Our Team

Management Team Team

Scott Shaw

Chief Executive Officer

Sanji Gunawardena

President

Jason Dyro

Chief Operating Officer

Dale Hoops

Chief Risk Officer

A highly sought-after resource for insights, innovation, and creative deal structures, Scott has over three decades of experience in executive roles at The Kessler Group, now Onboard Partners. In 1990, Scott was instrumental in helping Howard Kessler purchase its predecessor company. Scott has held a variety of executive leaderships roles at the company helping to grow and expand its offerings and establishing a number of strategic relationships with financial institutions, payment networks, and other large entities that have withstood the test of time.

In 2018 as President of the company, Scott orchestrated and executed the sale of the former Kessler Group to ECN Capital. In conjunction with the sale, Scott took on the role of CEO, driving the company’s strategy and long-term vision. As part of that vision, Scott orchestrated the recent sale of the company from ECN to key executives and Stone Point Capital, a leading equity firm in the financial services space.

An engaging and collaborative leader, Scott works closely with his management team to deliver lasting results for OP’s clients across the full range of company solutions including our at-risk marketing funding, marketing solutions and execution, strategic partnership development, M&A, and asset management programs. Scott thrives on helping clients solves complex problems and challenges, in the interest of developing long term relationships.

In driving the evolution of the company, Scott has assembled a top-flight team of banking and payments executives who have collectively developed and managed end to end payment and banking businesses at leading institutions. Areas of expertise across the team include starting up new businesses, marketing and sales, balance sheet and capital management, credit risk management and loss prevention, and oversight of large, mature payments and banking businesses.

Scott holds a BS in biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire. Scott currently sits on three boards including Aliaswire, EData Networks and Ozumo Concepts International.

Scott is very active in the community, mentoring youth and supporting many charitable initiatives including The Ryan Shaw Foundation, Mustard Seed Communities, The Haven Project, St. Joseph’s School, The Ryan Shaw ’15

Entrepreneurial Program and the Shaw Family Center for Innovation and Design at St. John’s Prep.

Sanji is a seasoned finance leader with an impressive career spanning over 30 years. He brings a wealth of expertise in deal sourcing, driving revenue growth, cultivating client relationships, crafting strategic visions, and structuring complex deals.

In 2018, Sanji embarked on a mission to establish Fidem, an innovative asset management venture. Fidem is dedicated to helping leading financial institutions mitigate risk in their portfolios and optimize capital allocation. Under his visionary leadership, the company has successfully acquired a portfolio exceeding $10.4 billion in credit card and other unsecured consumer loan assets, collaborating with a diverse spectrum of investment and lending partners. 

Prior to Fidem, Sanji spent 6 years as Senior Executive Vice President of Mergers & Acquisitions at Onboard Partners and served as Principal of a firm offering strategic guidance to global consumer finance businesses, focusing on realignment, acquisitions, and divestitures. In addition to these roles, Sanji was head of Card Services Global M&A at Bank of America as a Senior Vice President and as a Senior Business Analyst at DuPont.

Sanji holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from the University of Georgia, complimented by an MBA with a specialization in Finance from the prestigious University of Toronto – Rotman School of Management.

His dedication, strategic acumen, and relentless pursuit of excellence continue to drive Fidem's success in delivering unparalleled value to its clients and partners.

Jason is a seasoned payments and banking executive with more than 23 years of experience, demonstrating expertise in commercial and operational domains. He excels in strategic organizational leadership, innovation, and P&L optimization across various continents, market segments, and regulatory environments.

Before joining Fidem, Jason served as CEO of the US expansion of Home Credit Group, managing €35 billion in outstanding receivables across three continents. Under his leadership, he developed a custom BaaS lending platform integrated into Sprint POS systems, facilitating over $7 billion in loan originations and a $350 million CLV improvement. He also oversaw the creation of a digital white-label DTC lending ecosystem, which grew to over $100 million in assets within 18 months.

As Chief Payments Officer at Dynamics, Jason led the development of a cobrand card and loyalty system with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Tim Hortons, shipping over 100,000 cards in the first month.

Previously, at UMB Bank, he served as Vice President and Director of the Consumer Bankcard division, achieving a 3x growth in portfolio assets through organic channel optimization, market segmentation, and strategic M&A.

Jason holds a Bachelor of Science in biology and business, as well as an MBA in Finance.

Dale brings over 28 years of financial services industry experience, with a focus on enterprise risk management, stress testing, fraud prevention, and collections strategies. Her expertise lies in portfolio risk management, loss forecasts, credit underwriting, risk detection, and fraud prevention.

She has held senior executive positions at Predictive Analytics Group, Bank of America, Citi, and MBNA America as well as executive and strategy analyst roles in risk control, fraud, and collections at Citi Cards NA and MBNA America.

At Bank of America, she oversaw fraud and credit risk management for a $400 billion consumer portfolio and managed loss forecasts, stress testing, and loan loss reserve forecasts for a $150 billion credit card portfolio. Dale holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Richmond.

Gerard Wijeyeratne

EVP, Finance

Jeff Given

Head of Business Development

Shanu Yadav

Head of Corporate Development

Gerard is a seasoned finance executive with over 28 years of experience in finance, M&A, strategy, business development, and operations.

At Fidem, he manages the finance platform, overseeing financial reporting, analysis, cash management, and operations, and plays a pivotal role in post-deal financial operations for debt and equity holders and special purpose investment vehicles.

Before joining Fidem, Gerard worked at AHPP, focusing on consumer lending loan portfolio M&A and valuation modeling on credit card portfolios in excess of $5 billion. Previously, he served as Director FP&A at FMC Inc, also acting as CFO of the Health and Nutrition segment and driving strategic acquisitions. Gerard has also held senior financial roles at Ericsson Inc and led numerous consulting engagements for the office of the CFO with KPMG.

Gerard is a Chartered Accountant from New Zealand and holds a BSc in Applied Economics and Business Management from Cornell University, as well as an MBA from Drexel University.

Jeff is a senior business development and finance leader with more than 24 years of credit card industry experience, concentrated in mergers and acquisitions, programs and deal structuring, financial analysis, and business optimization.

Having previously served as VP of Finance for Onboard Partners, Jeff returns to Onboard as SVP of Finance. Prior to rejoining Onboard, Jeff led the Pricing team and built the Mergers and Acquisitions capability at Bread Financial; as a result, he was responsible for all deal-related economics for all new and renewal programs as well as any acquired portfolios while at Bread.

Prior to that, Jeff worked for five years as a Senior Director of Corporate Finance for Barclaycard, with lead responsibility for $4 billion of credit card transactions in both the US and Europe. Jeff has also served as a Senior Consultant for First Annapolis Accenture and as a Business Product Lead and Head of Business Development for Co-Brands and Affinities for Capital One.

Jeff earned an AB in Economics from Duke University and an MBA in Finance and Strategic Management from the Wharton Graduate School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Shanu leads Corporate Development with a focus on Fintech at Fidem. With extensive experience in Corporate Development, Strategy, Investments, and Partnerships, Shanu has worked across a range of financial services companies and venture-backed startups, managing deals ranging from $20 million to over $1 billion.

Effectively managing the entire deal process, from sourcing new business opportunities to negotiation and execution, Shanu is a trusted partner for senior leaders.

Having lived and worked in the US, Europe, India, and China, Shanu possesses a deep understanding of global ecosystems, working closely with investors, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. She values cultural diversity and brings a global perspective to her work.

Shanu holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Stanford University, a Master’s degree in Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a BA (Honors) from the University of Delhi.

Operations

Graham Stiles

SVP, Products

Jessica Freund

SVP, Portfolio Management

Rachel Olson

Business Administrator

Stephanie Brown

Sr. Manager, Operations

Graham leads Fidem activities related to Product Strategy, Value Proposition Design, and Marketing.

Prior to Fidem, Graham helped build and launch the new Merchant Processing Platform for Bank of America created as a result of the dissolution of the Joint Venture with FISERV.  In this role he helped design go-to-market strategies for Merchant Services product offerings and built the Strategic Data Platform for the newly launched business.  Before Bank of America, Graham held successively senior leadership roles at TD Bank and American Express in both Issuing and Acquiring businesses with ownership of Customer Acquisition, Pricing, Product Strategy, Competitive Intelligence, Marketing Effectiveness, Investment Optimization, and Reporting & Analytics.

Graham holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Jessica joins Fidem with over a decade of experience in the payments and fintech space. Bringing with her a wealth of knowledge regarding payment and processing systems, product innovation, loyalty solutions, CRM, and portfolio optimization.

Prior to Fidem, Jessica held roles at large institutional firms such as Morgan Stanley and HSBC, as well as dynamic, innovative start-ups such as Serverside, the original provider of design on demand card technology. Most recently, Jessica oversaw the development of a proprietary mobile banking product for Zytara, successfully bringing the product to market in under a year. Prior to that, Jessica was responsible for product and portfolio management for the US division of Home Credit Group, a global banking and lending organization. During her tenure at Home Credit, she was accountable for the launch and growth of their US product suite, inclusive of consumer credit card and installment offerings. Through carefully targeted acquisition and lifecycle campaigns, the portfolio grew from start up to $100 million in assets within 18 months.

