Connect to customers at the heart of commerce: where they pay

EVP, Head of Merchant Payment Services

Wally Mlynarski is chief executive officer of Elavon, a global payments leader and wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bank, where he leads the delivery of secure, scalable payment solutions that help businesses serve customers and grow across the United States, Europe and Canada.

A seasoned payments executive, Mlynarski previously led merchant services and receivables at Bank of America and earlier held senior leadership roles at U.S. Bank, including serving as chief product officer in support of Elavon. His experience spans partnerships across the payments ecosystem—including acquirers, fintechs, networks and technology providers—and he is known for advancing intuitive, client focused payment innovation at scale.

Mlynarski holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, grounding his leadership in both technical expertise and customer driven execution.

President, Elavon Europe

Hemlata Narasimhan was appointed European President of Elavon Merchant Services in 2022 and is responsible for 1000 employees in seven countries.

Prior to joining Elavon, Hemlata led the merchant and acquiring business for Visa in Europe. She was also responsible for the growth in Europe of Cybersource – a payment platform acquired by Visa in 2010, and an Elavon partner.

Prior to Visa, Hemlata spent almost seven years at American Express in New York and London and had a successful career in management consulting with the Boston Consulting Group.

Hemlata is based in London.

Chief Product Officer

As Chief Product Officer, Pari Sawant spearheads the Elavon product portfolio, acting as a strategic leader, visionary, and champion for product advancements across the organization.

Prior to joining Elavon in 2022, Sawant served as Head of Product at Adobe, where he led the Document Cloud business on Adobe.com. Pari also led the launch of machine learning and AI capabilities on the Adobe Experience Platform. Prior to Adobe, Sawant held diverse senior product and technology leadership roles with MetricStream, Fiserv, eBay and Hewlett-Packard for more than 20 years.

Sawant has an MBA from the Haas School of Business, Berkeley and a Masters in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Head of Merchant Business Banking

Jordan Owen leads a team of 200+ who drive merchant success within business banking at Elavon. With a remarkable track record of driving innovation in the payments space, both in bank-backed institutions and private equity funded fintech’s, Owen has also previously led new country expansion for the likes of the Dutch payments firm Mollie and has held leadership positions and commercial roles at Barclaycard, Worldpay and Morgan Stanley.

Owen has dedicated her career to championing excellence in merchant solutions and has cultivated strong relationships with industry partners along the way, delivering results and solutions that optimize for customer experience, efficiency, and profitability.

Owen holds a Bachelor of Arts in English literature from Durham University and post-graduate qualifications from the London School of Economics.

Head of Partner Revenue

Leading our Partner Revenue team, Paul Sari has responsibilities for signing and growing our merchant business through strategic partnerships including financial institutions, merchant service providers and tech-led software. 

Before Paul joined Elavon in 2021, he served as the Chief Commercial Officer at PayFlex. He previously worked at BNY Mellon as the Managing Director for Platinum Client Group in their investment management and wealth management businesses. He has also led the business development and client management functions for JPMorgan Chase and its corporate prepaid card franchise. In addition to his successful payment services career, Paul served as an Infantry Officer in the United States Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment. 

Paul has a bachelor’s degree from The Citadel and a Master of Business Administration from the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

Head of North America Marketing

Shawn Holmes is Head of North America Marketing for U.S. Bank Merchant Payment Services. In this role, he partners with leaders across the enterprise to shape marketing strategy and deliver data-informed programs that drive demand, accelerate sales pipeline growth, strengthen brand impact, and deepen client engagement.

Prior to joining U.S. Bank, Shawn spent more than a decade at Visa, most recently serving as Head of Marketing for Visa Direct. There, he led global and regional teams across product marketing, partner marketing, events, and account-based demand generation, supporting sustainable growth and competitive differentiation.

Shawn holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from San José State University, an MBA from Franklin University, and a master’s degree in engineering management from Santa Clara University. He has also served as an advisor to California State University’s Digital Marketing program.

Head of Strategic Projects

As the Head of Strategic Projects and a member of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), Danielle Balch oversees a range of global initiatives and drives the strategic priorities for U.S. Bank, Merchant Payment Services (MPS). Alongside the Head of MPS, Balch works to remove roadblocks, provide strategic support, and drive accountability within the leadership team for timely delivery against business goals. She also plays a pivotal role in evolving the SLT operating model to foster greater alignment and elevate the business operations IQ of the leadership team, as well as streamline processes and reduce administrative burdens, ensuring the seamless coordination of senior leadership events.

Outside of her primary responsibilities, Balch serves as co-chair and mentor for the U.S. Bank Atlanta Black Leadership Council, is a champion for the Women in Payments partnership and is a member of Management Leaders for Tomorrow.

