Awards Committee - USA

Industry veteran. Payments trailblazer. Visionary strategist. Driven innovator who holds several patents. Passionate about the future of payments and a globally connected ecosystem. Jennifer has more than 25 years of experience in payments and financial services technology, driving digital adoption and growth. An innovator and a payments visionary who previously led the payments strategy at a large US bank, she applies that mindset to help organizations achieve resiliency and set a course forward.

Jennifer Acosta is a Managing Director and the Industry Head for the Technology, Media and Telecom sector of Large Corporate Treasury Services. Jennifer manages the sales strategy and execution of a team that serves the large, global and complex needs of these corporates as well as personally manages some of the largest clients in this space.  Jennifer and her team leverage their expertise and thought leadership to drive end-to-end payments and liquidity solutions that support corporate clients’ needs throughout the world.  She is also Co-Chair for Women-on-the-Move across the JP Morgan Payments franchise and remains passionate about advancing career mobility and diversity across the business. She has been with the firm for 14 years. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Jennifer spent 15 years at GE Commercial Finance in progressive roles in sales leadership and relationship management tied to several strategic clients of the company.

Nell Campbell-Drake is a vice president in the Retail Payments Office (RPO) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. She has responsibility for the RPO’s strategic business relations, both domestic and international, vendor relations, payments innovation, product marketing and external/customer communications. She serves as the RPO’s primary liaison for external business relations and outreach, working collaboratively with other Federal Reserve product offices and industry partners. She represents the RPO and Federal Reserve Banks on a number of payments industry groups. Before joining the Bank, she worked at Merrill Lynch Brokerage Firm in a number of capacities. Nell is an avid bowler and welcomes the opportunity for a challenge!

Laura Clary is a Senior Director, Product Management in the Enterprise Payments Solutions division at Fiserv. She is the North America Payments, Product Line Manager with more than 25 years of experience in financial services.

Prior to joining Fiserv, she was a Director in the Retail Payments Office of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, responsible for various ACH-related initiatives over her 10-year tenure.

Laura earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Boston College. Passionate about payments and payments evolution, she is an Accredited ACH Professional and has served on several industry work groups and councils. She currently serves on the Business Payments Advisory Committee of the Nacha Payments Innovation Alliance.

Laura and her team are responsible for payments processing software product management and processing services. In this capacity, she is responsible for the current solution set as well as exploring and implementing the business strategies for new products and solutions to meet evolving electronic payments processing needs, with the goal of delivering meaningful solutions to better position FIs in the competitive financial services industry.

Laura is #FISVProud to drive the payments processing evolution for the company that will become the best fintech on the planet.

Amy Dawson is Visa’s Head of North America Innovation. Visa’s Innovation Centers work collaboratively with partners to explore, pilot and commercialize cutting edge commerce solutions and experiences. She has over 20 years of experience in business strategy, product management, marketing, analytics and innovation. Prior to Visa she was SVP, Enterprise Innovation, Digital Strategy & Operations for U.S. Bank where she was responsible for building an innovative culture and a pipeline of digital innovations. Previously, she has worked at Charles Schwab, Solidus Networks (biometric start-up), Diamond Management & Technology Partners (acquired by PWC) and Ford Motor Company. Amy is part of Pipeline Angels, an organization that provides angel investment to women entrepreneurs. She has a MBA from the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business, and a BSBA in Finance and Marketing from The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business. She has also completed executive education series in innovation and design thinking at U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business, California College of the Arts and Stanford University.

Lauren Giles is senior vice president and associate general counsel at U.S. Bank and chief counsel of the bank’s payment processing and merchant acquiring subsidiary Elavon. She has overall responsibility for the bank’s Retail Payment Solutions business, as well as the global Elavon legal team.

Giles joined Elavon in January 2020 from Alston & Bird, where she was a partner on the Payment Systems team and co-leader of the Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology team. While at Alston & Bird, she specialized in payment card issuing and acquiring, merchant processing and new payment product development. In particular, she focused on the development of person-to-person and faster payment systems.