Jessica holds a BBA in International Business from Florida International University and MSC in Corporate Social Responsibility from the University of Nottingham.

Prior to working for Fidem, Rachel worked as the Executive Assistant to the President and CEO of Philadelphia Sign Company (PSCO). PSCO is a full-service sign manufacturer specializing in branding and conversion programs for well-known clients such as Chase Bank, First National Bank, Truist, Huntington Bank among other National Brands. While there, she managed the front office as well as major company accounts like American Express, TMobile and Enterprise for all employees. Rachel is skilled within the corporate business environment specializing in organization, expense management, travel, account management and day-to-day operations.

Rachel earned her Associate of Science degree in Social Science from Thomas Nelson Community College and earned her Bachelor of Science Degree from Rutgers University where she majored in Business Management.

Stephanie joined Fidem in August 2021 and is responsible for critical operational initiatives related to portfolio acquisitions and new product launches.

Prior to Fidem, Stephanie was a VP Strategy Execution Lead at Bank of America, formerly MBNA. During her 26-year tenure, she also held management roles in Deposits, Product Development, and Portfolio Acquisitions & Divestitures. Stephanie had a multitude of responsibilities during her time at Bank of America and spent more than 20 successful years in Acquisitions & Divestitures, where her responsibilities included line of business operations liaison, control, self-audits, legal notifications, customer communication, and education & training, just to name a few of her onboarding responsibilities. Her project management experience is vast and consistently results in successful transitions and seamless client experiences.

Tricia Whitman

AVP of Administration

James McKay

Vice President, Business Systems

Carina Criger

VP, Operational Risk & Compliance

Since 2019, Tricia has served as the Office and Business Manager for Fidem. In that capacity, Tricia is responsible for employing her excellent organizational skills to ensure that the dynamic and active work environment at Fidem runs smoothly. Tricia also actively supports the Management team in fulfilling their day-to-day responsibilities. Additionally, she manages significant and distinct areas of the Business Development and Accounting teams, such as expenses, transaction timelines and scheduling, and industry research, along with other vital efforts.

Tricia has worked in the credit card industry for over six years. Prior to joining Fidem, Tricia worked with American Express in marketing and business development as a Business Consultant and built a strong portfolio as part of her responsibilities. Tricia was a leader among her peers in acquiring customers through direct consultative sales with business owners, and also drove significant incremental charge volume on the Amex Open Business accounts in her client portfolios. Before moving to the card industry, Tricia worked successfully for three years with Berkshire Hathaway as a licensed real estate agent in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Tricia holds a Bachelor of Science from Saint Bonaventure University.

James brings over a decade of experience in the financial services and consumer credit space.  While leading teams at large card issuers such as Citibank, Genesis Financial Solutions, and Home Credit US, his responsibilities and expertise have traversed collections, recovery, portfolio conversions, and the oversight of complex processing systems.

Over the past six years specifically, James has maintained ownership of Business Systems, providing strategic guidance on product and platform setup to support enterprise initiatives. Whether building a card program from the ground up, enhancing an existing program’s loyalty program, or layering on additional fraud protection measures, James has mastered the art of providing flexible solutions that reduce speed to market while maintaining regulatory compliance. Additionally, James has established and chaired organizational change management committees – a role he has been well placed in due to his innate knowledge across the entire payment card business.

Carina is a financial services professional, with 15+ years’ experience in audit, risk, and compliance. She is responsible for operational risk assessments, testing, and monitoring.

Prior to joining Fidem, Carina held roles at FNBO, UMB Financial Services, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and KPMG, LLC. Her past experiences include overseeing the development of a first line of defense framework for an embedded credit-card-as-a-service program, launched in less than a year. Leading operational /compliance reviews, control identification and risk assessments, and developing and executing a strategic plan for a third-party risk management program with focus on information security and privacy for over 1000 third party relationships. Carina’s understanding of audit, risk, compliance contributes to identifying operational process efficiencies and enhancing risk management and compliance activities.

Carina holds a BBA in Accounting and Finance from Pittsburg State University and holds ISACA certifications as a “Certified Risk and Information Systems Controls (CRISC)” and a “Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer (CDPSE).”

Finance And Accounting

Joe Schickling

Sr. Accounting Manager

Stephen Scherff

Sr. Accounting Analyst

Yun Chen

Sr. Accounting Analyst

Elizabeth Wolansky

Accounting Manager

Joseph is a Senior Accounting Manager who oversees the day-to-day financial reporting, analysis, and cash management/reconciliation at Fidem Financial.  Additionally, Joseph manages and coordinates lender compliance and covenants as well as external audit, tax, and review engagements. Joseph plays a crucial role when onboarding new business to the existing managing platform and analyzes operational impacts of prospective new deals.

Prior to Fidem, Joseph worked in public accounting for PwC as an Auditor in the Philadelphia Asset Management practice, where he was a valued and heavily relied on member for several audit engagements.  In this role Joseph, performed analytical analysis, reviewed transactions, key controls and supporting documentation as well as coached less experienced staff.

Joseph is a Certified Public Accountant and earned his Bachelor of Science at La Salle University where he majored in Accounting and minored in Risk Management.  Additionally, Joseph is enrolled in a part-time MBA program at La Salle University and is on track to graduate in 2023.

Stephen is a Senior Accounting Analyst with nearly 5 years of accounting experience in various roles.

Stephen oversees day-to-day accounting operations, including; but not limited to: daily reporting, monthly reporting, cash management and reconciliation. Prior to Fidem, Stephen worked in both auditing and operational accounting roles within the financial services industry.

Stephen earned his Bachelor of Science at La Salle University in Philadelphia where he majored in Accounting and minored in Economics.

Yun is a Senior Accountant with Fidem Financials.  Yun is skilled in Account Reconciliation, Joint Venture Accounting, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and Financial Statements.  After graduated from Rutgers University with Accounting and Business Administrative major in 2014, Yun has demonstrated accounting experience in Investment Tax in Public Accounting for two years, and continued to develop her skills in corporate accounting in healthcare industry for five years.  Yun also serves as the lead for annual audit, prepares and analyzes monthly and quarterly financial statements, and participates in planning meetings for upcoming ventures.

Elizabeth is an Accounting Manager who oversees the day-to-day financial reporting, analysis, and cash management/reconciliation at Fidem Financial.  Additionally, Elizabeth manages and coordinates lender compliance and covenants as well as external audit, tax, and review engagements.  

Prior to Fidem, Elizabeth worked in private industry, TIFF Investment Management, and public accounting, EisnerAmper LLP.   Elizabeth is a Certified Public Accountant and earned her Bachelor of Science at St. Joseph’s University where she majored in Accounting and Finance.

Risk Management

Brittany Diehl

Credit and Operational Risk Analyst

Elaine DeMichiel

SVP, Business Transition Executive

Stacy Galary

VP of Compliance

Stephanie M. Brown

Sr. Manager, Risk Management

Brittany joined Fidem in July of 2022 as our Credit & Operational Risk Analyst. She brings with her 10+ years of experience in portfolio risk reviews, risk mitigation, policy & procedure creation, project management, and operations management. She is responsible for due diligence reviews, establishing credit & operational risk policies, vendor risk management, investigating credit & operational risk management issues, and monthly risk deliverables.

Prior to Fidem, Brittany held risk-related roles at J.P. Morgan & Chase Bank as well as retail roles at TD Bank. She was selected for a Job Enhancement Program (JEP) and chosen by her peers & management to be a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for a company-built system. She was selected for many other projects including risk investigations, policy & procedure creations, and process improvements.

Brittany is continuing her education after completing her Associates in Applied Science for Business at Delaware Technical & Community College. She is pursuing her Bachelor’s degree with Wilmington University and Six Sigma Certification.

Elaine S. DeMichiel is an accomplished Banking Executive with more than 36 years of professional experience. Elaine began her career with Bank of America (MBNA) in 1982 and held a variety of management positions throughout her career, including her last position as Business Operations Executive for Card Products at Bank of America.

Along with managing dozens of operations teams in customer service, billing disputes, fraud, compliance, marketing, and conversions, Elaine had many significant accomplishments during her tenure at Bank of America. She is also a Co-Brand and Affinity relationship expert, spending the last 20 years managing conversions and divestitures on behalf of Bank of America’s relationship partners, including AAA, American Airlines, Alaska Airline, Bass Pro Shops, Upromise, Hawaiian Airlines, and Royal Caribbean to name a few, along with financial institutions, such as First Bank of Puerto Rico, Regions, and Santander.

In 1999, Elaine was assigned to Mergers & Acquisitions and became a senior member of the Steering Committee(s) responsible for managing the conversion of several substantially sized portfolio acquisitions, including PNC, First Union, and Wachovia. Elaine was also a senior member of the project team that oversaw the platform conversion of the entire Bank of America credit card portfolio to a proprietary TSYS platform, in 2014.

