CAROL L. GRUNBERG

Yuno – Payments Infrastructure Platform

• Provides access to 1,000+ payment providers in 200 countries, enabling merchants to process payments across gateways, card networks, ACH, alternative methods (wallets), and cryptocurrencies—all via a single API connection.
• Leverages AI-driven payment orchestration, tokenization, and intelligent routing for optimized, secure transactions.

Chief Business Officer – Leadership & Growth

• Leads strategic initiatives, market positioning, product optimization, operational excellence, and global/US expansion.
• Quadrupled company revenue by driving merchant solutions and securing new partnerships.
• Realigned organizational strategy to establish Yuno as a recognized global brand.
• Host the B2B2C podcast Payments Unpacked, sharing industry insights and showcasing the people shaping payments innovation.

Global Leadership & Innovation

• Managed global and cross-functional teams
• Operated as a highly visible global leader, identifying, evaluating, and managing innovation and growth opportunities across the group.
• Established the first digital assets line of business within Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS).
• Led a team of ~400 professionals across diverse functions to develop new payments capabilities, financial operations, and process rigor, with a strong focus on merchant services solutions.
• Collaborated closely with US regulatory bodies to deploy new capabilities and ensure compliance.

Merchant Services & Payments Innovation

• Transformed merchant services offerings by expanding digital payment solutions, optimizing transaction processing, and integrating advanced technologies for global merchants.
• Drove business growth by enhancing merchant satisfaction, streamlining payment processing, and supporting scalable merchant account management.
• Partnered with SETL Limited (UK) to develop multi-currency institutional payment and settlement solutions, leveraging tokenization on Ethereum and building blockchain architecture to replace legacy transaction rails.
• Built and led a cross-functional team spanning risk, legal, compliance, and finance to support merchant services and digital assets initiatives.
• Integrated payments, liquidity management, trade, wealth management, and commercial functions into a unified digital assets platform.
• Enabled 24/7 real-time access to cash, payments, and trade (including lending) with full asset and transaction tokenization for merchants.

Digital Assets & Blockchain Innovation

• Developed strategy, operations, and scalable technology for tokenization and Regulated Liability Network (RLN) initiatives.
• Piloted solutions with Maersk, ACP (The Panama Canal), and the New York Federal Reserve Innovation Center, achieving instantaneous payment authorization and settlement—reducing cargo ship payment delays by up to a week and enabling transparent, real-time asset exchange across eight commercial banks.
• Managed product requirements documentation in Jira within an Agile/Scrum environment for enterprise alignment and resource management.

Partnerships, Investments & Innovation

• Promoted and led global innovation labs in Dublin, Singapore, Tel Aviv, and London, comprising designers, engineers, data scientists, analysts, and product managers.
• Focused on Horizon 3 (long-term) innovations and the development of Blockchain-Based Enterprise Tokenization.
• Created and managed a strategic partnership and venture capital team within TTS, investing in FinTech firms on an 18–36 month commercial model.
• Invested in Icon Solutions (payments technology) and ChargeAfter (BNPL solution), integrating their platforms to enhance microservices orchestration and multi-lender networks for merchant services.
• Drove sustainable franchise growth by co-developing new solutions with finTech, venture capital, and Big Tech partners across payments, trade, cash management, and commercial cards.

Industry Influence

• Sought-after speaker at fintech events, focusing on digital banking, risk management, and merchant services innovation.
• Contributed to industry thought leadership and knowledge sharing.

• Led Money Movement and Retirement Income Distribution lines of business, which required cross-functional collaboration across, partners, 10 business areas and field offices.

Executive Leadership & Strategic Mandate

• Hired as an executive leader to drive business development and innovation, with a mandate to simplify client collaboration and develop transformative financial solutions.

Product & Business Line Creation

• Spearheaded the creation of a tax-advantaged retirement product, personally leading high-performing cross-functional teams across financial planning, treasury, compliance, risk, product, engineering, operations, and strategy to establish a firm-wide money movement (payments) business line.

Wealth Management & Insurance Transformation

• Took a hands-on role in integrating wealth management and insurance product solutions, leveraging technology and data insights to develop new offering; oversaw architecture, product, and engineering design to ensure operational excellence and maximize client impact.

Automation & Operational Innovation

• Enabled new retirement strategies and wealth accumulation by automating asset management, executing complex reconciliation, and pioneering financial operations that seamlessly connected money management, advisory services, and life insurance offerings.

System Integration & Business Strategy

• Initiated and led the integration of fragmented billing systems, aligned internal policies and payments, and collaborated with external experts to develop forward-thinking business strategies.

Industry Collaboration

• Collaborated closely with industry leaders—including Dr. Michael Finke, top financial advisors, Ernst & Young, actuaries, analysts, and treasury teams—to architect tax-effective strategies tailored to clients across all investment and engagement levels.

Enterprise Payments Leadership

• Founded and led Northwestern Mutual’s enterprise payments business line, “Money Movement,” building and mentoring a dedicated team of product managers, strategic partner managers, designers, and engineers to drive operational growth and innovation.

Partnerships & Investment

• Directed partnerships and investments, managing a team and investing in Fiducioso Advisors’ Income Discovery to optimize Data Vault Modeling for the new payment network; leveraged parallel pathing and strategic partnerships to deliver innovative “Retirement Income Distribution” solutions.

Intrapreneurship & Culture

• Championed an intrapreneurship incubator program, investing company resources to empower employees to launch new ventures and fostering a culture of innovation and inclusivity from the top down.

