MasterCard Invests More Than Money in iZettle

The $30 million-plus iZettle just raised will certainly help the company expand its geographic footprint. But partnering with companies like MasterCard will bring a whole lot more. MasterCard VP Mobile John Verdeschi and iZettle CMO Johan Bendz explain.

Listen to the interview with iZettle Chief Marketing Officer Johan Bendz here:

Listen to the interview with MasterCard Senior Business Leader John Verdeschi here:

Access the full news release announcing iZettle’s $31.4 million round of funding.

Johan Bendz

Chief Marketing Officer, iZettle

Johan Bendz is Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at iZettle, social payments company. Johan is responsible for all market communication. Johan has been with iZettle from the early stages. After the two founders, Johan was iZettle’s second employee and has played a key role in marketing the service in five different European countries and helping the iZettle team to grow from 4 to 50 employees in just twelve months.

Johan has extensive marketing and product experience and specialises in marketing disruptive and innovative services and products in major European markets. Prior to joining iZettle Johan held several senior positions including digital director at Vizeum Sweden at Aegis Media (Aegis Group plc (LSE: AGS) and Product Director of Campaigns at TradeDoubler (OMX, TRAD). At TradeDoubler Johan was responsible for the Campaign/Ad network business area and as such launched the product in 18 markets across Europe.

John Verdeschi

Senior Business Leader, MasterCard

John Verdeschi is Senior Business Leader of Mobile Product Development in the MasterCard Emerging Payments group. In this role, he is responsible for managing the development of mobile point of sale solutions using smartphones, tablets and laptops as payment card acceptance devices. Mr. Verdeschi is also focused on securing mobile payments through the use of emerging technologies.

Since joining MasterCard in 1999, Mr. Verdeschi held positions in program development and sales with a special emphasis on fraud management and data security. He managed development and deployment of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards and he represented MasterCard on the PCI Security Standards Council management committee. Mr. Verdeschi also managed an expert sales team selling state-of-the-art fraud management tools such as MasterCard’s Expert Monitoring System (EMS).

Before joining MasterCard, he spent 12 years working for highly competitive companies such as MCI Telecommunications, IBM, and Loral Electronics where he held positions in product development, marketing, and engineering.

Mr. Verdeschi earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Fordham University and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Manhattan College. Mr. Verdeschi resides in Yorktown Heights, New York with his wife and two children.