As a consumer credit lifecycle expert, Elaine has flawlessly managed more than 300 medium and large-scale portfolio conversions with accuracy and precision, and billions of dollars in financial assets involving multiple consumer credit Issuers, such as Barclaycard, Capital One, Chase, US Bank, Citibank, TD and AMEX. Her product experience with conversions is vast, including consumer credit cards, small business cards, secured and non-secured line of credit loans, and mortgage loans. Her experience includes transitioning accounts to platforms in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

In 2011, Elaine developed a robust deconversion process for Bank of America, and subsequently managed more than 30 portfolio divestitures for credit card, small business card, and consumer loan products. She is also highly skilled in the negotiation of Purchase & Sale, Asset Sales, and Interim Service Agreements.

Stacey joins Fidem with nearly 30 years of experience in the Regulatory Compliance and Risk Management space. She brings with her a wealth of knowledge regarding federal regulatory and statutory requirements for financial products and services; and, the management of risks associated with commercial and consumer lines of business as well as BSA/AML. 
 
Prior to Fidem, Stacey held roles at regional and large community banks such as Commerce Bank and First National Bank of Omaha, as well as serving as Director of Compliance for the US division of Home Credit Group, a global banking and lending organization. Stacey started her banking career as an Examiner with the Federal Reserve System, specializing in Consumer Compliance.  Throughout her career, Stacey has played a leadership role in designing and developing successful compliance and risk management programs. 

Stacey holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Missouri – Columbia and a Juris Doctor from the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law.

Stephanie joined Fidem in August 2021 and is responsible for critical operational initiatives related to portfolio acquisitions and new product launches.

Prior to Fidem, Stephanie was a VP Strategy Execution Lead at Bank of America, formerly MBNA. During her 26-year tenure, she also held management roles in Deposits, Product Development, and Portfolio Acquisitions & Divestitures. Stephanie had a multitude of responsibilities during her time at Bank of America and spent more than 20 successful years in Acquisitions & Divestitures, where her responsibilities included line of business operations liaison, control, self-audits, legal notifications, customer communication, and education & training, just to name a few of her onboarding responsibilities. Her project management experience is vast and consistently results in successful transitions and seamless client experiences.

Ritt Nickett

Compliance Risk Analyst I

Ritt is a compliance risk analyst with 4+ years of experience in his field. His responsibilities include internal monitoring, compliance testing, strategy recommendation, and prevention of violations of law, rule, and regulation or the company and its vendors. 
 
Prior to Fidem, Ritt was a compliance analyst at WSFS Mortgage where he reviewed every loan to make sure the fees and structure remained compliant to government regulations. 

Ritt is a graduate of Penn State University where he obtained his BS in Finance with a minor in Supply Chain and Information Systems Technology. While at Penn State he was a member of International Business Association and Sports Business Club and got the opportunity to study abroad in Florence, Italy. 

When Ritt isn’t working he enjoys spending time with his wife, watching and playing sports, and seeing movies. 

Business & Corporate Development

Vay Patel

Sr. Manager, Business Development

Lexi Lin

Sr. Financial Analyst, Corporate Development

As a Senior Manager in Business Development, Vay is responsible for financial analysis and business optimization of managed portfolios as well as assisting head of business development in program and deal structuring for new business. Prior to his current role Vay was responsible for overseeing the day-to-day financial reporting, analysis, and cash management/reconciliations as a part of the accounting team.

Prior to Fidem, Vay worked in public accounting for PwC as a Senior Auditor in the Philadelphia Asset Management practice, where he was a valued and heavily relied on member for audit engagements.  In this role Vay, performed analytical analysis, reviewed transactions, key controls and supporting documentation as well as coached less experienced staff.

Vay is a Certified Public Accountant and earned his Bachelor of Science at La Salle University where he majored in Finance and Accounting.

Lexi joined Corporate Development as a senior analyst responsible for conducting financial analysis, loan and deal modeling, valuations, due diligence, and contract related activities.  In addition, she supports the execution of consumer finance deal investments and assists in the management activities of the company and its business partners.

Lexi brings a decade of experience in data modeling and analytics. Prior to Fidem, she was responsible for business budgeting and forecasting, partnership and portfolio valuations, and strategic planning at several PE backed startup firms, ranging from small business loans, credit cards, and equipment loan financing, most recently as a VP of FP&A.   Before that, she worked as a senior financial analyst for Bridgewater Associates, and as a financial analyst at Terex.

She holds an MBA with a concentration in finance from New York University and is a CFA Level 3 candidate.

Fidem Managed Services Platform

Bharathwaj Rajagopal

Sr. Data Automation and QA Engineer

Faizan Rasheed

Sr. Reporting Analyst

Lushanthan Sivaneasharajah

Software Architect

Muhammad Bilal

Machine Learning Reporting Analyst

Bharathwaj Rajagopal is responsible for all automation and data loading of Fidem’s new prospects, existing customers and managing the associated QA processes. He is also responsible for administering the Snowflake database and proactively participating in architectural design and associated management tasks.

Before joining Fidem, Bharath worked as a Data Engineer in the Retail and Financial Sectors. He was responsible for processing the data from different source systems, preparing Data Pipelines to meet reporting requirements, implementing GDPR, implementing Data Quality checks, automation of execution with email triggers, and maintained & supported a large integration of disparate datasets.

He has a BS degree in Computer Science (Madras University) – India and is a domestic cricketer.

Faizan is responsible for all reporting and analytics in support of Fidem’s existing customers.

Prior to joining Fidem, Faizan worked for Reckitt as an Assistant Manager MIS for 3 year where he was responsible for national sales reporting. Before that he worked as a Regional Reporting Analyst at Reckitt for 2 years. His various roles includes building dashboards, doing data analytics and building efficient reporting processes. He has expertise in Power BI, Tableau, Power Suite, SQL and other leading technologies in the data analytics field.

Faizan holds a BS degree in Computer Science from VU (Virtual University of Pakistan).

As a Software Architect, Lushanthan is responsible for the software architecture, design  and implementation of the core projects/ products at IronOne Technologies. Lushanthan also leads the data science initiatives of IronOne in the fintech domain and has around 12 years of experience in software/ data engineering.

At IronOne, Lushanthan has contributed to the software architecture and design of  award-winning global products like the BoardPac (Board Automation tool) and Atrad (Trading Platform for emerging markets) and is also in charge of technical teams of fintech solutions like Infosense Banking (Business Intelligence solution for banks) and  Learning and Training portals for the International Financial Corporation (IFC – member of the World Bank Group). Lushanthan has worked in multiple technical roles providing solutions for leading institutions in Sri Lanka such as Bank Of Ceylon, Commercial Bank of Sri Lanka, Mobitel (Pvt) Ltd (Telco), Sri Lanka Insurance (Pvt) Ltd and HNB Assurance. Lushanthan currently leads the Machine Learning initiative for Fidem Financials.

Lushanthan holds a BSc in Computer Science (Hons) from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and is currently reading his MSc in Computer Science from the University Of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka majoring in Data Science, Engineering, and Analytics.

Muhammad Bilal is responsible for analyzing and building machine learning models to predict portfolio performance. Bilal is also the relationship account manager for our partnership with IronOne.

Before to joining Fidem, Muhammad Bilal worked for Habib Bank Limited as a Data analyst. Where he was responsible to collecting and analyzing data, creating machine learning algorithms, and maintained and managing a large number of datasets. In his role he also conducted professional statistical analysis and proactively participated in the development and deployment of various machine learning models.

Bilal is a Computer Science post-graduate student at SZABIST (Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology) – Pakistan, specializing in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Purusanth Shanmukanathan

Sr. Machine Learning Engineer

Sabrina Sabau

Head of Portfolio Analytics

Sheraz Ahmed

Sr. Reporting Analyst

Sufiyan Ahmed Khan

Sr. Reporting Analyst

Purusanth as a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, is responsible for the design, analysis and development of data-driven solutions of IronOne Technologies(Pvt) Ltd

Prior to IronOne, Purusanth worked for ADA-Asia as a Data Scientist, where he was responsible for developing and delivering mobile device churn prediction and Optimizing the cost of POI data enrichment. Before ADA-Asia,  Purusanth worked for Trabeya, where he worked on multiple data Science product developments to provide solutions for clients including c3 Insurance, Tavistock.

Purusanth holds a BSc in Statistics and Operations Research from the University of Peradeniya and MSc in Computer Science, majoring in Data Science, Engineering, and Analytics from the University of Moratuwa.

Sabrina Sabău brings a decade of experience in international business, finance, and data management. Her multifaceted background encompasses many industries: German logistics overseas, pharmaceutical planning and forecasting, accounting for construction management, and student lending finance. Most importantly, she possesses lengthy banking experience.

Prior to joining Fidem, Sabrina worked at Bank of America for 6 years. Her various roles involved project management, business partner consultation, and analytics for risk and profitability. As part of profitability analytics team, she was involved in end-to-end delivery of extensive quantitative and qualitative data across the entire product portfolio, such as deposits, loans, credit cards, investments, both commercial and consumer. As part of the risk team, she performed analytics on high-risk customers via both historical and projected performance ratios.

Sabrina holds an MBA in asset management from Northeastern University.

Sheraz Ahmed is responsible for all reporting and analytics in support of Fidem’s existing customers and is also part of the Machine Learning team which analyzes customer performance data to predict future trends and expected credit behavior through modelling.