Head of Elavon POS Sales Enablement and Onboarding

John leads the Customer Solutions & Success teams for Elavon.  He has also led the Elavon POS business unit.   

For most of his career, he has been helping businesses (mostly SMBs) reach their highest potential across a variety of offerings.  Before joining Elavon in 2021, John was the CEO of Adentro, a venture-backed technology company focused on driving in-store traffic to businesses from online advertising.  Prior to Adentro, John ran the Business to Consumer business for eBay North America, which enabled  over 130K SMBs to expand their sales to new buyers.  John has also held senior positions at Yahoo!, Tellapart and Criteo, where he grew revenue 33x in 3 years.  

John has a B.A. with Honors from Brown University and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center cum laude.  

Head of Acquiring Risk and Compliance

Kevin Troxell is responsible for providing a holistic view on business line risks as well as U.S. Bank risk framework implementation within the business. He leads a team that assesses new industry trends and emerging risks. Troxell is also responsible for driving business enablement through business line engagement while maintaining risk frameworks.

Before joining U.S. Bank, he spent a decade at Bank of America in positions of increasing leadership responsibility in risk management and regulatory compliance.

Troxell earned his bachelor’s degree in finance from Virginia Tech. He is also attending the executive banking school at the Consumer Bankers Association.

Global Head of Strategy and Corporate Development

Manny Cofresi Jr. oversees Elavon’s global strategy, mergers and acquisitions, strategic investments, and strategic partnerships.

Prior to joining Elavon, Manny held various senior executive roles within Automatic Data Processing, membership on the International Executive Committee, and acted as a Board Member for ADP’s operations in Mainland China. He has also served as a Strategic Advisor to WestSphere, a Private Equity firm, and as an Investment Banker at Merrill Lynch and Citigroup.

Manny has an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering/Device Physics from Cornell University, a Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) designation, and a Charter Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. He is also a Director Member of the Latino Corporate Directors Association. 

Chief Credit Officer, Elavon and Small Business Credit Cards

Akash leads the global credit and fraud risk management organization, which oversees underwriting and loss prevention at Elavon, as well as airline credit globally. In addition, Dua is also responsible for the credit risk management of small business credit cards. Prior to his current role, Dua served as the Senior Vice President of Consumer Risk Management at U.S. Bank.

Before joining U.S. Bank Dua worked for Amazon in product leadership for their NA co-branded credit card programs. Additionally, Dua’s experience includes risk leadership roles at Lending Club and American Express and consulting roles at Fair Issac.

Dua holds an MBA in Finance from the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon and graduated with honors in Economics from Delhi University.

Head of Merchant Payment Services Global Operations

Rob Grant is the Head of Merchant Payment Services (MPS) Global Operations. Prior to this role, Rob was SVP of Product and Sales Operations & Portfolio Management and a key member of the senior leadership team at Elavon, bringing over 26 years of experience in the financial services industry.

In 2019, Grant rejoined U.S. Bank to lead the Enterprise Program Management Office (EPMO) for Elavon. Before this, Grant was the Executive Director at JPMC, where he led the firm's transformational international expansion initiative. Since 1999, Grant has been part of Elavon, serving as Chief of Staff and Head of the Enterprise Program Management Office, playing a crucial role in delivering high-value solutions to customers and partners.

Grant holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and an MBA from the University of Georgia.

Head of Technology, North America

As Head of Technology for Elavon North America, Sebastian Paul leads the region’s technology strategy and delivery, driving innovation to enhance platform security, reliability, and customer experience for merchants and partners.

Prior to his current role at Elavon, Paul served as Head of Engineering for online/mobile banking and open banking within the consumer banking technology team at U.S. Bank, where he led critical technology and digital transformation initiatives. Before joining U.S. Bank, Paul worked at BestBuy and GE Capital, driving major digital transformation and data analytics programs.

Paul holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering with a specialization in robotics and AI from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and graduated with honors in mechanical engineering from Calicut University.

SVP, Engineering

As SVP of Engineering, Richie Walsh leads global gateway and point-of-sale products alongside European technology teams. His role focuses on supporting product innovation, revenue growth, overseeing enterprise architecture, digital transformation, and implementing advanced continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices and AI to drive operational excellence.

Prior to joining Elavon in 2023, Richie served as Senior Director of Engineering at Worldpay overseeing a multi-year transformation of acquiring technology onto a modern technology stack enabling the business to scale globally. Prior to Worldpay, Richie held diverse founding and senior roles within fintech, retail, corporate and investment banking with Taskize (Founding Team), Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, RBS Capital Markets and Mysis.

Richie has a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Limerick and is based out of London.