With this week’s cyber attacks on Visa, MasterCard and other financial organizations, security is certainly on the mind of the payments community more than ever.
As far as payments fraud, one person working to make a difference is John O’Malley, the new CEO of Memento Inc. With over 20 years of leadership experience in financial services and technology sectors, O’Malley now looks to drive Memento’s innovative solutions for fraud prevention. In an interview with PYMNTS.com, O’Malley explains why he feels Memento delivers the best overall ROI for our customers.
PYMNTS.com: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into payments and what it means to be CEO of Memento?
JOHN O’MALLEY: I started my career in the mid-70s in the aerospace industry as a computer science engineer at Lockheed-Martin. I have been very fortunate to participate in technology-driven companies all of my career, even as I moved into executive management roles 25 years ago. My background in payments has been very broad across the financial industry. I have spent time in the global treasury/capital markets industry as well as the wholesale and retail payment industry. It seemed logical to align my experience to the financial crimes segment of the industry as the complexity of cross channel activity grows and fraudster’s look for vulnerabilities.
PYMNTS.com: What was most attractive about Memento, and what was the driving factor to join the team?
O’MALLEY: First and foremost was the unique market opportunity for Memento to leverage its core competencies to deliver an operating competitive advantage to its customers. The depth of analytics and forensic science that Memento can apply to solve fraud with very low false positives was impressive to me.
PYMNTS.com: PYMNTS.com is all about “what’s next” in payments. How will you, in your role, help Memento define “what’s next”?
O’MALLEY: As payments evolve, the industry will continue to find new methods for securing transactions on behalf of the customer. Our value proposition is to create the best overall ROI for our customers. We will engage broadly across the industry to defend that position. It defines who we are.
PYMNTS.com: Who or what has been the biggest influence in your professional career?
O’MALLEY: The biggest influencer was a mentor to me named Greg Peterson who, unfortunately, passed away several years ago. Greg bet big on me and coached me along the way. He had the ability to see the potential of people and to develop them. He was also an extremely successful investor and executive himself. Greg had a passion for education and was deeply involved at Stanford University, where he was a Trustee. The thing I remember most was his ability to see beyond the stereotypical profiles of society and to measure every individual on their values, capabilities and achievements. This ability makes us human. It also makes great companies, like Memento.
Executive bio: John O’Malley, Chief Executive Officer at Memento
John O’Malley is an expert in developing high performing companies and helping financial institutions solve important business challenges. His broad execution, leadership and strategic planning skills have helped Mr. O’Malley drive innovation and operational excellence at several influential financial services technology companies. Prior to joining Memento, John served as President and CEO of Harland Financial Solutions, where he grew the business from $17M to over $300M. Additionally, John’s leadership led to significant growth at Fiserv where he served as President of the CBS Division and also at Hogan Systems (acquired by Computer Sciences Corp.) where he was Executive Vice President of International Operations.
John holds a computer science degree from New York University.
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