Global Expansion & Innovation Leadership

• Orchestrated the global expansion and innovation of Ant Group’s digital wallet ecosystem, including Alipay and Paytm—India’s largest secure digital payment app—among 10 leading mobile wallets, driving merchant acceptance and user growth across diverse markets.

Founding Team & Merchant Solution Leadership

• As a founding team member and merchant solution head, helped drive the creation of Alipay+, a blockchain-based cross-border mobile payments solution.
• Provided critical merchant requirements and solution needs that shaped the platform’s development, connecting over 1.5 billion consumers globally through a unified platform and enabling seamless bilateral connectivity with Ant’s suite of superapps (wallets), significantly expanding merchant services reach.

Strategic Partnerships & Market Scaling

• Built and scaled DANA (Indonesia’s digital wallet) via a strategic partnership with Google, addressing monetization challenges and enabling platform acceptance of mobile wallets through a co-developed technology stack.
• Led similar initiatives for TrueMoney (Thailand), GCash (Philippines), Touch n’ Go (Malaysia), Kakao Pay (Korea), bKash (Bangladesh), and Easypaisa (Pakistan), coordinating with local regulators for approvals and compliance.

Technology Integration & Merchant Adoption

• Led strategic collaborations and technology integrations to enhance the international acceptance of Alipay, facilitating partnerships with Poynt, Discover Card, Marqeta, and Enid Bank of Oklahoma to enable Alipay acceptance in the U.S., achieving 60% merchant adoption.
• Developed and launched an innovative payment solution with Blackhawk Network, enabling Alipay acceptance in major retail environments (Sephora, Duane Reade, CVS, Louis Vuitton) wherever gift cards are recognized, bridging digital and physical commerce.

Investment & Board Leadership

• Directed a $100M investment in the world’s first smart point of sale system, serving as Board Observer to integrate digital wallets across global physical retail networks and accelerate merchant services innovation.

Industry Vision & Recognition

• Advanced Ant Group’s vision for a globally interconnected payment ecosystem by leveraging blockchain technology, forging high-impact partnerships, and navigating complex regulatory environments, setting new standards for innovation and inclusivity in merchant services.
• Selected for Ant Group’s prestigious Executive “Ant Class” as the #1 global dealmaker—the first non-Mandarin/non-Chinese executive to achieve this distinction.

Industry Influence

• Sought-after speaker at fintech events, focusing on digital banking and risk management.

Founding Team & Google Wallet Leadership

• As a founding team member of Google Wallet, led the launch of Google’s contactless mobile payments, integrating pre-EMV terminalization and NFC technology into Android devices. Deployed NFC-enabled point-of-sale systems to merchants in Boston, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Portland, partnering with major retailers including Whole Foods, Best Buy, and McDonald’s.
• Set the foundation for Google Wallet and the development of “instant buy” (now “In-App” payments) by brokering a landmark deal between Google and Discover Card. Enabled omnichannel commerce by managing 300 million cards on file in Google Play and forging innovative partnerships with omnichannel retail, financial institutions, card processors, and emerging technology providers.
• Tested pay-by-face technology with First Data/Fiserv and McDonald’s, leading to the establishment of Android Pay. Led exploration and evaluation of blockchain and cryptocurrency partnerships to drive future innovation.
• Represented Google Payments at executive summits and high-profile industry events, including Money20/20, American Marketing Association, Women Driving Payments, Silicon Valley Women, and AMEX Women in Tech.

Google Offers & Commerce Leadership

• Led a team overseeing 12 of the 35 active US cities for Google Offers, developing a long-term strategy to diversify revenue streams beyond Google Play and AdWords. Leveraged small business partnerships, sales, content management, and Google’s marketing capabilities to pioneer omnichannel commerce.
• Founded and scaled the Commerce Product Incubation team, building and growing the group from scratch. Collaborated closely with Google engineering to launch four innovative Commerce & Payments products: Nearby Offers via Google Maps, gPOS (Google Point of Sale System), Card-Linked Offers, and the original Google Commerce & Offers, significantly expanding the user base and business impact.
• Established strategic partnerships with leading financial institutions, including Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and First Data/Fiserv. Launched 12 Google Offers markets, exceeding revenue, cadence, and customer satisfaction goals—achieving the highest performance across Google Offers regions.
• Led M&A and investment activity for Google Payments initiatives, driving business growth and strategic alignment.

Recognitions & Awards

• Recognized as a “Great Manager”—one of Google’s highest management distinctions—for fostering a culture of psychological safety, strong team culture, and consistently exceeding high-performance standards. Honored with the Global Partnership Award for exceptional business development and collaboration—two of Google’s most esteemed recognitions.

Industry Influence

• Speaker at Money2020's inaugural event

• Drove a 200% increase in mobile banking revenue through strategic partnerships and launched one of the first NFC-based mobile payments technologies in the US, setting new industry standards.

• Led the top revenue product line, boosting productivity by 20% and reducing costs by 30%, while surpassing sales targets with $15M in revenue growth in 2008.

• One year assignment in India
• Led a team responsible for over $100M in revenue growth, working with Fortune 50 clients to deliver enterprise hardware and software solutions.

• While still attending university, selected as one of seven for inaugural management leadership program.
• Exceeded $2.4B in volume goals, increased ROA by 76%, and reduced charge-offs by 1.5%, while redesigning channels to generate $17B in annual balance transfer volume. Created cash advance variable line assignments, an industry first.