Press releases

Paysafe Group Appoints Walt Macnee As Non-Executive Director

Jan 14, 2019

London, UK: Paysafe Group (Paysafe), a leading global payments provider, today announces the appointment of Walt Macnee as an independent, non-executive director. The appointment takes immediate effect.

Macnee, a results-focussed payments executive with a history of building strategic relationships, has wide-ranging experience in the global financial services and payments industries.  He currently serves as vice chairman of Mastercard where he has spearheaded multiple growth initiatives around the world. 

Commenting on the appointment, Paysafe’s president and chief executive officer, Joel Leonoff, said: “Walt brings vast payments leadership experience to the role combined with a proven entrepreneurial track record of developing new business in underserved parts of the world.  We all look forward to working with him.”

Stuart C. Harvey, Jr, chairman of the Paysafe board of directors, added: “Walt’s appointment completes a significant reorientation and strengthening of the Paysafe board in the last year.  He is a highly regarded leader in the global payments industry and his background complements the wealth of experience we have on the team.  He’ll be a great asset.”

Walt Macnee added: “I have watched Paysafe notch up multiple successes over these past years, reinforcing its position and standing in the digital payments industry, and Joel and the board of directors quite rightly continue to have very bold ambitions for the business.  I’m excited to be joining the team at this time and using my insights and experience to help steer that accelerated growth strategy.”

Paysafe, previously a FTSE 250 company, was acquired by private equity funds managed by Blackstone and CVC Capital Partners in December 2017.  Its board of directors consists of eight members: seven non-executive directors and one executive director. Full details of Paysafe’s board of directors can be found here.

~ENDS~

Notes to editors:

About Walt Macnee

Walt Macnee is vice chairman, Mastercard Worldwide. Much of his work in this role has focussed on financial inclusion for the billions of people around the world without access to basic financial services. Macnee founded the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and is a director of the Mastercard Impact Fund.

Previously, Macnee was president of Mastercard’s International Markets with responsibility for building all aspects of Mastercard’s issuance and acceptance businesses in over 200 countries. Before that, he was president of the Americas Region and served as president of Mastercard Canada from 2001 to 2004. 

Macnee has also served as executive vice president of Cards and Collections at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.  In that position, he was responsible for overall management of the bank’s credit card business and national collections.

Before that he spent 18 years with Toronto Dominion Bank, as a corporate and investment banker in New York and Houston, and as a retail banker based in Toronto. In his last position as senior vice president, he ran the VISA business and personal lending.

He earned his undergraduate degrees at Queen’s University and has a Master's in Business Administration (MBA) from York University.  He currently serves as the chair of Convergence Finance; chair of the Queen’s University Centre for Social Impact; chair of Antibe Therapeutics; and chair of the digital platform “Yroo.”

 About Paysafe Group

Paysafe Group (Paysafe) is a leading global provider of end-to-end payment solutions. Its core purpose is to enable businesses and consumers to connect and transact seamlessly through industry-leading capabilities in payment processing, digital wallet, card issuing and online cash solutions. 

With over 20 years of online payment experience, an annualized transactional volume of over US $80 billion, and approximately 3,000 employees located in 12+ global locations, Paysafe connects businesses and consumers across 200 payment types in over 40 currencies around the world.

Delivered through an integrated platform, Paysafe solutions are geared toward mobile-initiated transactions, real-time analytics and the convergence between brick-and-mortar and online payments. Visit us at www.paysafe.com

For more information, please contact:

Paysafe Group
Kate Aldridge, SVP, Corporate Communications
T:  +44(0) 203 934 9197 / +44(0)750 079 7547
Email: Kate.Aldridge@Paysafe.com