Mar 15, 2016
Alex W. ‘Pete’ Hart is the Chairman of the Board of Verifone Systems a credit card terminal payment systems company and financial services industry veteran.
With a 50-year distinguished track record of leadership in the financial services industry, Pete has acted as a consultant specializing in emerging payment and distribution systems. His particular focus is e-commerce and its impact on the consumer banking industry. Pete was the former CEO of Advanta Corporation, a diversified financial services company and the President and Chief Executive Officer of MasterCard International. While at MasterCard, he served as Chairman of the Board of Maestro International, the global debit-system, and was a member of the board of directors of Europay International. He was a key member of the Silicon Valley Bancshares Board of Directors starting in 2001 and also became the Chairman of the Board of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) Financial Group.
Prior to joining MasterCard, Pete spent 10 years at First Interstate Bancorp, the 17-state multi-bank holding company which is now part of Wells Fargo. While with First Interstate, he became the founding chairman of the board of the CIRRUS System, which is now the world’s largest network of shared automated teller machines. Pete’s distinguished career also includes various positions with the First National Bank of Chicago and BancOhio.
He has served on numerous board of directors such as Lending Club; Fair Isaac Corporation a predictive software company; Global Payments, Inc., a payment services company;eHarmony.com; Mitek a mobile capture deposits company, Actrade Financial Technologies; Sanchez Computer Associates; HNC Software; Retek Inc.; Shopping.com; US Encode; and Sequal Technologies, Inc. He has also been an advisor to many companies including Tempo Payments, NoLie MRI, Cimbal Technologies, Dealtime, Humetix, and Orbiscom.
Hart graduated from Harvard University in 1962. He completed studies at the graduate school of Bank Marketing at the University of Colorado and the graduate program for Data Processing Management at Harvard Business School.
Pete was and has worked as an independent consultant to the financial services industry since 1997. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Advanta Corporation, a public diversified financial services company from 1995 to 1997, where he had previously served as Executive Vice Chairman from 1994 to 1995. Prior to joining Advanta, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of MasterCard International, a worldwide payment service provider from 1994 to 1998.
I first came into contact with Pete back in 1995 after I had graduated from law school, passed the bar I was looking to become counsel to credit card bank Advanta. he was also captain of the Harvard football team of 1961 so we are talking to a true leader.
Pete says, when it comes to success it is a matter of “being able to do the things I like to do with the people I like doing them with and feeling as if I am being paid acceptable beyond that there is not a whole lot to it“
You can learn more about Pete and what he does on his company website at www.verifone.com and connect with him on LinkedIn.
Happy listening!
Verifone Systems was created back in 1981 by William ‘Bill’ Melton. The Verifone story is extremely inspirational and every business startup and entrepreneur learn from the founder and executives of the company.