Prior to Fidem Financial, Sheraz Ahmed has multiple years of experience of working in a Credit Bureau and Commercial Bank in which he has provided data-driven and action-oriented solutions to solve challenging Business Problems, worked on different types of ETLs to process the data, Management Reporting and analysed the systems & databases to improve the overall Product.

Sheraz Ahmed holds a BS degree in Computer Science from Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology.

Sufiyan is responsible for handling and reporting of Fidem’s new customers and prospects. He also has responsibility for all accounting report automation and SLA reporting on asset performance.

Prior to joining Fidem, Sufiyan worked for Faysal Bank as Assistant Manager - Business Intelligence Group for 1 year. Before that he worked for a software company MACH3BI LLC as a Data Engineer. He holds a good skillset in the field of Data Engineering, Data Visualization, and Data Science. His various roles includes building dashboards, performing data analytics and building machine learning models.

Sufiyan holds a BS degree in Computer Science. Also, currently he is enrolled in an online program Micro Masters in Statistics and Data Science offered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Varatharajah Vaseekaran

Machine Learning Engineer

Doug Burgess

Vice President, Cybersecurity & IT Operations

Anupama Bandara

R & D Engineer

Akilendra Jayasumana

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Vaseekaran as the Machine Learning engineer of IronOne Technologies (Pvt) Ltd is responsible for data analysis and implementing machine learning algorithms for the Fidem project. Vaseekaran is an avid Data Science, Machine Learning and Deep Learning enthusiast, and is also interested in the field of Blockchain.

Prior to IronOne, Vaseekaran worked for Rootcode Labs as an Intern Data Scientist, where he contributed to two major Machine Learning and Deep Learning products : Aphelia, a resume parser and analysis product, and ConversAI, a national award-winning chat assistant for recruiters to aid on the first stages of interviews.

Currently, Vaseekaran is reading his BEng in Software Engineering from the University of Westminster and almost finishing his final year Deep learning research on improving language modelling using GANs and Recurrent models. Vaseekaran also holds a BSc in Physical Science (Applied Mathematics, Statistics)  from the University of Colombo.

Doug has primary security and operational responsibility for Fidem Financial’s Managed Services Business Unit with a focus on ensuring business alignment, effective governance, system and product availability and uptime, integrity and confidentiality.

Prior to Fidem, Doug was Director of Strategic Security Partners at Alert Logic, a leading global cybersecurity platform provider.  In his role, Doug had overall accountability for Alert Logic’s joint security operations, responsibility for strategic managed detection and response partnerships globally, associated executive relationships and sales efforts, and the partners’ security operations capabilities. 

Before Alert Logic, in his role as Director at ViaWest, a leading data center company, Doug was a core member of the launch team that developed and successfully launched a comprehensive security portfolio delivering compliance solutions for PCI & HIPAA managed cloud hosting and compliant colocation.

Doug has also held senior roles in leading data center and cloud technology companies such as Equinix and Rackspace.

Doug holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas.  He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife Kathy and their 4 sons.  Doug is active in the community and has volunteered in leadership roles in organizations such as Boy Scouts and Little League Baseball.

Anupama as the R&D engineer at IronOne Technologies is responsible for data analysis, implementing machine learning algorithms and R&D work carried out for the Fidem project. 

Prior to working with IronOne, Anupama has experience in software and machine learning technologies through working in various projects like inventory management systems, program management system for the Universities and data analytics projects.. Anupama has very keen interest in probability and Statistics as well as Data Science, Data Analytics, and Machine Learning.

Currently, Anupama is reading  his BSc (Hons) in Computer Science at the University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka which is one of the leading universities in the Island.

Akilendra as a Senior Machine Learning Manager is responsible for the design, analyse and development of machine learning solutions of IronOne Technologies(Pvt) Ltd

Prior to IronOne, Akilendra worked for Algonomy as a Data Scientist, where he was responsible for algorithm and feature development in a Demand Forecasting product and an Inventory Optimization product in the retail industry, that is used globally. He also worked in the development of an Image Verification Application through AI Image processing for a leading Satellite TV Company in Srilanka. Before Algonomy,  Akilendra worked as a Software Engineer  developing backend solutions.

Akilendra holds a BEng in Computer Software Engineering from University of Westminster and a MSC in Big Data Analytics from Robert Gordon University. Akilendra is an Oracle certified Professional in Java.

Thanya Sinhasiri

Senior Product Manager

Gihan Amarasinghe

Project Manager

Mujtaba Ali Ansari

Data Engineer

Dr. Sapumal Ahangama

Consultant

Thanya as the Senior Product Manager is responsible to build and direct product strategies, collaborate with technology, engineering teams, data, marketing and customer success to ensure product positioning, development, enhanced value propositions and to drive business growth within the organization.

Prior to IronOne, Thanya worked for Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) as Head Segments, Personal Loans and Mortgages and has 11 years of experience in consumer banking managing credit card, personal loan and mortgage products as well as affluent & mass segment propositions. She was responsible for product development, management, business planning, strategic marketing, campaign management along with pricing and profitability of products and segments under her purview. Before SCB,  Thanya worked for Sampath Bank, a large local bank as a Junior Executive for more than 3 years with exposure to HR management, branch banking and product campaigns. She has been instrumental in several product launches and projects from business side during her career and a well experienced Product Manager specialized in the financial services domain.

Thanya holds a Masters Degree in Business Management from the Australian Institute of Business, Adelaide, Australia and a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK.

Gihan as the Project Manager is responsible for overall delivery of FIDEM Financial Machine Learning project of IronOne Technologies (Pvt) Ltd driving innovation and continuous improvements.

Prior to IronOne, Gihan worked for Just In Time Technologies (Pvt) Ltd as Senior Manager -  Projects where he was responsible for governing & monitoring the progress of multiple digital transformation (DX), multi-source integration (MSI) projects and ensure ROI and maintain high-level of key stakeholder. His key strength is the exposure in managing enterprise scale turnkey projects in Telecommunication, BFSI and Government sectors.

Gihan holds a MSc in Telecommunication Technology from Sikkim Manipal University, India and he is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) - PMI as well as Certified Scrum Master (CSM) – Scrum Alliance.

Mujtaba is responsible for all automation and data loading of Fidem’s new prospects, existing customers and managing the associated QA processes. He is also responsible for administering the Snowflake database and proactively participating in architectural design and associated management tasks.

Prior to joining Fidem, Mujtaba worked for Treehouse Exatex as an Associate Data Engineer. He holds a good skillset in the field of Data Engineering, Data Visualization, and Data Science. His various roles included building custom data pipelines using Python, scheduling ETL processes to meet reporting requirements, implementing Data Quality checks, and building some creative visualizations.

Mujtaba holds a BS degree in Computer Science from the University Of Karachi.

Dr. Sapumal Ahangama holds a doctorate in Data Science from the Department of Information Systems and Analytics, School of Computing, National University of Singapore. Sapumal completed his undergraduate studies at the Department of Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Moratuwa.

Upon the completion of his undergraduate studies, Sapumal worked at LSEG Technology (formerly known as MillenniumIT), the technology arm of the London Stock Exchange Group as a Specialist Engineer.

Afterwards, Sapumal pursued his PhD at the Department of Information Systems and Analytics, School of Computing, National University of Singapore. The PhD thesis covers various models developed using Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics and Statistics Modelling to solve the problem of User Entity Resolution. In addition, Sapumal also worked at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, Japan to develop machine learning based low dimensional data representational methods. His research has been published in top tier research conferences such as ICIS, WITS, HCII, SCECR, FPL and ECIS.

He is currently a senior lecturer at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Sai Harish Rampe

Sr. Data Visualization Analyst

Muhammad Khizar

Assistant Manager, Reporting Data Quality Analyst

Sai Harish has around 10 years of IT experience and is currently working as a Lead Consultant(Service Analytics BI) at Apps Associates (I) Pvt. Ltd. He is responsible for creating various visualizations with Tableau. He also got good knowledge on SQL, data modelling concepts.

Prior to Apps Associates, Harish worked with Zenoti as a Tableau developer and was developing new dashboards which are used by there customers to analyze there sales etc. He also provided support wherein he analyzed the existing reports and provided fixes for them. He started his career in Accenture where in he worked with clients like BMW(Automobile industry) as a SQL support Engineer and Pfizer (Pharmaceutical industry) as a OBIEE developer.

Harish holds a B.E in Information Technology from Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Khizar is responsible for quality assurance of all Fidem reporting and analytics dashboards.

Before joining Fidem-Financial, Khizar worked for Techling Technology as a Machine Learning Engineer. Prior to that, he worked for Digital Pakistan Lab, Nust as a Data Science Research Associate. At the start of career, he worked for Xtatic Tech as a Data Scientist. His main expertise is in data reporting and data visualization using MS-Excel and Tableau.

Khizar holds a Masters degree in Data Science from Riphah International University and a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from Bahria University. He also achieved a certification of Data Visualization with Python and SQL (for Data Science) from Coursera and a SQL-Intermediate certificate from Hacker Rank. He is passionate about data analysis using latest industry software and tools.

