Australian Payments Plus

Australian Payments Plus Board

About us > Australian Payment Plus Board

The Board of Australian Payments Plus has 13 Directors, composed of four independent Directors (including the Chair), four Directors representing each of the four major banks, two Directors representing other ADI shareholders and three Directors drawn from non-ADI shareholders.

Catherine Brenner BEcLLB MBA FAICD

Independent Chair

Catherine has extensive financial services and business experience and has held executive and non-executive roles across many sectors. In addition to being Chair of Australian Payments Plus, Catherine is a non-executive director of the Scentre Group, the carbon ratings business, Emmi, The George Institute for Global Health and Schools Plus.

Catherine was previously non-executive Chair of AMP Limited and a non-executive director of Boral Limited and Coca-Cola Amatil Limited. She was also a Trustee of the Sydney Opera House Trust and the Art Gallery of NSW and a member of the Takeovers Panel. Catherine was a senior investment banker at ABN AMRO and BZW. Catherine is a Fellow of the Institute of Company Directors, a member of Chief Executive Women and a Panel member of Adara Partners.

Paul Askew

General Manager, Financial Services, Coles

Paul is General Manager of Coles Financial Services including Cards, Insurance and Payments. He joined Coles in 2015 to lead the Consumer Lending business after Coles purchased the joint venture established between Coles Financial Services and GE Capital. Prior to joining Coles, Paul worked at GE Money as General Manager, Retailer Solutions and as Chief Risk Officer for the GE’s UK Home Lending business. Paul has also worked with Experian in the UK and South Africa.

Ryan Brosnahan

Chief Transformation Officer, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank

Ryan joined Bendigo and Adelaide Bank in 2019 and is responsible for driving the Group’s digital transformation program, a key enabler of the bank’s strategy, in addition to running the digital, data, payments, and technology functions of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.

Payments have always been a core component of Ryan’s portfolio and he established the group payments function at ANZ and grew the global financial institutions business payments division at ANZ. He also successfully ran the payments operations function and transaction banking business at ANZ New Zealand and was a director on the Board of EFTPOS New Zealand.

Shane Conway

Executive General Manager, Transaction Banking and Enterprise Payments, NAB

Shane runs NAB’s Transaction Banking and Enterprise Payments business. He has over 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry, covering corporate finance, valuation, mergers and acquisitions, strategy, product management, analytics and remediation. Shane has held a range of Executive roles at NAB since joining in 2007. Prior to NAB, Shane worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers’ consulting practice in Sydney and London, where he specialised in providing business valuation, transaction and strategic advisory services to financial institutions and investment firms.

Greg Cooper

Independent Director

Greg has 30 years global investment industry experience. He was CEO of Schroder Investment Management Australia from 2006 through to 2018 and ran Schroders Institutional Business globally. Before joining Schroders, Greg was the Head of the actuarial and asset consulting practice for Towers Perrin in Asia.

Greg is a Director of NSW Treasury Corporation, Perpetual, Catholic Church Insurance, EdStart, OpenInvest Holdings, Milkwood Creations, Tracks Media and Chair of Colonial First State Investments and Avanteos. He is also a Director and Ambassador of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation and a Member of the St Ignatius’ College Investment Committee. He previously served as a Board Member for the Financial Services Council, including as its Chair for the last three years of his term.

Nigel Dobson

Banking Services Lead, ANZ

Nigel has responsibility for ANZ’s payments platform strategy and operating the bank’s payment services across 32 countries. He manages the Wholesale Digital team and leads the bank’s Digital Assets strategy and activities. He is Chair of Lygon 1B, a digital bank guarantee start-up and a Fellow of Blockchain Australia. Before this role, Nigel worked in a number of senior Transaction Banking roles at ANZ. Prior to joining ANZ, Nigel spent 19 years working for Citi in various senior Markets and Transaction Services roles in Australia and the Asia Pacific region.

