Board Members
Meet the Board Members of Digital Commerce Alliance
He serves as a Director on the board of CSG International (NASDAQ:CSGS) a leading digital engagement and payment services provider to the mobile and cable industries. He was previously Senior Vice President and Global Head of the Information Products business at Visa, where he led a business unit generating several hundred million dollars in annual sales and successfully launched key new industry leading products in the areas of payment fraud detection, digital marketing and merchant loyalty. Mr. Tavares joined Visa from First Data (now a unit of Fiserv), where he was Senior Vice President and Global Head of the Information and Analytics Business Unit. At First Data, Tavares patented and launched First Data’s U.S. macro-economic spending indicator, among several other groundbreaking data analytics products. He began his career at AT&T where he authored one of the earliest business method patents for web-based payments. Silvio has authored over fifteen granted or pending patents in the fields of digital commerce, electronic payments and payments analytics.
Mr. Tavares earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Boston University School of Law (Oxford University Program), an MBA from Boston College and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Tufts University. In addition to English, he speaks Portuguese, Spanish and French fluently.
Prior to joining TransUnion, Paul spent 12 years at Fifth Third Bank as Director of the Credit Card lines of business. Key contributions over the last decade include developing and leading the strategy resulting in ten-fold growth of the business to $2.6B in assets. A major component driving growth of profitability has been the ability to leverage the knowledge and manpower of key strategic partners such as TransUnion, MasterCard, Argus, Zoot, Vantiv and TSYS. Additionally, Paul was responsible for Fifth Third Student Lending from 2012–2014 and the associated partnership with Sallie Mae.
Paul spent 1996-2003 with Visa Sales and departed as the Midwest Regional Manager.
Ms. Ellis joined Discover in 2011, and has had responsibility for developing and implementing a comprehensive product strategy for the Discover Global Network focusing on the areas of mobile/digital payments, security/authentication, data and emerging payment modalities. She also served as a Chief of Staff to the senior executive responsible for Payment Services at Discover, including Discover Network, PULSE and Diners Club International.
Prior to joining Discover, Ms. Ellis held Vice President positions at HSBC North America, including Vice President, Market Intelligence and Vice President, Payment Products, both in the Card & Retail Services Division. Prior to HSBC she held a variety of positions in corporate strategy and finance.
Ms. Ellis holds an MBA in Strategy, Finance and Accounting from the Kellogg School of Management, and a BS in Journalism from Northwestern University.
Prior to Microsoft, Neal was a pioneer in the voice recognition industry. He launched IBM’s voice recognition products, he founded two companies that commercialized voice self-service, and for Microsoft he created the industry’s first voice search service.
Mladen specializes in banking and retail loyalty solutions as well as emerging payment trends. Under his leadership, FIS Loyalty division has been focused on convergence between banking and retail loyalty space to deliver relevant, real time point-of-sale consumer engagement opportunities and coalitions. Those efforts received five industry recognitions in the last two years including PYMNTS.com POS Innovation Award and Pay Before’s Outstanding Loyalty Program.
Mr. Vladic earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business from University of Pristina, Serbia and Master’s degree in Business Economics from University of South Florida.
Jill joined the bank in October 2018 as SVP, Digital Partnerships & BankAmeriDeals. Prior to joining the bank, she served on the CardLinx Association Board of Directors during her tenure as General Manager of Shop Your Way Loyalty’s Card-linked program and prior to that, she spent another 15 years in key business development roles in the promotions space for companies you may recognize like Inmar and Blackhawk Incentives.
Jill earned her Bachelors at the University of Louisville, cum laude. Jill splits her time between Winston-Salem, NC and Louisville, KY.
Colin has been recognised with awards such as Loyalty Magazine’s Personality of the Year 2017 and the Loyalty Lifetime Achievement Mega Award in 2011. He is committed to driving innovation, leading product and strategic development. When making investments in start-ups and scale-ups, Colin offers not only financial support but mentoring and strategic guidance.
Prior to joining Walmart, Mr. DeSoto spent 15 years working at the intersection of digital commerce and content, applying various monetization models in D2C and B2B2C capacities with 1P, co-branded and white-labeled solutions as a Content Provider and eCommerce Platform, globally - establishing partnerships across 27 countries on 6 continents. While living in NYC, he focused on monetizing The Wall Street Journal and other digital assets for Dow Jones, including precursors to today's podcast and video offerings, and helped launch NOOK and its Newsstand subscription platform for Barnes & Noble.
Tim earned his MBA from NYU's Stern School of Business, specializing in Strategy, Finance, and Entertainment, Media & Technology, and a BS from Arizona State University in Finance with a Certificate in International Business.