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.
We are always looking for people who fit this profile. If you believe you do and are interested in working in a dynamic consultancy environment, please click here.
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.
Vaughan Collie, Director
Vaughan Collie has almost two decades of experience in the international payments and information systems industries, and has led a number of domestic and global initiatives with a focus on multi-channel payments and risk management. Vaughan's roles have utilised his extensive and diverse experience, particularly in international payments and risk and fraud management, where his in-depth industry, business 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, MasterCard, PayPal, UK Payments (formerly APACS), Visa and a number of top- and mid-tier international retail banks and financial services institutions.
Roger Alexander, Director
Roger Alexander is widely recognised as an industry expert in the card and merchant payments arena - and indeed was awarded "Cards Personality of the Year" by the UK industry at the prestigious 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.
Jim Wadsworth
Jim Wadsworth has almost 20 years business experience, the majority of which has been with market leaders in the payments sector. He is a highly experienced senior manager, with a track record of innovation and successful delivery in fast-growing new product areas and markets. Many of his roles have had a pan-European focus, and have included both commercial and consumer initiatives, often in complex multi-stakeholder environments. He has led commercial and prepaid payment card businesses for major financial services industry players; he has particular knowledge and experience of the prepaid card market having built and launched Barclaycard's commercial prepaid offering in the UK, and was a former director of the Prepaid International Forum. He also has extensive mobile payments experience from his roles at Vodafone and Simpay.
Neil Whittaker
Neil Whittaker's initial career was in the military, with the Household Cavalry, after which he held a variety of posts at Director level across the financial services sector, including roles in sales, marketing, HR and training. His employers during this time spanned both the retail banking and insurance businesses within Barclays Bank, as well as Lloyds Bank and the insurers Clerical Medical. More recently, as a consultant, he has continued to support such "blue chip" organisations across Europe, together with clients in Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. As well as his knowledge and skills in sales, service, distribution, product delivery and innovation, he also focuses on developing successful strategies for his customers and "bringing those strategies to life", building and leading multi-disciplined teams to achieve exceptional business results.
Manuela Alor
Manuela Alor is an experienced financial services consultant, holding a variety of posts at Accenture and ABYM Global Consulting and also at Santander Bank, where she worked in the Finance, Commercial, IT and Operations areas. In addition to her financial services roles she has also delivered consulting engagements for clients in the energy, telecoms and public sectors, working with organisations such as British Telecom, Telefónica and Applus. Particular areas of focus have been developing organisational strategy and positioning clients to increase their competitiveness through deploying innovative solutions. Manuela is fluent in Spanish, English and Italian.
Eileen Silva
Eileen Silva specialises in providing research and analytical support to Accourt projects. Prior to Accourt she worked for American Express, and has had roles within a number of research consultancy firms. Her previous posts have developed her well recognised research abilities, which are highly valued by clients. In addition to English she speaks fluent Portuguese, and has good skills in both Spanish and French.
Patrick Abrines
Patrick Abrines has a comprehensive grasp of the international payments and banking environment, gained over a span of more than three decades. With first class experience in sales, marketing and relationship management, his customer focus is complemented by his ability to deliver successfully within tight deadlines, and he is fully fluent in French, Spanish and English. He is very much involved in ACH payments in the UK and across Europe, and is regularly at the forefront of exploiting emerging technologies and payment initiatives such as Faster Payments/Immediate Payments and SEPA.
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.
Peter Comben
Peter Comben has worked in the card payment industry for more than 25 years, including the last 12 years as a consultant. His specialist assignments include technology solutions for reducing fraud and improving profitability, migrating the European market to accept contactless payment and Near Field Communications (NFC), and the application of a range of wireless technologies for payment. After working for Visa, he became Technical Director for VeriFone in 1990. He subsequently was the EMEA Director for Business Development for ViVOtech where he was responsible for establishing and maintaining sales channels for the region.
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.
Joseph Marton
Joseph Marton has approaching two decades of experience in delivering complex business and technology projects, primarily in the financial sector. He has specific interests in software architecture and development methods, and is always focused on achieving measurable business value from the effective and appropriate use of technology. Prior to joining Accourt, Joseph was the Solutions Director for a software development and systems integration company, and previously spent thirteen years with major global organisations, focusing on business and IT solutions, and including a series of senior roles during the development of the Intelligent Finance direct service bank in the UK.
Peter Moran
Peter Moran is an acknowledged expert in the global smart card industry. He has a background in advanced payments systems, and combines practical experience in developing new payments technologies with planning and implementing their roll-out and promoting their benefits. Peter has very deep and current experience of contactless payment in the mass transit sector, both in the UK and Europe, as well as deploying the technology in vending, events and convenience stores. He is experienced in working with and for major retail banks, product vendors and the international payment schemes. During his career he has also served on a series of working groups and committees of the international standards bodies.
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.
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.