Management Team
Brian Semkiw
Mr. Semkiw is primarily responsible for the strategic vision of the company, including positioning of technology and solutions, global market strategy and business development.
Mr. Semkiw began his career in 1981, as the CEO and co-founder of Rand Engineering, a civil engineering company. Building on this success, Mr. Semkiw co-founded Rand Worldwide, an engineering systems solution company. As Chairman and CEO, Brian led the company from its formation in 1986 through the initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1993. Mr. Semkiw led the privatization of Rand Worldwide in 2007 and remains a minority shareholder today. Under Mr. Semkiw's leadership, Rand Worldwide grew from a Toronto-based start-up to a global enterprise with annual revenues of $450 million, 1,500 employees, operating in over 100 countries in North America, Europe and Asia. For his efforts Brian was awarded entrepreneur of the year, and won several awards for Profit Magazine's fastest growth companies in Canada in 1996.
In addition, Mr. Semkiw currently serves on the board of Engineering.com, an internet-based services company as well as a member of the Dean's Advisory board at the University of Toronto. Previously, Mr. Semkiw served on the board of Leitch Technologies, an electronic solutions company for the broadband industry. Mr. Semkiw has a BASc from the University of Toronto.
Rui Mendes
Mr. Mendes is the technology architect at Carta. With his vast knowledge of system and platform development across international software development, Rui leads the innovative vision of Carta’s technology development.
Mr. Mendes, born in Mozambique and educated in South Africa, has lived and worked in many countries including South Africa, Portugal, Canada, Germany and Mozambique. During his early career Mr. Mendes directly managed, designed and implemented large public works engineering projects in Europe and Africa. In partnership with Siemens AG, Mr. Mendes designed and deployed specialized GIS (Geographical Information Systems) solutions for large European telecom operators and for various government authorities. Mr. Mendes was previously CEO of NOVAData, a Canadian CRM company with proprietary products used by small to Fortune 500 companies worldwide. Under his leadership the company designed and deployed On-Line presence systems for companies such as Microsoft and Bank One and created specialized ERP solutions, integrated with CADCAM systems, conceived to automate ordering, design and manufacturing processes for modular office furniture companies
Keith Hobbs
Mr Hobbs is Managing Director of Carta Europe, and is responsible for leading the launch and development of Carta's European processing and services business, and directing the company's business development efforts in the region.
Keith has over 30 years of diverse experience in the banking and financial services sector in the UK, USA and mainland Europe. Prior to joining Carta Keith was the head of Business Development for MasterCard Europe where he created and implemented winning strategies to grow the co brand credit and prepaid card business of MasterCard to a leading position in the larger European markets.
Keith led the development of the strategy and negotiated the winning proposition that secured the brand transfer from Switch to Maestro together with the resultant processing business, and was responsible for leading the Go To Market commercial team in the development of the overall business and value proposition for the launch of PayPass contactless technology in Europe. Prior to MasterCard held senior positions in First Data corporation in the UK and USA managing inter alia the client service organisation and product management.
Adil Benlamlih
Mr. Benlamlih leads Carta's technical and development team, and is responsible for guiding the ongoing evolution of Carta's platform and suite of technology solution, as well as development and enhancements and configuration required by customer requirements.
With over 10 years experience in payment systems and technology, Adil brings extensive knowledge and expertise to Carta's ongoing innovation, and technology leadership.
Overseeing Carta's technology center in Morocco, Adil draws on deep knowledge of technology and experience with payments infrastructure and systems to develop Carta's best in class platform and solutions. Previously, Mr. Benlamlih contributed to the creation of the CMI, the main payments acquirer center in Morocco, where he led the development and technical operations department. During this time there he contributed to key imitatives including the creation of a national interoperability network between all banks within the country.
Adil's experience includes certification and integration with the major payment system networks in the world including, MasterCard, Visa, JCB, Diners, American Express, and has played central role in the EMV migration within Morocco, providing him with comprehensive functional knowledge of in the payment system.
Richard Wray
Mr. Wray leads Carta's operations team, aligning technical development with business needs in order to implement programs for market deployment.
Richard has over 24 years experience in the design, implementation, management and operation of scheme branded and private label payment systems. His initial exposure to payment systems was in the design and development of credit and debit card solutions for international blue chip issuers and acquirers. This provided him with a solid practical understanding of the issues and processes that underpin successful payments products and operations. Mr. Wray spent 2 years as PayPass Product Leader in the MasterCard Chip centre of Excellence in Waterloo, Belgium where he developed and led the implementation of many aspects of the PayPass product processes and rollout procedures.