Management Team Team

Scott Shaw

Chief Executive Officer

Sanji Gunawardena

President

A highly sought-after resource for insights, innovation, and creative deal structures, Scott has over three decades of experience in executive roles at The Kessler Group, now Onboard Partners. In 1990, Scott was instrumental in helping Howard Kessler purchase its predecessor company. Scott has held a variety of executive leaderships roles at the company helping to grow and expand its offerings and establishing a number of strategic relationships with financial institutions, payment networks, and other large entities that have withstood the test of time.

In 2018 as President of the company, Scott orchestrated and executed the sale of the former Kessler Group to ECN Capital. In conjunction with the sale, Scott took on the role of CEO, driving the company’s strategy and long-term vision. As part of that vision, Scott orchestrated the recent sale of the company from ECN to key executives and Stone Point Capital, a leading equity firm in the financial services space.

An engaging and collaborative leader, Scott works closely with his management team to deliver lasting results for OP’s clients across the full range of company solutions including our at-risk marketing funding, marketing solutions and execution, strategic partnership development, M&A, and asset management programs. Scott thrives on helping clients solves complex problems and challenges, in the interest of developing long term relationships.

In driving the evolution of the company, Scott has assembled a top-flight team of banking and payments executives who have collectively developed and managed end to end payment and banking businesses at leading institutions. Areas of expertise across the team include starting up new businesses, marketing and sales, balance sheet and capital management, credit risk management and loss prevention, and oversight of large, mature payments and banking businesses.

Scott holds a BS in biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire. Scott currently sits on three boards including Aliaswire, EData Networks and Ozumo Concepts International.

Scott is very active in the community, mentoring youth and supporting many charitable initiatives including The Ryan Shaw Foundation, Mustard Seed Communities, The Haven Project, St. Joseph’s School, The Ryan Shaw ’15

Entrepreneurial Program and the Shaw Family Center for Innovation and Design at St. John’s Prep.

Sanji is a seasoned finance leader with an impressive career spanning over 30 years. He brings a wealth of expertise in deal sourcing, driving revenue growth, cultivating client relationships, crafting strategic visions, and structuring complex deals.

In 2018, Sanji embarked on a mission to establish Fidem, an innovative asset management venture. Fidem is dedicated to helping leading financial institutions mitigate risk in their portfolios and optimize capital allocation. Under his visionary leadership, the company has successfully acquired a portfolio exceeding $10.4 billion in credit card and other unsecured consumer loan assets, collaborating with a diverse spectrum of investment and lending partners. 

Prior to Fidem, Sanji spent 6 years as Senior Executive Vice President of Mergers & Acquisitions at Onboard Partners and served as Principal of a firm offering strategic guidance to global consumer finance businesses, focusing on realignment, acquisitions, and divestitures. In addition to these roles, Sanji was head of Card Services Global M&A at Bank of America as a Senior Vice President and as a Senior Business Analyst at DuPont.

Sanji holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from the University of Georgia, complimented by an MBA with a specialization in Finance from the prestigious University of Toronto – Rotman School of Management.

His dedication, strategic acumen, and relentless pursuit of excellence continue to drive Fidem's success in delivering unparalleled value to its clients and partners.

Jason Dyro

Chief Operating Officer

Dale Hoops

Chief Risk Officer

Jason is a seasoned payments and banking executive with more than 23 years of experience, demonstrating expertise in commercial and operational domains. He excels in strategic organizational leadership, innovation, and P&L optimization across various continents, market segments, and regulatory environments.

Before joining Fidem, Jason served as CEO of the US expansion of Home Credit Group, managing €35 billion in outstanding receivables across three continents. Under his leadership, he developed a custom BaaS lending platform integrated into Sprint POS systems, facilitating over $7 billion in loan originations and a $350 million CLV improvement. He also oversaw the creation of a digital white-label DTC lending ecosystem, which grew to over $100 million in assets within 18 months.

As Chief Payments Officer at Dynamics, Jason led the development of a cobrand card and loyalty system with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Tim Hortons, shipping over 100,000 cards in the first month.

Previously, at UMB Bank, he served as Vice President and Director of the Consumer Bankcard division, achieving a 3x growth in portfolio assets through organic channel optimization, market segmentation, and strategic M&A.

Jason holds a Bachelor of Science in biology and business, as well as an MBA in Finance.

Dale brings over 28 years of financial services industry experience, with a focus on enterprise risk management, stress testing, fraud prevention, and collections strategies. Her expertise lies in portfolio risk management, loss forecasts, credit underwriting, risk detection, and fraud prevention.

She has held senior executive positions at Predictive Analytics Group, Bank of America, Citi, and MBNA America as well as executive and strategy analyst roles in risk control, fraud, and collections at Citi Cards NA and MBNA America.

At Bank of America, she oversaw fraud and credit risk management for a $400 billion consumer portfolio and managed loss forecasts, stress testing, and loan loss reserve forecasts for a $150 billion credit card portfolio. Dale holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Richmond.

Gerard Wijeyeratne

EVP, Finance

Jeff Given

Head of Business Development

Gerard is a seasoned finance executive with over 28 years of experience in finance, M&A, strategy, business development, and operations.

At Fidem, he manages the finance platform, overseeing financial reporting, analysis, cash management, and operations, and plays a pivotal role in post-deal financial operations for debt and equity holders and special purpose investment vehicles.

Before joining Fidem, Gerard worked at AHPP, focusing on consumer lending loan portfolio M&A and valuation modeling on credit card portfolios in excess of $5 billion. Previously, he served as Director FP&A at FMC Inc, also acting as CFO of the Health and Nutrition segment and driving strategic acquisitions. Gerard has also held senior financial roles at Ericsson Inc and led numerous consulting engagements for the office of the CFO with KPMG.

Gerard is a Chartered Accountant from New Zealand and holds a BSc in Applied Economics and Business Management from Cornell University, as well as an MBA from Drexel University.

Jeff is a senior business development and finance leader with more than 24 years of credit card industry experience, concentrated in mergers and acquisitions, programs and deal structuring, financial analysis, and business optimization.

Having previously served as VP of Finance for Onboard Partners, Jeff returns to Onboard as SVP of Finance. Prior to rejoining Onboard, Jeff led the Pricing team and built the Mergers and Acquisitions capability at Bread Financial; as a result, he was responsible for all deal-related economics for all new and renewal programs as well as any acquired portfolios while at Bread.

Prior to that, Jeff worked for five years as a Senior Director of Corporate Finance for Barclaycard, with lead responsibility for $4 billion of credit card transactions in both the US and Europe. Jeff has also served as a Senior Consultant for First Annapolis Accenture and as a Business Product Lead and Head of Business Development for Co-Brands and Affinities for Capital One.

Jeff earned an AB in Economics from Duke University and an MBA in Finance and Strategic Management from the Wharton Graduate School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Shanu Yadav

Head of Corporate Development

Shanu leads Corporate Development with a focus on Fintech at Fidem. With extensive experience in Corporate Development, Strategy, Investments, and Partnerships, Shanu has worked across a range of financial services companies and venture-backed startups, managing deals ranging from $20 million to over $1 billion.

Effectively managing the entire deal process, from sourcing new business opportunities to negotiation and execution, Shanu is a trusted partner for senior leaders.

Having lived and worked in the US, Europe, India, and China, Shanu possesses a deep understanding of global ecosystems, working closely with investors, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. She values cultural diversity and brings a global perspective to her work.

Shanu holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Stanford University, a Master’s degree in Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a BA (Honors) from the University of Delhi.

Operations

Graham Stiles

SVP, Products

Jessica Freund

SVP, Portfolio Management

Graham leads Fidem activities related to Product Strategy, Value Proposition Design, and Marketing.

Prior to Fidem, Graham helped build and launch the new Merchant Processing Platform for Bank of America created as a result of the dissolution of the Joint Venture with FISERV.  In this role he helped design go-to-market strategies for Merchant Services product offerings and built the Strategic Data Platform for the newly launched business.  Before Bank of America, Graham held successively senior leadership roles at TD Bank and American Express in both Issuing and Acquiring businesses with ownership of Customer Acquisition, Pricing, Product Strategy, Competitive Intelligence, Marketing Effectiveness, Investment Optimization, and Reporting & Analytics.

Graham holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Jessica joins Fidem with over a decade of experience in the payments and fintech space. Bringing with her a wealth of knowledge regarding payment and processing systems, product innovation, loyalty solutions, CRM, and portfolio optimization.

Prior to Fidem, Jessica held roles at large institutional firms such as Morgan Stanley and HSBC, as well as dynamic, innovative start-ups such as Serverside, the original provider of design on demand card technology. Most recently, Jessica oversaw the development of a proprietary mobile banking product for Zytara, successfully bringing the product to market in under a year. Prior to that, Jessica was responsible for product and portfolio management for the US division of Home Credit Group, a global banking and lending organization. During her tenure at Home Credit, she was accountable for the launch and growth of their US product suite, inclusive of consumer credit card and installment offerings. Through carefully targeted acquisition and lifecycle campaigns, the portfolio grew from start up to $100 million in assets within 18 months.

