Our executive consultants have all held senior management roles in the financial services industry with a minimum of 12 years' relevant experience in the card payments arena. They offer real experience, depth and breadth of knowledge, combined with a practical approach enabling our wider consulting team to deliver excellent results with openness and honesty. Our highly experienced team of associates spread across Europe complements the Accourt team and brings invaluable local market expertise throughout the various European markets.
Our approach to challenges is to provide positive ways forward, facilitate decision-making and then act with confidence and passion to implement the chosen path effectively.
John Berns, Managing Director
John Berns has two decades of international retail banking experience, with an extensive background in inter-bank clearing, settlement, treasury and ACH systems. Before joining Accourt he was Senior Vice President of Marketing at Visa International. His work has taken him across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, assisting banks and other organisations in bringing together divergent consumer-facing technologies to reap the benefits of smarter customer interaction. He continues to consult with a broad range of major companies including many leading retail banks, MasterCard and Visa, and multi-stakeholder industry associations.
Roger Alexander, Director
Roger Alexander is widely recognised as an industry expert in the card and merchant payments arena - and indeed was recently awarded "Cards Personality of the Year" by the UK industry at the prestigious 2008 Card Awards. Prior to joining Accourt, Roger was CEO of Elavon Merchant Services, one of Europe's major acquirers, and he was formerly also the CEO of S2 Card Services Limited (previously Switch), the UK's major domestic debit card scheme, and a partner in Edgar, Dunn & Company, a US strategic consultancy specialising in payment systems. Roger started his banking career with Barclays Bank, where he spent 31 years in a variety of roles, culminating in 1994 in his appointment as a Director of Barclaycard and Managing Director of the Barclays Bank Emerging Markets Group.
Anne Cobb, Director
Anne Cobb has long experience in the European payments and financial sector, and has worked in a variety of very senior roles across the continent. Until recently she was President of the CEMEA region for Visa International, responsible for Visa business in 84 countries, and growing revenues over 13 years from $5m to $330m. She was previously the General Manager of Eurocard International (now incorporated within the Maestro system), where she also oversaw very substantial business growth. Anne’s initial career was with Crédit Agricole, where her achievements included the introduction of the bank’s first ATMs and the first traveller’s cheques in French Francs.
Vaughan Collie, Director
Vaughan Collie has over 15 years' experience in the international payments and information systems industries, and has led a series of domestic and global initiatives underpinned by international payment cards. Vaughan's consulting roles have utilised his extensive and diverse experience, particularly in international payments, risk and fraud intelligence, where his in-depth industry and technology knowledge across a broad range of relevant initiatives enables him to deploy his well developed problem-solving skills. He is able to rapidly understand, manage and communicate issues at senior management and board level. Vaughan's background includes consultancy with major industry players such as American Express, APACS, Visa, MasterCard and a number of international retail banks and financial services institutions.
Lesley Muir
Lesley has wide-ranging experience in the card issuing and travel services marketplaces, working with respected players such as American Express and MasterCard to successfully set up and drive relationships at the most senior management levels with some of the UK’s leading banks and financial institutions. During her career she has negotiated a series of contracts supporting sales volumes in excess of $1bn for credit cards, prepaid travel cards and travellers cheques, and has been instrumental in delivering a range of market-leading card payment propositions. Lesley is particularly skilled at putting together and getting the best from teams drawn from a variety of business partners. At Accourt she combines business development responsibilities with direct consultancy work for specific clients.
Grant Millar
Grant Millar has a particular focus on card portfolio management and customer acquisition, founded on his extensive marketing experience with a series of "blue chip" organisations. He launched the highly successful "Goldfish" brand, which introduced new approaches to customer loyalty and retention within the payments industry and rapidly recruited over 1m cardholders. At American Express he was director of direct marketing across Europe, and then of all aspects of customer acquisition in the UK, and he later held a similar post at Lloyds TSB. He was more recently in charge of all aspects of product development and management for the entire RBS cards portfolio, also covering NatWest and MINT.
Julie Moore, Company Secretary
Julie joined Accourt as Company Secretary and to manage all the administrative processes for the company. She has a background in the sales and marketing of computer networking products, and for eight years ran her own business.
Clive Leader
Clive Leader has a unique blend of experience in the payments sector, working in banks, payment schemes and with clients across the spectrum of card related disciplines - marketing, strategy, operations and inter-bank environments - in over 30 different countries on six continents. He started his career at Midland Bank (HSBC) in a variety of roles, which included heading the bank's Payment Strategy Unit before taking on the challenge of managing a 24x7 card operations centre. He then moved to Europay, working in business relationship and marketing posts. As a consultant since 1993 he has advised many "blue chip" banking clients on the development of their card payment businesses.
Bernard Tournier
Bernard Tournier has held a succession of financial control, planning and senior management posts across a number of 'blue chip' companies in France and the UK, and has an excellent understanding of the industrial, banking and payments sectors. In recent years, he has provided consultancy on strategy and system implementation to leading businesses throughout western Europe and north Africa. He headed the international card payments operations of the Crédit Mutuel group following its merger with CIC, and many of his more recent assignments have also been in the payments arena.
Barry Wright
Barry Wright is an acknowledged expert in all aspects of loyalty and reward schemes and customer relationship management. This is underpinned by almost 30 years' marketing and management experience, working directly for major companies, with marketing agencies and with his own business, and with a focus on the hospitality, travel and banking sectors. This gives him an intimate grasp of the dynamics of customer loyalty and CRM, the development of strategy and its role and management in the marketing mix. His recent assignments have included work for card issuers, leading hotel groups, retail chains and airlines, and he is a frequent speaker at international conferences.
Joseph Bourner
Joseph Bourner is an experienced IT project manager and business consultant, successful in delivering projects within an unusual variety of challenging environments. His background is primarily in the financial services sector but also includes medical systems and public utilities. He has strong planning and organisation skills, and is equally at home with technical specialists and with end-user staff, working at all levels within an organisation. His projects have included the very earliest stages of requirements analysis, through to the roll-out and marketing of the end products, with a recent emphasis on work in environments requiring the highest levels of financial and information security.
Joseph Marton
Joseph Marton has 15 years' experience of complex business and technology projects, primarily in the financial sector. He has specific interests in software architecture and development methods, but is always focused on ensuring the delivery of measurable business value from the effective and appropriate use of such technology. Prior to joining Accourt, Joseph was the Solutions Director for a software development and systems integration company, and previously spent eight years with a global consultancy, focusing on business and IT solutions, including a series of senior roles during the development of the Intelligent Finance direct service bank.
Andrew Veitch
Andrew Veitch has extensive expertise in the payments industry, including a significant career with Visa Europe where he was involved in a number of strategic developments across the continent. He specialises in payment systems implementation, service development and management, and marketing. He combines excellent creativity and innovation skills and management abilities with a strong technical foundation, which enable him to devise and deliver solutions which are both technically feasible and highly customer-focused.