Immediately prior to joining Carta, Mr. Wray was Operations Director for a leading UK prepaid processor and program manager, where his experience leading the implementation, customer services, supplier management and operational teams gave him invaluable insight into the prepaid product model and the criteria that lead to successful prepaid program. During this time Mr. Wray was responsible for the development and rollout of the UKs first ever consumer PayPass products and a several international award winning prepaid program including multi-application EMV products bringing state of the art payments, ticketing and entry functionality together on a single NFC payment card for the first time.
Frank Svatousek
Mr. Svatousek oversees Carta's Compliance and Risk operations, ensuring regional regulatory requirements are met and directs the ongoing development of standards and procedures necessary to navigate a complex and changing global payments industry.
Frank is a Senior Executive with over 14 years experience in Product Management and Operations in the telecommunication and payment sectors. Mr. Svatousek was a co-Founder of the Canadian prepaid MasterCard card program management and processing companym Mint Technology Inc. As a Director of Business Development, he prepared product strategy offering and channel relationships, including strategic financial issuer relationships for the Canadian market. Prior to Mint, Mr. Svatousek worked at Bell Canada as Senior Product Manager for Bell Sympatico’s main portal – www.sympatico.ca, where he developed and launched several content products. Prior to Bell, Mr. Svatousek was the General Manager of Multivision, a Sri Lankan/Australian joint-venture company with the first state license for a cable television network in Sri Lanka. Mr. Svatousek built the company from inception to 20,000 customers in two years. From 1994 to 1997, Mr. Svatousek held various Business Development positions in the Direct-to-Home Satellite industry at Tee-Comm Electronics and StarChoice. Mr. Svatousek has lived and worked in Canada and Sri Lanka. Mr. Svatousek earned his MBA at the University of Windsor.
Board of Directors
Gary Heatherington - Chairman of the Board
Gary Heatherington is an experienced leader in payment systems, financial services, and the technology which enables them.He is currently lead Director in several payments companies, and is Industry Advisor to a number of funds investing in payments and related technology. He was President and Chief Executive Officer of Bank One Canada (the worlds largest Visa card issuer); Chief Executive Officer of Cyota (payment security and processing); a Member of the Executive Committee of National Trust Company; Regional President and Corporate Executive Vice President of MasterCard International; and Senior Manager of Bank Of Montreal. As Executive Chairman of RewardsNOW Inc., he led the company to double it's sales every year for five years, and the company was on the list of the fastest growing companies in the US for three consecutive years. As Chairman of Moda Solutions, Paradata Systems, First Data Loan Company Canada, and Board Director of Saylent Technologies, Cardinal Commerce, Cyota Inc., Visa Canada, and MasterCard Canada, Gary has achieved significant growth in revenue, profit, and shareholder value across a wide range of payment related companies.
John Chisholm
Mr. Chisholm has over 25 years of financial services experience, having worked for some of Canada's largest banks and brokerage houses, including Merrill Lynch, CIBC-Wood Gundy and Midland-Walwyn. His strong knowledge of company start-ups offers him robust management skills in project management, strategic planning, resource allocation, and the coordination of people and capital assets. Mr. Chisholm has helped finance dozens of companies at all stages of the corporate life cycle. Mr. Chisholm was a member of the Chairman's Club for the majority of his career and holds a double major in economics and financial management from the University of Guelph.
John Kehl
Mr. Kehl is a Chartered Accountant (Ontario) and is currently Chief Financial Officer of Elgner Group Investments Ltd, a private investment firm. He is an officer and director of many companies that Elgner Group and its affiliates have invested in, including financial, real estate, manufacturing and recreational companies. Prior to Elgner Group, John was CFO of ABC Group Inc for twenty years. ABC Group is a large multinational auto parts manufacturer. He was involved with many start-up plants including being a director of several foreign wholly owned and joint venture operations. John has a B. Math degree from the University of Waterloo.
Michael Kenyon
Mr. Kenyon is a British and Swiss national with extensive experience in industrial and commercial law, having worked for two major London law firms, Lovells and Clifford Chance, and two multinational industrial groups, WR Grace and Tetra Pak. Mr. Kenyon is now self-employed, consulting for a variety of industrial, technology-based and other clients. In his practice Michael deals with a variety of issues, including technology transfer, contracts, intellectual property, corporate governance and other commercial and legal issues. Michael is on the boards of a number of Swiss-based companies.
Rui Mendes
Mr. Mendes is the CTO for Carta Worldwide in addition to a member of the board. Please see Mr. Mendes profile above for more detail.