Jessica holds a BBA in International Business from Florida International University and MSC in Corporate Social Responsibility from the University of Nottingham.

Rachel Olson

Business Administrator

Stephanie Brown

Sr. Manager, Operations

Prior to working for Fidem, Rachel worked as the Executive Assistant to the President and CEO of Philadelphia Sign Company (PSCO). PSCO is a full-service sign manufacturer specializing in branding and conversion programs for well-known clients such as Chase Bank, First National Bank, Truist, Huntington Bank among other National Brands. While there, she managed the front office as well as major company accounts like American Express, TMobile and Enterprise for all employees. Rachel is skilled within the corporate business environment specializing in organization, expense management, travel, account management and day-to-day operations.

Rachel earned her Associate of Science degree in Social Science from Thomas Nelson Community College and earned her Bachelor of Science Degree from Rutgers University where she majored in Business Management.

Stephanie joined Fidem in August 2021 and is responsible for critical operational initiatives related to portfolio acquisitions and new product launches.

Prior to Fidem, Stephanie was a VP Strategy Execution Lead at Bank of America, formerly MBNA. During her 26-year tenure, she also held management roles in Deposits, Product Development, and Portfolio Acquisitions & Divestitures. Stephanie had a multitude of responsibilities during her time at Bank of America and spent more than 20 successful years in Acquisitions & Divestitures, where her responsibilities included line of business operations liaison, control, self-audits, legal notifications, customer communication, and education & training, just to name a few of her onboarding responsibilities. Her project management experience is vast and consistently results in successful transitions and seamless client experiences.

Tricia Whitman

AVP of Administration

James McKay

Vice President, Business Systems

Since 2019, Tricia has served as the Office and Business Manager for Fidem. In that capacity, Tricia is responsible for employing her excellent organizational skills to ensure that the dynamic and active work environment at Fidem runs smoothly. Tricia also actively supports the Management team in fulfilling their day-to-day responsibilities. Additionally, she manages significant and distinct areas of the Business Development and Accounting teams, such as expenses, transaction timelines and scheduling, and industry research, along with other vital efforts.

Tricia has worked in the credit card industry for over six years. Prior to joining Fidem, Tricia worked with American Express in marketing and business development as a Business Consultant and built a strong portfolio as part of her responsibilities. Tricia was a leader among her peers in acquiring customers through direct consultative sales with business owners, and also drove significant incremental charge volume on the Amex Open Business accounts in her client portfolios. Before moving to the card industry, Tricia worked successfully for three years with Berkshire Hathaway as a licensed real estate agent in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Tricia holds a Bachelor of Science from Saint Bonaventure University.

James brings over a decade of experience in the financial services and consumer credit space.  While leading teams at large card issuers such as Citibank, Genesis Financial Solutions, and Home Credit US, his responsibilities and expertise have traversed collections, recovery, portfolio conversions, and the oversight of complex processing systems.

Over the past six years specifically, James has maintained ownership of Business Systems, providing strategic guidance on product and platform setup to support enterprise initiatives. Whether building a card program from the ground up, enhancing an existing program’s loyalty program, or layering on additional fraud protection measures, James has mastered the art of providing flexible solutions that reduce speed to market while maintaining regulatory compliance. Additionally, James has established and chaired organizational change management committees – a role he has been well placed in due to his innate knowledge across the entire payment card business.

Carina Criger

VP, Operational Risk & Compliance

Carina is a financial services professional, with 15+ years’ experience in audit, risk, and compliance. She is responsible for operational risk assessments, testing, and monitoring.

Prior to joining Fidem, Carina held roles at FNBO, UMB Financial Services, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and KPMG, LLC. Her past experiences include overseeing the development of a first line of defense framework for an embedded credit-card-as-a-service program, launched in less than a year. Leading operational /compliance reviews, control identification and risk assessments, and developing and executing a strategic plan for a third-party risk management program with focus on information security and privacy for over 1000 third party relationships. Carina’s understanding of audit, risk, compliance contributes to identifying operational process efficiencies and enhancing risk management and compliance activities.

Carina holds a BBA in Accounting and Finance from Pittsburg State University and holds ISACA certifications as a “Certified Risk and Information Systems Controls (CRISC)” and a “Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer (CDPSE).”

Finance And Accounting

Joe Schickling

Sr. Accounting Manager

Stephen Scherff

Sr. Accounting Analyst

Joseph is a Senior Accounting Manager who oversees the day-to-day financial reporting, analysis, and cash management/reconciliation at Fidem Financial.  Additionally, Joseph manages and coordinates lender compliance and covenants as well as external audit, tax, and review engagements. Joseph plays a crucial role when onboarding new business to the existing managing platform and analyzes operational impacts of prospective new deals.

Prior to Fidem, Joseph worked in public accounting for PwC as an Auditor in the Philadelphia Asset Management practice, where he was a valued and heavily relied on member for several audit engagements.  In this role Joseph, performed analytical analysis, reviewed transactions, key controls and supporting documentation as well as coached less experienced staff.

Joseph is a Certified Public Accountant and earned his Bachelor of Science at La Salle University where he majored in Accounting and minored in Risk Management.  Additionally, Joseph is enrolled in a part-time MBA program at La Salle University and is on track to graduate in 2023.

Stephen is a Senior Accounting Analyst with nearly 5 years of accounting experience in various roles.

Stephen oversees day-to-day accounting operations, including; but not limited to: daily reporting, monthly reporting, cash management and reconciliation. Prior to Fidem, Stephen worked in both auditing and operational accounting roles within the financial services industry.

Stephen earned his Bachelor of Science at La Salle University in Philadelphia where he majored in Accounting and minored in Economics.

Yun Chen

Sr. Accounting Analyst

Elizabeth Wolansky

Accounting Manager

Yun is a Senior Accountant with Fidem Financials.  Yun is skilled in Account Reconciliation, Joint Venture Accounting, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and Financial Statements.  After graduated from Rutgers University with Accounting and Business Administrative major in 2014, Yun has demonstrated accounting experience in Investment Tax in Public Accounting for two years, and continued to develop her skills in corporate accounting in healthcare industry for five years.  Yun also serves as the lead for annual audit, prepares and analyzes monthly and quarterly financial statements, and participates in planning meetings for upcoming ventures.

Elizabeth is an Accounting Manager who oversees the day-to-day financial reporting, analysis, and cash management/reconciliation at Fidem Financial.  Additionally, Elizabeth manages and coordinates lender compliance and covenants as well as external audit, tax, and review engagements.  

Prior to Fidem, Elizabeth worked in private industry, TIFF Investment Management, and public accounting, EisnerAmper LLP.   Elizabeth is a Certified Public Accountant and earned her Bachelor of Science at St. Joseph’s University where she majored in Accounting and Finance.

Risk Management

Brittany Diehl

Credit and Operational Risk Analyst

Elaine DeMichiel

SVP, Business Transition Executive

Brittany joined Fidem in July of 2022 as our Credit & Operational Risk Analyst. She brings with her 10+ years of experience in portfolio risk reviews, risk mitigation, policy & procedure creation, project management, and operations management. She is responsible for due diligence reviews, establishing credit & operational risk policies, vendor risk management, investigating credit & operational risk management issues, and monthly risk deliverables.

Prior to Fidem, Brittany held risk-related roles at J.P. Morgan & Chase Bank as well as retail roles at TD Bank. She was selected for a Job Enhancement Program (JEP) and chosen by her peers & management to be a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for a company-built system. She was selected for many other projects including risk investigations, policy & procedure creations, and process improvements.

Brittany is continuing her education after completing her Associates in Applied Science for Business at Delaware Technical & Community College. She is pursuing her Bachelor’s degree with Wilmington University and Six Sigma Certification.

Elaine S. DeMichiel is an accomplished Banking Executive with more than 36 years of professional experience. Elaine began her career with Bank of America (MBNA) in 1982 and held a variety of management positions throughout her career, including her last position as Business Operations Executive for Card Products at Bank of America.

Along with managing dozens of operations teams in customer service, billing disputes, fraud, compliance, marketing, and conversions, Elaine had many significant accomplishments during her tenure at Bank of America. She is also a Co-Brand and Affinity relationship expert, spending the last 20 years managing conversions and divestitures on behalf of Bank of America’s relationship partners, including AAA, American Airlines, Alaska Airline, Bass Pro Shops, Upromise, Hawaiian Airlines, and Royal Caribbean to name a few, along with financial institutions, such as First Bank of Puerto Rico, Regions, and Santander.

In 1999, Elaine was assigned to Mergers & Acquisitions and became a senior member of the Steering Committee(s) responsible for managing the conversion of several substantially sized portfolio acquisitions, including PNC, First Union, and Wachovia. Elaine was also a senior member of the project team that oversaw the platform conversion of the entire Bank of America credit card portfolio to a proprietary TSYS platform, in 2014.

