University of Delaware

Founder & CEO at Paylitix, Inc.

Bonder

Member of the Board of Advisors

Bolt

Head of Risk & Payments

Paylitix, Inc.

Founder & CEO

A startup at the time, Bolt was the first full-service checkout platform for ecommerce that would bear all risk of loss for merchants.  Our overarching objective was to increase conversions for our clients--not just conversion rate, but ultimately total top-line volume.  Bolt owned all workflows associated with payments, including hosting the payment form, authorization, adjudication, settlement, and all back end workflows necessary to handle disputes and chargebacks.  We also reduced the PCI compliance scope for online merchants.  Our decline rates were a fraction of our clients’ original decline rates, and we increased our client’s top-line revenue by nearly 15%.

Head of Risk

CashStar was the global leader in digital incentive and prepaid cards.  We powered 350+ retail brands worldwide, including Starbucks, The Home Depot, Groupon, Williams-Sonoma, GAP, Mandarin Oriental, QVC, Dell, Best Buy, Sephora, Walmart, and Target.  We also powered massive digital promotions for Google, Twitter, iTunes, Starbucks, Visa, Walmart, LivingSocial, and Target.  Acquired by Blackhawk Network.

As merchant of record for all retail partners’ high risk card-not-present transactions, CashStar bore all risk on online and mobile consumer purchases of prepaid cards, as well as reload transactions for renowned global brands.  CashStar also offered risk services to some of the largest B2B, distribution, and loyalty programs worldwide.

-	Built CashStar’s risk and customer care services from the ground up.
-	Earned a reputation for CashStar as the most effective, least onerous fraud solution available.
-	Simultaneously achieved the fastest fulfillment experience, the lowest realized fraud losses, and lowest decline rates in digital payments—all while operating within the most high-risk segment of that space.
-	Consistently achieved breathtaking year-on-year efficiency gains by harvesting sacred cows and strengthening everyone around me.
-	Led design and execution across software developers, data scientists, and operations staff.
-	Drove the collection, retention, and use of vast amounts of unconventional and proprietary data.  Relentlessly spurred the most accurate outcomes data among our peers.
-	Developed sophisticated predictive models capable of decisioning orders in milliseconds.
-	Established CashStar as a fraud and “Big Data” thought leader by speaking at conferences, including our own annual Retailer Roundtable and Innovate events.
-	Played a decisive role in raising $15mm in private equity from FTV Capital and Intel Capital.  In both cases, CashStar’s risk management technology, performance, and reputation among retailers secured the terms.

CashStar

Chief Risk Officer

Intigrated Solutions specialized in achieving critical tactical objectives for lenders and payments platforms through knowledge transfer and team development.  I also introduced next-gen predictive technologies, advised C-level management and BODs, and led OCC examinations.

Clients:
	
BNP Paribas (Paris)
-	Introduced credit card marketing, retention, and risk mitigation strategies for a leading-edge portfolio retail bank based in Istanbul, Turkey.

TD Bank (Portland, ME)
-	Validated credit policy for bankcard and small business products.
-	Developed acquisition scorecards and credit policy for small business lending across three merged banks (Commerce Bank, BankNorth, and TD).
-	Developed loan loss provisioning policies and segmentation models for Basel implementation and IFRS compliance across all small business products.

Visa European Union (London)
-	Served on a team to develop and improve performance in the UK.  We addressed business strategy, risk, and compliance issues with an emphasis on brand sustainability and unintended consequences.

Barclaycard UK (London)
-	Marshaled the largest revenue enhancement and cost reduction initiative of 2007, balancing regulatory, brand, credit, and long-term profitability imperatives.

WEX Corp. (Portland, ME)
-	Validated existing credit and behavior scorecards.
-	Developed and implemented custom credit and behavior scorecards for small businesses. 
-	Addressed Wall Street concerns about income volatility in a period of rapid changes in fuel prices.
-	Developed new procedures and an internal ratings-based (IRB) model for loan loss provisioning that was approved by the Board of Directors, Federal and Utah regulators, and external auditors.

PowerPay LLC (Portland, ME)
-	Developed credit and behavior scorecards for retail and card-not-present merchants to reduce decline rates and reserve requirements.
-	Developed technology for risk management and collections to provide early detection of problem transactions.

Intigrated Solutions

Owner

Clout was a niche financial services company with private equity and Board participation from MSD Capital (Michael Dell’s investment fund), and Marshall & Ilsley Bank (NYSE: MI) as a strategic partner.  The company’s Board was not satisfied with deteriorating credit quality and marketing ineffectiveness.  I was hired to turn Clout’s performance around, after which the business was sold to Bank of America.

Managed all credit, acquisitions, and account management activities.  After six months, the Board of Directors added all operations to my responsibilities, including two call centers, 150 additional employees, and several strategic vendor relationships.  I had full P&L and regulatory compliance responsibility for the company.

