AFM CONSULTING - Key Persons

Aaron McPherson has spent 25 years as a senior executive, C-level advisor, and thought leader in the financial services and payments industry. His core skill sets are in executive leadership and product development, research, and data analysis, and thought leadership and content creation. He is most interested in how we can use data to get the best answers to questions about market share, growth potential, and competitive positioning. As a seasoned executive, Aaron has served in a range of senior roles across financial product and research functions and has a consistent track record of driving innovation and high returns on investment. As the Senior Vice President for Global Payments Strategy at FIS, Aaron created a market model that drove $9.6 billion in acquisitions of Clear2Pay and Sungard, as well as $200 million in investments to streamline product development and enter new markets. In addition to executive management, Aaron has extensive expertise in leading financial research teams and conducting advanced data analysis. As the Vice President of Research Operations at Mercator Advisory Group, Aaron drove 20% year-over-year growth and spearheaded four new product lines, including vendor comparisons, a worldwide payments model, a bank council, and international consumer surveys with a market opportunity of over $500,000. At IDC (International Data Corporation), Aaron directed and built the Global Payments Research Practice from scratch, creating an innovative model for implementing enterprise payments strategy. He also played a leading role in the creation of several new products including the Bank IT Spending Guide, which he later used at FIS to build a core market model. He was also a leader in applying innovative approaches to market analysis, such as System Dynamics (invented at MIT) and consumer payments adoption tracking surveys. Aside from his roles at leading firms, Aaron has also been a thought leader in payments, financial regulation, and data sharing. Specifically, Aaron has been an influential speaker and writer on topics such as mobile and enterprise payments, tokenization, digital currency, and digital wallets. His ideas have been featured in publications such as American Banker, New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Digital Transactions as well as on his own blog. He has spoken at national and international conferences such as Money 2020 and NACHA Payments and advises C-level executives and Fortune 500 companies on a range of strategic issues in the payments space.