As a consumer credit lifecycle expert, Elaine has flawlessly managed more than 300 medium and large-scale portfolio conversions with accuracy and precision, and billions of dollars in financial assets involving multiple consumer credit Issuers, such as Barclaycard, Capital One, Chase, US Bank, Citibank, TD and AMEX. Her product experience with conversions is vast, including consumer credit cards, small business cards, secured and non-secured line of credit loans, and mortgage loans. Her experience includes transitioning accounts to platforms in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

In 2011, Elaine developed a robust deconversion process for Bank of America, and subsequently managed more than 30 portfolio divestitures for credit card, small business card, and consumer loan products. She is also highly skilled in the negotiation of Purchase & Sale, Asset Sales, and Interim Service Agreements.

Stacy Galary

VP of Compliance

Stephanie M. Brown

Sr. Manager, Risk Management

Stacey joins Fidem with nearly 30 years of experience in the Regulatory Compliance and Risk Management space. She brings with her a wealth of knowledge regarding federal regulatory and statutory requirements for financial products and services; and, the management of risks associated with commercial and consumer lines of business as well as BSA/AML. 
 
Prior to Fidem, Stacey held roles at regional and large community banks such as Commerce Bank and First National Bank of Omaha, as well as serving as Director of Compliance for the US division of Home Credit Group, a global banking and lending organization. Stacey started her banking career as an Examiner with the Federal Reserve System, specializing in Consumer Compliance.  Throughout her career, Stacey has played a leadership role in designing and developing successful compliance and risk management programs. 

Stacey holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Missouri – Columbia and a Juris Doctor from the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law.

Stephanie joined Fidem in August 2021 and is responsible for critical operational initiatives related to portfolio acquisitions and new product launches.

Prior to Fidem, Stephanie was a VP Strategy Execution Lead at Bank of America, formerly MBNA. During her 26-year tenure, she also held management roles in Deposits, Product Development, and Portfolio Acquisitions & Divestitures. Stephanie had a multitude of responsibilities during her time at Bank of America and spent more than 20 successful years in Acquisitions & Divestitures, where her responsibilities included line of business operations liaison, control, self-audits, legal notifications, customer communication, and education & training, just to name a few of her onboarding responsibilities. Her project management experience is vast and consistently results in successful transitions and seamless client experiences.

Ritt Nickett

Compliance Risk Analyst I

Ritt is a compliance risk analyst with 4+ years of experience in his field. His responsibilities include internal monitoring, compliance testing, strategy recommendation, and prevention of violations of law, rule, and regulation or the company and its vendors. 
 
Prior to Fidem, Ritt was a compliance analyst at WSFS Mortgage where he reviewed every loan to make sure the fees and structure remained compliant to government regulations. 

Ritt is a graduate of Penn State University where he obtained his BS in Finance with a minor in Supply Chain and Information Systems Technology. While at Penn State he was a member of International Business Association and Sports Business Club and got the opportunity to study abroad in Florence, Italy. 

When Ritt isn’t working he enjoys spending time with his wife, watching and playing sports, and seeing movies. 

Business & Corporate Development

Vay Patel

Sr. Manager, Business Development

Lexi Lin

Sr. Financial Analyst, Corporate Development

As a Senior Manager in Business Development, Vay is responsible for financial analysis and business optimization of managed portfolios as well as assisting head of business development in program and deal structuring for new business. Prior to his current role Vay was responsible for overseeing the day-to-day financial reporting, analysis, and cash management/reconciliations as a part of the accounting team.

Prior to Fidem, Vay worked in public accounting for PwC as a Senior Auditor in the Philadelphia Asset Management practice, where he was a valued and heavily relied on member for audit engagements.  In this role Vay, performed analytical analysis, reviewed transactions, key controls and supporting documentation as well as coached less experienced staff.

Vay is a Certified Public Accountant and earned his Bachelor of Science at La Salle University where he majored in Finance and Accounting.

Lexi joined Corporate Development as a senior analyst responsible for conducting financial analysis, loan and deal modeling, valuations, due diligence, and contract related activities.  In addition, she supports the execution of consumer finance deal investments and assists in the management activities of the company and its business partners.

Lexi brings a decade of experience in data modeling and analytics. Prior to Fidem, she was responsible for business budgeting and forecasting, partnership and portfolio valuations, and strategic planning at several PE backed startup firms, ranging from small business loans, credit cards, and equipment loan financing, most recently as a VP of FP&A.   Before that, she worked as a senior financial analyst for Bridgewater Associates, and as a financial analyst at Terex.

She holds an MBA with a concentration in finance from New York University and is a CFA Level 3 candidate.

Fidem Managed Services Platform

Bharathwaj Rajagopal

Sr. Data Automation and QA Engineer

Faizan Rasheed

Sr. Reporting Analyst

Bharathwaj Rajagopal is responsible for all automation and data loading of Fidem’s new prospects, existing customers and managing the associated QA processes. He is also responsible for administering the Snowflake database and proactively participating in architectural design and associated management tasks.

Before joining Fidem, Bharath worked as a Data Engineer in the Retail and Financial Sectors. He was responsible for processing the data from different source systems, preparing Data Pipelines to meet reporting requirements, implementing GDPR, implementing Data Quality checks, automation of execution with email triggers, and maintained & supported a large integration of disparate datasets.

He has a BS degree in Computer Science (Madras University) – India and is a domestic cricketer.

Faizan is responsible for all reporting and analytics in support of Fidem’s existing customers.

Prior to joining Fidem, Faizan worked for Reckitt as an Assistant Manager MIS for 3 year where he was responsible for national sales reporting. Before that he worked as a Regional Reporting Analyst at Reckitt for 2 years. His various roles includes building dashboards, doing data analytics and building efficient reporting processes. He has expertise in Power BI, Tableau, Power Suite, SQL and other leading technologies in the data analytics field.

Faizan holds a BS degree in Computer Science from VU (Virtual University of Pakistan).

Lushanthan Sivaneasharajah

Software Architect

Muhammad Bilal

Machine Learning Reporting Analyst

As a Software Architect, Lushanthan is responsible for the software architecture, design  and implementation of the core projects/ products at IronOne Technologies. Lushanthan also leads the data science initiatives of IronOne in the fintech domain and has around 12 years of experience in software/ data engineering.

At IronOne, Lushanthan has contributed to the software architecture and design of  award-winning global products like the BoardPac (Board Automation tool) and Atrad (Trading Platform for emerging markets) and is also in charge of technical teams of fintech solutions like Infosense Banking (Business Intelligence solution for banks) and  Learning and Training portals for the International Financial Corporation (IFC – member of the World Bank Group). Lushanthan has worked in multiple technical roles providing solutions for leading institutions in Sri Lanka such as Bank Of Ceylon, Commercial Bank of Sri Lanka, Mobitel (Pvt) Ltd (Telco), Sri Lanka Insurance (Pvt) Ltd and HNB Assurance. Lushanthan currently leads the Machine Learning initiative for Fidem Financials.

Lushanthan holds a BSc in Computer Science (Hons) from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and is currently reading his MSc in Computer Science from the University Of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka majoring in Data Science, Engineering, and Analytics.

Muhammad Bilal is responsible for analyzing and building machine learning models to predict portfolio performance. Bilal is also the relationship account manager for our partnership with IronOne.

Before to joining Fidem, Muhammad Bilal worked for Habib Bank Limited as a Data analyst. Where he was responsible to collecting and analyzing data, creating machine learning algorithms, and maintained and managing a large number of datasets. In his role he also conducted professional statistical analysis and proactively participated in the development and deployment of various machine learning models.

Bilal is a Computer Science post-graduate student at SZABIST (Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology) – Pakistan, specializing in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Purusanth Shanmukanathan

Sr. Machine Learning Engineer

Sabrina Sabau

Head of Portfolio Analytics

Purusanth as a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, is responsible for the design, analysis and development of data-driven solutions of IronOne Technologies(Pvt) Ltd

Prior to IronOne, Purusanth worked for ADA-Asia as a Data Scientist, where he was responsible for developing and delivering mobile device churn prediction and Optimizing the cost of POI data enrichment. Before ADA-Asia,  Purusanth worked for Trabeya, where he worked on multiple data Science product developments to provide solutions for clients including c3 Insurance, Tavistock.

Purusanth holds a BSc in Statistics and Operations Research from the University of Peradeniya and MSc in Computer Science, majoring in Data Science, Engineering, and Analytics from the University of Moratuwa.

Sabrina Sabău brings a decade of experience in international business, finance, and data management. Her multifaceted background encompasses many industries: German logistics overseas, pharmaceutical planning and forecasting, accounting for construction management, and student lending finance. Most importantly, she possesses lengthy banking experience.

Prior to joining Fidem, Sabrina worked at Bank of America for 6 years. Her various roles involved project management, business partner consultation, and analytics for risk and profitability. As part of profitability analytics team, she was involved in end-to-end delivery of extensive quantitative and qualitative data across the entire product portfolio, such as deposits, loans, credit cards, investments, both commercial and consumer. As part of the risk team, she performed analytics on high-risk customers via both historical and projected performance ratios.

Sabrina holds an MBA in asset management from Northeastern University.

Sheraz Ahmed

Sr. Reporting Analyst

Sufiyan Ahmed Khan

Sr. Reporting Analyst

Sheraz Ahmed is responsible for all reporting and analytics in support of Fidem’s existing customers and is also part of the Machine Learning team which analyzes customer performance data to predict future trends and expected credit behavior through modelling.