-	Reduced delinquency rates on new loans by 50% by improving credit and account management controls.
-	Improved telemarketing by creating feedback teams of telemarketing, customer service, and risk staff.
-	Developed an effective strategy for direct mail marketing by introducing adaptive response models and test/learn campaigns.  Increased the opportunity for profitable prospect list penetration by 200%.
-	Achieved high response and activation rates by emphasizing value, appropriately targeting prospects, and stripping away costly gimmicks that distorted the brand.
-	Successfully influenced the Board of Directors, staff, and banking partner to adopt a new corporate vision.
-	Improved customer retention by 40% by empowering and coaching customer care operations.
-	Reduced delinquent loan inventories by 24% by reinventing collections strategy, listening to feedback from collections staff, and demonstrating decisive, hands-on leadership.
-	Cut the run rate on operating expenses by 28%.
-	Motivated and gained the trust of employees, improved morale, and drove productivity without the need to offer financial incentives or empty promises.  Reduced attrition of collections staff from 117% to 0.

Clout Financial Services, Inc. (acquired by Bank of America)

1st Financial is the largest privately held bank in the US primarily offering credit cards and student loans.

Provided leadership, coaching, and change management in risk and credit areas, expanding portfolio management, credit policy, operations, marketing analysis, and database management capabilities.  Demonstrated ability to partner with the Chairman, compliance, counsel, operations, and analytical staff to achieve critical objectives.

-	Originated and implemented the credit strategy that allowed the Bank to continue lending when existing criteria and scorecards no longer performed.  Strategy continued to outperform the market more than a decade after initial deployment.
-	Led through a turbulent period of growth and regulatory uncertainty.
-	Achieved the highest net spreads nationwide within the company’s market segment.
-	Identified and corrected deterioration in the Bank’s traditional lead sources and marketing channels.
-	Developed, documented, and implemented an unorthodox Basel II style advanced internal ratings based (AIRB) economic capital model and policy that gained approval by the FDIC and South Dakota regulators.
-	Pioneered a valuation model for written-off receivables that gained FDIC approval as a source of risk capital. 
-	Educated regulators, rating agencies, and securitization wrappers concerning the unique pre-prime aspects of student credit.

1st Financial Bank USA

VP Portfolio Management & Credit Analytics

Lew Ranieri, former Vice Chairman of Solomon Brothers, funded Neuristics as a “brain trust” to support three businesses:  Bank United (a large mortgage bank later sold to Washington Mutual), Merrick Bank (a Utah ILC), and CMS (a servicing operation).  Customers also included First Union (credit card underwriting), American Express (factoring), CyberCash (early digital wallet technology), BankFirst (credit card underwriting), Arrow Financial (mortgage collections and servicing valuation), Standard & Poor’s (asset-backed ratings), and CrediTrust (asset-backed portfolio valuations, deal pricing, and recovery management).

Created product, partnership, and channel strategies for a variety of technology products to help financial institutions and online merchants manage financial and credit risk, target customers, reduce costs, and control outcomes.

-	Designed the Neuristics Life-Cycle Management System, an automated framework for risk measurement integrating loan origination, portfolio acquisition, and servicing with ALM, funding, and resource allocation.
-	Established collaboration between the business and technology teams in the design, development, and deployment of hybrid statistical and neural network models.
-	Initiated the business strategy and led the development efforts for our asset-backed, e-commerce, and collections/recovery offerings.
-	Identified and developed contract business that expanded revenues by 30%.

Neuristics Corp

Director of Emerging Markets

With $37 billion in credit card receivables as of September 1997, First USA was the 3rd largest issuer in the US.

Responsible for profitability management for 146 credit card products.

-	Identified and collaboratively resolved inconsistencies in financial models used by Marketing and Finance.
-	Created statistical P&L models that identified critical flaws in the existing pricing and campaign strategy.
-	Collaborated with Marketing to simulate and stress test NPVs going forward.

First USA / Bank One (acquired by JPMorgan Chase)

Officer, Portfolio Profitability & Analysis

Responsible for the management of Collections-related analytical efforts including strategy formulation, process re-engineering, forecasting, and cost containment.

Bank of New York Mellon

Senior Policy Analyst

Prepared analyses of the quality of official statistics for executive consultations with national governments.  Managed comprehensive statistics relating to the liquidity and creditworthiness of forty countries and national banks.

-	Introduced automation and quality competencies to a complex and labor-intensive operation.
-	Personally selected by Executive Directors (the IMF’s governing body) and department heads to work on urgent projects, which empowered me to build informal inter-departmental teams to solve problems.
-	Performed the statistical analysis for Executive Board papers recommending a redesign of Fund procedures following the Mexican devaluation and payments crisis.  Resulted in the creation of the Data Dissemination Standards Division and the Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (http://dsbb.imf.org).
-	Headed technical assistance missions to countries of the former Soviet Union to develop procedures and train officials on the computation, dissemination, and uses of price indexes.  Successfully persuaded government officials and labor organizations to implement substantial changes.

International Monetary Fund

Research Staff

Conducted research and ad hoc analyses for the Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program.

-	Developed an innovative prediction model for the tax gap including a docket-queuing model for resource optimization.
-	Prepared estimates of the tax gap for Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
-	Critically examined studies of taxpayer compliance behavior and scoring methods and advanced their practicability.

Pete Kledaras