Thad Peterson, Senior Analyst, Aite Group


Thad's Bio:

Thad Peterson is a senior analyst with Aite Group, focusing on the evolution of the payment space, the customer payment experience, and the merchant side of payments. Recognized as a global thought leader in payments, Thad has a proven track record of identifying and developing new opportunities and technologies in payments and financial services. He has relevant expertise in applying customer behavior to the payments ecosystem in both corporate and startup environments. Thad’s consulting background includes engagements on credit and debit cards, mobile payments, airline payment platforms, consumer and merchant loyalty, payment technology evolution, stored value, and product innovation. He holds patents in customer authentication and real-time mobile-enabled loyalty.
Prior to joining Aite Group, Thad led the mobile commerce practice at inCode Consulting and was managing director of Maritz Real-Time Rewards, leading the company’s mission to build a new industry standard at the nexus of transactional marketing and consumer engagement. While at Maritz, he also served as a division vice president, sector strategy, heading up strategy and solutions development for Maritz’s financial sector.
Before joining Maritz, Thad was a partner with global financial services and payments firm Edgar, Dunn & Company, where he led the retail banking, loyalty, and emerging technology practice areas, working with retail banks, card issuers and processors, airline consortiums, new payment technology providers, payment associations, and prepaid card issuers.
Thad has also worked as a C-level executive at retail banks and held positions in advertising and customer communications. Thad served as an officer in the U.S. Navy for four years and holds a degree in Special Education from the University of Idaho.

Chris Pollitt, Product Director at Clover/First Data


Chris's Bio:

Mr. Chris Pollitt is currently serving as a Product Director for the Clover family of POS devices at First Data.  In this capacity he works closely with both the Clover product development team based in California and Bank of America Merchant Services to deploy the devices. His focus, along with the teamwork of Clover, BAMS, and First Data colleagues, is providing an amazing merchant experience showcasing how Clover and its app marketplace can empower SMB merchants with business management tools and insightful data to help them grow their business.

Before joining First Data, Mr. Pollitt performed business development and product management roles at Acculynk, a SaaS payments company noted for enabling patented PIN based authentication in CNP environments, and Ingenico where he was responsible for unattended payment terminals and subsequently launched a family of mobile wireless payment terminals that set new performance standards in the industry.

Prior to the payments industry, Mr. Pollitt held numerous product marketing positions with some the world’s most prestigious and innovative consumer electronics and IT companies such as Philips, Sony, Toshiba and Compaq.  He is co-named on a patent for an innovative wireless slate that was launched while working at PolyVision (Division of Steelcase) that complemented the company’s highly differentiated interactive whiteboards for progressive K-12 classroom instruction.

Mr. Pollitt earned BA in Business Administration from California State University in Fullerton, where he concentrated in Marketing Management.

Here are the links to the bios from the speakers of our May 14, 2015 event in Atlanta, GA :

"The POS Revolution".

Panel Moderator - Thad Peterson - Aite Group- Bio

Panelist - Chris Pollitt - First Data- Bio

Panelist - Thomas Cornelius - InComm - Bio

Panelist - Spencer White- Sionic Mobile - Bio

Thank you to our sponsor !

 

Thomas Cornelius, Senior VP at InComm and CEO at Adility


Thomas's Bio:

Mr. Thomas Cornelius serves as Senior Vice President of InComm Holdings, Inc. Mr. Cornelius founded Adility LLC in 2009 and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Cornelius has focused on the convergence of online and offline sales since 1997, when he started an ecommerce platform for retail merchants, developed the first largely available mobile ecommerce application and pioneered contextual online commerce. Mr. Cornelius served with Fortune 100 companies on new initiatives for digital promotions. He also served on local merchant and retail campaigns for companies such as Google, Ingram and major retailers and brands. Mr. Cornelius is a frequent speaker at retail and Internet industry events, and his views have been published by several respected publications in the US.

Spencer White, COO and EVP of Business Development at Sionic Mobile


Spencer's Bio:

For nearly 25 years, Spencer White has led a range of companies in building new businesses, markets, products and relationships.  Most, but not all, within emerging, technology related fields.  Over the past decade in particular, Spencer has established a reputation as a pioneer and innovator in the fields of mobile applications, emerging payment services and digital commerce, having: • Co-founded Softcard - the AT&T, Verizon & T-Mobile mobile wallet joint venture (acquired by Google in 2015)
• Headed AT&T’s mobile financial services strategy & product efforts
• Launched the nation’s first multi-bank mobile banking application
• Executed ground-breaking Near-Field Communications (NFC) consumer payment trials
• Nurtured the mobile payments ecosystem through leadership in cross-industry working groups, Federal /State regulator outreach, advising and public speaking

In April of this year, Spencer joined Sionic Mobile Corporation, an Atlanta-based mobile loyalty and payments platform provider, to become its new Chief Operating Officer.  Sionic Mobile connects merchants with nearby, mobile-savvy consumers in a closed loop service.  Merchant use the ION Loyalty platform to engage, entice and reward consumers – increasing visits, sales and margins, while lowering their cost of payments acceptance.  Consumers use Sionic Mobile’s ION Rewards app to earn ION points on every purchase and spend those IONs like cash when paying at over 150,000 merchant locations.

Spencer holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Florida State University and an M.B.A from the University of Tennessee.