Executive Officers

Joe Saunders, 75
Chairman and Chief Executive officer

Joe Saunders also serves as Chairman and General Partner at Green Visor Capital and sits on the board of FinTech companies such as Flutterwave, Mercury Financial, and Happy Money, among others. Joe also serves as a special advisor for the private equity firm Reverence Capital Partners, which invests in FinTech among other industries. Prior to Green Visor Capital, Joe was the Chairman and CEO of Visa from 2007 until 2013. During the midst of the global financial crisis, he successfully took Visa public in 2008. Prior to this role, Joe was President and CEO of Providian Financial Corporation from 2001, and Chairman of the board of directors from 2002. Following Providian’s 2005 acquisition by Washington Mutual, Joe served as Washington Mutual’s President of Card Services for a transitional period from 2005 to 2007. From 1997 until 2001, Joe served as Chairman and CEO of Fleet Credit Card Services at FleetBoston Financial Corporation. Prior to joining FleetBoston, Joe spent 12 years at Household International, Inc., where he held various senior roles including CEO of Card Services and head of the private label credit card business. Joe was a member of the Visa U.S.A. board of directors from 2002 to 2007, a member of the Visa International Service Association board of directors from 2005 to 2007, and the Executive Chairman of Visa International’s Transition Governance Committee until the formation of Visa Inc. in 2007. From 1993 to 1997, Joe served as a member of the boards of MasterCard International Inc. and MasterCard U.S.A., and was elected Chairman of MasterCard International’s board in 1996. He also served as a director of NewStar Financial, Inc. from 2006 to 2007. Joe received his BA and MBA from The University of Denver.

Ellen Richey, 72
Executive Vice President

Ellen has over forty years of legal and risk management, and executive leadership experience. She served as Visa Inc.’s vice chairman, risk and public policy, and chief risk officer from 2014 until her retirement in 2019. Before assuming the role of vice chairman at Visa, Ellen concurrently served as chief legal officer and chief enterprise risk officer, and she was a member of Visa’s executive committee throughout her tenure. In those positions, she was responsible for the legal function as well as oversight of Visa’s operational resilience, compliance, audit and risk teams, including payment system risk, settlement risk and enterprise risk. Prior to joining Visa, she worked at Washington Mutual Inc. as senior vice president of enterprise risk management and executive vice president of card services, and served as vice chairman of Providian Financial Corporation, where she had responsibility for the enterprise risk management, legal, corporate governance, corporate relations, compliance and audit functions. Ellen served on the Board of Visa Europe Ltd from 2016 to 2019 and currently serves on the board of the Green Dot Corporation, a financial technology and registered bank holding company focused on making modern banking and money movement accessible for all, as well as Cantaloupe, Inc., a software and payments company that provides end-to-end solutions for the unattended retail market. She received a BA in Linguistics and Far Eastern Languages from Harvard University and a JD from Stanford Law School, and served as a law clerk for Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. of the United States Supreme Court.

Sam Wen, 35
Vice President and Chief Technology officer

Sam is an engineer and entrepreneur, currently serving as a venture partner at Green Visor Capital. Sam was a member of the founding team at Square, Inc. where he helped develop the software algorithm that enables the card reading capabilities of all Square devices on iOS and Android phones and tablets. In addition to his time at Square, Sam has held founder and senior leadership roles at other FinTech startups, including most recently as the Head of Engineering at Grid, and also serves as an angel investor and advisor to a number of early-stage companies. Sam holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis.

Richard Kim, 46
Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Richard was the Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Finance, Capital Markets & Treasury of FiscalNote, a global technology company that provides customers with global policy data and expert insights through software solutions. Prior to FiscalNote, Richard was a senior executive on the finance and capital markets teams at Kabbage, a financial services data and technology company that provides automated lending to small businesses and was recently sold to American Express. Richard was previously an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Natixis, and earlier in his career, invested private equity and mezzanine capital into investment opportunities while at Ripplewood Holdings and AlpInvest Partners. Richard holds a BA in Economics and Asian Studies from Amherst College. He also holds an MBA in Finance, Accounting and Management & Organizations from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Board of Directors

Evan Marwell, 56
Director

Evan is the founder and CEO of EducationSuperHighway. In just eight years, EducationSuperHighway connected nearly 47 million students in 99.7% of America’s classrooms to high-speed broadband. A recipient of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Visionary of the Year award and a serial entrepreneur, Evan launched companies over the last 25 years in the telecom, software, hedge fund, and consumer retailing industries including INFONXX and Criterion Capital Management. Evan is an honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, an advisor to high-potential social entrepreneurs, and the board chair of myAgro, an NGO assisting smallholder farmers in Africa move out of poverty. He is also a member of the board of directors at CORE Business Technologies, Recidiviz, Direct Relief and Millenium.org. Previously, Evan served on the board of directors of Centra Software and PeopleSupport and was the chairman of the board of directors of the Katherine Delmar Burke School.

Kate Cassino, 48
Director

Kate is currently CEO of Flatiron School, an education innovator teaching in-demand tech skills through direct-to-consumer, enterprise, and university partnership channels. Prior to Flatiron School, Kate was the CEO of Hobsons, a global education technology company, where she led its sale to Vista Equity-backed PowerSchool and EAB in two transactions, totaling $410 million. Before Hobsons, Kate was CEO of Dodge Data and Analytics, an operating company owned by S&P Global. Kate led the sale of Dodge Data & Analytics to Symphony Technology Group for $320 million. Kate has worked on the digital strategies and data monetization efforts for numerous information and media businesses, including Platts, JD Power & Associates, BusinessWeek, Aviation Week, and several ABC-affiliate broadcasting stations. She served as an inaugural board member of McGraw Hill’s Women in Networking Success organization. She was recently appointed as a member of the Finance Council for St. Elizabeth’s of Hungary Church. Kate is the recipient of EdTech Digests “2021 National Leader Award” and Folio Magazine’s “2014 Folio 100 Award for Vision.” She is also a former trustee for the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Kate holds a BA in English and Education from Columbia University, Barnard College and completed an Executive Education Program from Columbia Business School.

Chris Wendel, 54
Director

Christopher is the President and Co-Founder at Volta Charging, a technology company working to accelerate the arrival of EV charging with a national network of free charging stations. Prior to Volta, Christopher worked as the Head of Equity Sales, Asia at Lehman Brothers and as Global Head of Equity Sales at Nomura Securities. Prior to Lehman Brothers, Christopher worked for 12 years in executive positions at Goldman Sachs in the United States, Germany, and Japan. Christopher was an early investor in Volta and joined Volta as partner and CFO in 2012.