Rachel Grimes AM

Independent Director

Ms Grimes has worked in financial services for the past 30 years and is the Deputy Chair of the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre, the Director of the Australian Professional and Ethics Standards Board, the Director of Loreto Ministries Limited, the Non-executive Director of ASX-listed HUB24 Limited, and the Chair of the Finance and Audit Committee for Surfing Australia. Previously, Ms Grimes held senior executive roles in financial services at BT Financial Group, Westpac and Challenger Financial Group.

Craig Kennedy

Managing Director, Cuscal

Craig is Managing Director of Cuscal where he is responsible for the corporate leadership, strategy and direction. Craig has more than 35 years’ experience in the financial services sector, with particular expertise in digital banking and payments. Over the past 25 years Craig has been a director of listed and unlisted public companies and a part of a team that built and operationalised two new retail banks in Australia. Prior to joining Cuscal, Craig was the Managing Director of Espreon Limited. He was also Head of Direct Banking at ING and has held a number of senior positions at Advance Bank Australia and the State Bank of New South Wales.

Kees Kwakernaak

Chief Operating Officer Fat Zebra

Kees is COO at Fat Zebra, a payment gateway, payment service provider and open data intermediary. Prior to joining Fat Zebra in 2024 Kees worked at Fiserv as Regional Head of Merchant Services and as Managing Director of Fiserv’s operations in Australia, NZ & the Pacific. Before Fiserv Kees worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he was Managing Director of the Global Treasury Services business and Head of Commercial Cards for Asia Pacific. He also worked at NAB where he was the Head of Payable & Receivable Products, Working Capital Services and held a number of senior roles at MasterCard International.

Paul Monnington

Managing Director, Wpay

Paul runs the Wpay business at Woolworths, leading a team focused on creating innovative retail payments for retailers, this has included leading the Scan&Go, QR and Loyalty Tap initiatives. Prior to this Paul led the FinTech divisions at Woolworths including Insurance, Cards and Payments. Before joining Woolworths, Paul served as UBank’s Digital Director and ran the programme to establish the bank. He has held various roles with NAB, Oracle, Deloitte Consulting, Capgemini, Barclays UK Retail and Business Bank, Legal & General and PwC.

Naomi Simson

Independent Director

Naomi had a corporate career in marketing with Apple, IBM, Ansett and KPMG before founding RedBalloon, an online marketplace for experiences, in 2001. RedBalloon now sits within Big Red Group, which she co-founded in 2017. In addition to offering wholesale services, platforms and technology to experience operators Big Red Group also houses consumer brands; Adrenaline, Experience Oz, Local Agent and EverythingNZ. Known as an entrepreneur and business leader, Naomi is also a best-selling author, podcaster and speaker and is passionate about helping small businesses succeed.
Naomi sits on a number of boards including WeebitNano Limited (ASX: WBT), Colonial First State, Big Red Group, University of Melbourne Economics and Business Faculty and Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation.

Jim Tate

Advisor, Westpac

Jim joined Westpac in 1988 and has enjoyed a variety of senior roles in financial markets, treasury, institutional and business banking. He is currently an Advisor to the Westpac Group, assisting executive management on a range of strategic issues. Jim led some of Westpac’s overseas businesses before managing Westpac’s finance company, AGC, before its sale to GE. He has served as CFO, CPO and COO across various parts of the Westpac business. Prior to joining Westpac, Jim worked for Bank of America and had a career in accounting and tax.

Ethan Teas

Executive General Manager, Payments, Business Banking, CBA

Ethan is the Executive General Manager of Payments at CBA with responsibility for domestic and international account-based payments products. In addition to his product responsibilities, Ethan leads the teams supporting the Bank’s group-wide payments strategy, industry representation, and advocacy.

Ethan also serves on the board of SWIFT; PaypaPlane, an Australian-based payments fintech; and serves as an advisor to SentiLink, a San Francisco based fintech focussed on combatting identity fraud. He has extensive local and international experience in banking and payments consultancy, having advised financial institutions across Australia/APAC, North America and UK/Europe.

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