Giles has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Creative Writing from Emory University and a Juris Doctorate from New York University Law School. She is a member of the National Leadership Board of the Michael C. Carlos Museum

Carol L. Grunberg is a Managing Director and Head of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation for Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS). She leads the Citi Innovation Labs and Innovation Catalysts globally, delivering key projects and identifying significant trends and emerging technologies to build new business models and improve capabilities and solutions. Carol is also tasked with identifying and developing opportunities to collaborate with startups and fintechs.

Before joining Citi, Carol led the creation of new products, growth and strategic partnerships at some of the world’s most recognized companies, including Northwestern Mutual, Ant Financial (part of Alibaba Group), Google, IBM and Discover. Carol’s roles have spanned technology and financial services in the US, China, Southeast Asia and India. She has driven the development of some of the most sophisticated and innovative consumer experiences in the market today.

Carol has also galvanized the industry helping to create an inclusive workforce, including being the 2019 President of WNET (Women’s Network in Electronic Transactions), which has earned a reputation as the premier professional organization for women in payments. She was a founding Advisor for the US and Singapore in developing Money2020’s RiseUp program and is immersed in Women in Payments initiatives more broadly.

She is a highly sought-after speaker who delivers keynotes and regularly participates in panels and fireside chats within the technology and financial services industries. Carol is a native French speaker, who keeps busy road tripping with her children of the Alpha generation.

Bunita Sawhney is Executive Vice President, National U.S. Financial Institution relationship teams. In this role, Ms. Sawhney is responsible for continuing to grow the consumer and commercial business through strong partnerships, innovation and thought leadership with these key customers.

Bunita joined Mastercard in 2016 and has held positions in Global Debit & ATM products, where most recently she was responsible for the leading the business with a focus on global product line strategy, portfolio optimization, product development and the roadmap for the Debit Mastercard, Maestro and ATM offering. Under Bunita's leadership, the team has helped realize Mastercard's version of a world beyond cash by creating and enabling relevant experiences – in which people choose how, when, and where they want to pay – simply, securely, reliably, and confidently.

Prior to joining Mastercard, Ms. Sawhney spent nearly 12 years at HSBC Bank, USA where she was the Head of Customer Value Management, a broad function which included the strategy and execution across Consumer Propositions, Products, Marketing, CRM and Analytics. While at HSBC, she held various leadership positions including heading the Cards & Unsecured Lending business, ATM Channel, and Consumer Segment Strategy and various Product, Pricing and Marketing responsibilities. She has also held various management roles at leading financial institutions throughout the United States including Wells Fargo Bank, JP Morgan Chase, and Citibank.

In addition to her corporate responsibilities, Ms. Sawhney has been a Lecturer at Columbia University teaching the Winning Teams (Organizational Behavior) course in the Master of Science in Communications Practice program.

Ms. Sawhney has a Master's Degree in Strategic Communications from Columbia University and a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley

Elizabeth Thiessen is a managing director and industry lead for Consumer & Retail Global Treasury Sales team. In this role, she manages the sales team responsible for maintaining and growing the bank’s large corporate Consumer & Retail clients’ liquidity and working capital relationships.

Before assuming her current role, Thiessen led the Solution Packaging and Communication team for North America Global Transaction Services. In this role, she led the development of global sales tools, platforms, proposals and communications.

Thiessen joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch in 1995. During her tenure, she has held various sales, sales performance and marketing roles within Global Banking and Markets. She resides in Charlotte. A New Hampshire native, Elizabeth earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Clemson University in 1991.d.

Tammy Wilson is the Director of Product Innovation at The Clearing House where she works with financial institutions and partners to develop and progress innovation concepts and industry initiatives. Prior to joining The Clearing House, she held product leadership positions with financial technology firms, Jack Henry and Computer Services (CSI), providing direction for all types of payments and deposit platforms. She spent the first several years of her career in operations for a community bank holding company.

Tammy has been active in several industry groups such as the Faster Payments Council and NACHA’s Payments Innovation Alliance and Communication and Marketing Advisory Group. She has a degree in Information Systems and an MBA from Murray State University.