Barry Forbes, Independent Payment Systems Consultant
Barry has been in the electronic banking and payments business for 35 years, gathering experience within the fields of IT, Product Strategy, Marketing, Operations and Consulting, while working for banks, system suppliers, consultants and independently. He participated in the early development and establishment of Branch Automation, EFT, ATM’s, POS, Private Label and Loyalty Cards, Smart Cards and Mobile Commerce, and has witnessed many technologies mature from “crazy ideas” to “everyday products”. Working across five continents he held positions varying from senior project and product management for banks in South Africa, to international market development for a European supplier and VP at a major US consultancy. He is currently semi-retired, consulting occasionally on assignments of interest and authoring educational content.
Andrew Martin, CEO, Currency Machine
Andrew is a qualified Engineer with an MBA from Imperial College. Andrew’s career includes 10 years in engineering before moving into services. Andrew spent 6 years with Securicor as Sales & Marketing Director while also building and establishing Securicor Cash Services as one of the largest IAD companies in the early millennium. Andrew then joined Cardpoint plc where he initially managed their acquisitions before moving to Frankfurt to set up Cardpoint GmbH and then managed Cadpoint's European businesses. Andrew left Cardpoint in July ’07 and is now CEO of Currency Machine, based in the UK.
Dave C Mitchell, Head: NPS Department, South Africa Reserve Bank
Dave Mitchell is the Head of the National Payment System (NPS) Department of the South African Reserve Bank. His areas of responsibility include the operation of the South African Multiple Option Settlement (SAMOS) system (the South African RTGS) and the oversight of the NPS. Mr. Mitchell is also the Project Leader of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Payment Systems Project, which aims to develop the nation and cross-border capabilities of the payment systems of the SADC region. He as also participated in several international workgroups including the BIS workgroup responsible for the publication “General Guidance for National Payment System Development” and provided input to the “Core Principles for Systemically Important Payment Systems.”
Mr. Mitchell started his career at the Reserve Bank in the Gold and Foreign Exchange Department but soon transferred to the Information Technology field where he spent most of his career before being appointed to Head of the National Payment System Department in March 1999.
Kalyani Pillay, CEO, SABRIC (South African Banking Risk Information Centre)
Kalyani Pillay comes from a long standing history in the legal & criminal justice profession.Appointed as CEO of SABRIC in December 2007 (current position), Kalyani is responsible for leading the company in assisting the South African Banks and the major Cash In Transit companies, fight organized crime within those industries.
Prior to joining SABRIC, Kalyani was a Special Director of Public Prosecutions as well as Special Adviser to the Head of the National Prosecuting representative to the Common Wealth in criminal related matters she also represented the NPA on a number of crime commissions and committees at the United National. She also headed up the Systems Management and Optimisation Unit in the Department of Justin as a General Manager from 2002 to 2004. Kalyani began her career as a Practicing Attorney in 1989 and further qualified as a Conveyancer In 1995, at the very early stages of South Africa’s transformation and democracy, Kalyani was appointed to head up the State Attorney’s Office in Johannesburg.
Kalyani is married with 2 sons.
Harold M. Solomon, CEO, Decision Services International (DSI)
Mr. Solomon’s areas of expertise include using innovative business models and technology to automate data-based decisioning that favors the under-banked, such as apartment rental, mobile phone and ATM transaction data. His primary responsibility is identifying new products for new verticals. DSI builds automated, decision-based lending and customer segmentation systems in emerging markets using data from new and existing infrastructures such as ATM systems, mobile networks or publicly available data that is not production ready. DSI’s locations of focus include the US, Africa, Central and South America, China and India.
As a co-founder of RentBureau, Solomon lead the day-to-day operations and integration of RentBureau’s technology to credit bureaus, screening companies and multifamily property management systems. He is a founder of Seraphim Partners, an Atlanta-based technology investment fund. Solomon was co-founder of TeleKey, a prepaid voice and internet company. He is also the past president YEO (Young Entrepreneurs Organization) and a member and past executive committee member of Atlanta Technology Angels, an investment group based at Georgia Tech. Solomon was previously with IBM in Space Shuttle software development at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
Marc Sternberg, Managing Director, Spark ATM Systems
Marc is a qualified Chartered Accountant (SA) and was previously employed in a number of senior management roles at organisations in South Africa and abroad. Founding Spark ATM Systems in 2005 after extensive local and international research, he continues to passionately motivate the company towards achieving its goals while ensuring that meticulous attention to detail and professionalism are adhered to by the company’s ever-growing team.
Hannes Venter, Sales and Business Development Director, G4S Cash Solutions SA
Hannes as an executive of G4S Cash Solutions SA, is the leader in cash solutions space for Major retailers and financial institutions. With over 10 years of experience in Commercial Banking and 7 years in Cash management he directs and manages G4S Cash Solutions SA’s business development, End to end solutions and Sales divisions. He has a commercial degree in financial management and a post graduate diploma in project management. Hannes has gained extensive experience in the development of cash management solutions in South Africa, the UK and Holland. Hannes is a regular keynote speaker at cash, security and retail conferences in South Africa.
G4S is the world’s leading international security solutions group. They specialise in outsourced business processes in sectors where security and safety risks are considered a strategic threat. G4S has operations in over 110 countries, is listed on the London Stock Exchange with a secondary listing in Copenhagen and is the largest employer quoted on the London Stock Exchange, with over 585,000 employees |