Prior to Fidem Financial, Sheraz Ahmed has multiple years of experience of working in a Credit Bureau and Commercial Bank in which he has provided data-driven and action-oriented solutions to solve challenging Business Problems, worked on different types of ETLs to process the data, Management Reporting and analysed the systems & databases to improve the overall Product.

Sheraz Ahmed holds a BS degree in Computer Science from Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology.

Sufiyan is responsible for handling and reporting of Fidem’s new customers and prospects. He also has responsibility for all accounting report automation and SLA reporting on asset performance.

Prior to joining Fidem, Sufiyan worked for Faysal Bank as Assistant Manager - Business Intelligence Group for 1 year. Before that he worked for a software company MACH3BI LLC as a Data Engineer. He holds a good skillset in the field of Data Engineering, Data Visualization, and Data Science. His various roles includes building dashboards, performing data analytics and building machine learning models.

Sufiyan holds a BS degree in Computer Science. Also, currently he is enrolled in an online program Micro Masters in Statistics and Data Science offered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Varatharajah Vaseekaran

Machine Learning Engineer

Doug Burgess

Vice President, Cybersecurity & IT Operations

Vaseekaran as the Machine Learning engineer of IronOne Technologies (Pvt) Ltd is responsible for data analysis and implementing machine learning algorithms for the Fidem project. Vaseekaran is an avid Data Science, Machine Learning and Deep Learning enthusiast, and is also interested in the field of Blockchain.

Prior to IronOne, Vaseekaran worked for Rootcode Labs as an Intern Data Scientist, where he contributed to two major Machine Learning and Deep Learning products : Aphelia, a resume parser and analysis product, and ConversAI, a national award-winning chat assistant for recruiters to aid on the first stages of interviews.

Currently, Vaseekaran is reading his BEng in Software Engineering from the University of Westminster and almost finishing his final year Deep learning research on improving language modelling using GANs and Recurrent models. Vaseekaran also holds a BSc in Physical Science (Applied Mathematics, Statistics)  from the University of Colombo.

Doug has primary security and operational responsibility for Fidem Financial’s Managed Services Business Unit with a focus on ensuring business alignment, effective governance, system and product availability and uptime, integrity and confidentiality.

Prior to Fidem, Doug was Director of Strategic Security Partners at Alert Logic, a leading global cybersecurity platform provider.  In his role, Doug had overall accountability for Alert Logic’s joint security operations, responsibility for strategic managed detection and response partnerships globally, associated executive relationships and sales efforts, and the partners’ security operations capabilities. 

Before Alert Logic, in his role as Director at ViaWest, a leading data center company, Doug was a core member of the launch team that developed and successfully launched a comprehensive security portfolio delivering compliance solutions for PCI & HIPAA managed cloud hosting and compliant colocation.

Doug has also held senior roles in leading data center and cloud technology companies such as Equinix and Rackspace.

Doug holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas.  He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife Kathy and their 4 sons.  Doug is active in the community and has volunteered in leadership roles in organizations such as Boy Scouts and Little League Baseball.

Anupama Bandara

R & D Engineer

Akilendra Jayasumana

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Anupama as the R&D engineer at IronOne Technologies is responsible for data analysis, implementing machine learning algorithms and R&D work carried out for the Fidem project. 

Prior to working with IronOne, Anupama has experience in software and machine learning technologies through working in various projects like inventory management systems, program management system for the Universities and data analytics projects.. Anupama has very keen interest in probability and Statistics as well as Data Science, Data Analytics, and Machine Learning.

Currently, Anupama is reading  his BSc (Hons) in Computer Science at the University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka which is one of the leading universities in the Island.

Akilendra as a Senior Machine Learning Manager is responsible for the design, analyse and development of machine learning solutions of IronOne Technologies(Pvt) Ltd

Prior to IronOne, Akilendra worked for Algonomy as a Data Scientist, where he was responsible for algorithm and feature development in a Demand Forecasting product and an Inventory Optimization product in the retail industry, that is used globally. He also worked in the development of an Image Verification Application through AI Image processing for a leading Satellite TV Company in Srilanka. Before Algonomy,  Akilendra worked as a Software Engineer  developing backend solutions.

Akilendra holds a BEng in Computer Software Engineering from University of Westminster and a MSC in Big Data Analytics from Robert Gordon University. Akilendra is an Oracle certified Professional in Java.

Thanya Sinhasiri

Senior Product Manager

Gihan Amarasinghe

Project Manager

Thanya as the Senior Product Manager is responsible to build and direct product strategies, collaborate with technology, engineering teams, data, marketing and customer success to ensure product positioning, development, enhanced value propositions and to drive business growth within the organization.

Prior to IronOne, Thanya worked for Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) as Head Segments, Personal Loans and Mortgages and has 11 years of experience in consumer banking managing credit card, personal loan and mortgage products as well as affluent & mass segment propositions. She was responsible for product development, management, business planning, strategic marketing, campaign management along with pricing and profitability of products and segments under her purview. Before SCB,  Thanya worked for Sampath Bank, a large local bank as a Junior Executive for more than 3 years with exposure to HR management, branch banking and product campaigns. She has been instrumental in several product launches and projects from business side during her career and a well experienced Product Manager specialized in the financial services domain.

Thanya holds a Masters Degree in Business Management from the Australian Institute of Business, Adelaide, Australia and a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK.

Gihan as the Project Manager is responsible for overall delivery of FIDEM Financial Machine Learning project of IronOne Technologies (Pvt) Ltd driving innovation and continuous improvements.

Prior to IronOne, Gihan worked for Just In Time Technologies (Pvt) Ltd as Senior Manager -  Projects where he was responsible for governing & monitoring the progress of multiple digital transformation (DX), multi-source integration (MSI) projects and ensure ROI and maintain high-level of key stakeholder. His key strength is the exposure in managing enterprise scale turnkey projects in Telecommunication, BFSI and Government sectors.

Gihan holds a MSc in Telecommunication Technology from Sikkim Manipal University, India and he is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) - PMI as well as Certified Scrum Master (CSM) – Scrum Alliance.

Mujtaba Ali Ansari

Data Engineer

Dr. Sapumal Ahangama

Consultant

Mujtaba is responsible for all automation and data loading of Fidem’s new prospects, existing customers and managing the associated QA processes. He is also responsible for administering the Snowflake database and proactively participating in architectural design and associated management tasks.

Prior to joining Fidem, Mujtaba worked for Treehouse Exatex as an Associate Data Engineer. He holds a good skillset in the field of Data Engineering, Data Visualization, and Data Science. His various roles included building custom data pipelines using Python, scheduling ETL processes to meet reporting requirements, implementing Data Quality checks, and building some creative visualizations.

Mujtaba holds a BS degree in Computer Science from the University Of Karachi.

Dr. Sapumal Ahangama holds a doctorate in Data Science from the Department of Information Systems and Analytics, School of Computing, National University of Singapore. Sapumal completed his undergraduate studies at the Department of Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Moratuwa.

Upon the completion of his undergraduate studies, Sapumal worked at LSEG Technology (formerly known as MillenniumIT), the technology arm of the London Stock Exchange Group as a Specialist Engineer.

Afterwards, Sapumal pursued his PhD at the Department of Information Systems and Analytics, School of Computing, National University of Singapore. The PhD thesis covers various models developed using Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics and Statistics Modelling to solve the problem of User Entity Resolution. In addition, Sapumal also worked at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, Japan to develop machine learning based low dimensional data representational methods. His research has been published in top tier research conferences such as ICIS, WITS, HCII, SCECR, FPL and ECIS.

He is currently a senior lecturer at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Sai Harish Rampe

Sr. Data Visualization Analyst

Muhammad Khizar

Assistant Manager, Reporting Data Quality Analyst

Sai Harish has around 10 years of IT experience and is currently working as a Lead Consultant(Service Analytics BI) at Apps Associates (I) Pvt. Ltd. He is responsible for creating various visualizations with Tableau. He also got good knowledge on SQL, data modelling concepts.

Prior to Apps Associates, Harish worked with Zenoti as a Tableau developer and was developing new dashboards which are used by there customers to analyze there sales etc. He also provided support wherein he analyzed the existing reports and provided fixes for them. He started his career in Accenture where in he worked with clients like BMW(Automobile industry) as a SQL support Engineer and Pfizer (Pharmaceutical industry) as a OBIEE developer.

Harish holds a B.E in Information Technology from Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Khizar is responsible for quality assurance of all Fidem reporting and analytics dashboards.

Before joining Fidem-Financial, Khizar worked for Techling Technology as a Machine Learning Engineer. Prior to that, he worked for Digital Pakistan Lab, Nust as a Data Science Research Associate. At the start of career, he worked for Xtatic Tech as a Data Scientist. His main expertise is in data reporting and data visualization using MS-Excel and Tableau.

Khizar holds a Masters degree in Data Science from Riphah International University and a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from Bahria University. He also achieved a certification of Data Visualization with Python and SQL (for Data Science) from Coursera and a SQL-Intermediate certificate from Hacker Rank. He is passionate about data analysis using latest industry software and tools.