive experience covering payments architectures and processing experience. Payment products & services, business development, mobile banking payments strategy, business & product development, managing major projects deployments. He is an expert in NFC and mobile services and runs the consultancy practice in payments, smartcards and mobile payments.

Sam BoutrosPrincipal Consultant

Payment industry subject matter expert who understands the ecosystem and customer life cycle for issuers to acquirers and is proficient in all low value and bank to bank payment processing technology that covers authorization through to clearing and settlement; recent specializations and work includes: switching, EMV smart cards and mobile payment solutions deployment. Fluent in English, French, and Arabic.

David ColePrincipal Consultant

Based in the UK office, 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. David provides a wealth of experience that he has acquired from delivering courses, seminars and workshops all over the world.

Lindsay RobertsonCustomer EMV Training and Migration Consultant

Lindsay Robertson is a CxO level advisor specializing 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 the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme. He has also worked with the Home Office on the UK’s Identity Card Program. Previously Lindsay worked in the financial services industry, in banks and for related suppliers, in a range of roles. Lindsay has an MBA from the University of Edinburgh and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland.