Australian Payments Plus Board

Catherine Brenner BEcLLB MBA FAICD

Independent Chair

Catherine has extensive financial services and business experience and has held executive and non-executive roles across many sectors. In addition to being Chair of Australian Payments Plus, Catherine is a non-executive director of the Scentre Group, The George Institute for Global Health, Carindale Property Trust, and Djerriwarrh Investments Limited.

Catherine was previously non-executive Chair of AMP Limited and a non-executive director of Boral Limited and Coca-Cola Amatil Limited. She was also a Trustee of the Sydney Opera House Trust and the Art Gallery of NSW, a member of the Takeovers Panel, and a non-executive director of Schools Plus. Catherine was a senior investment banker at ABN AMRO and BZW. Catherine is a Fellow of the Institute of Company Directors, a member of Chief Executive Women and a Panel member of Adara Partners.

Jonathan Adams

Executive, Enterprise Payments & Digital Assets, NAB

Jonathan is an accomplished executive with over 25 years’ experience in the financial services industry, including nearly 20 years in transaction banking. Jonathan has been with NAB for 10 years and has lead the Enterprise Payments business for the last 5 years.

His role has accountability for run and change for Account to Account payments covering all franchise customer segments, from retail customers up to Institutional and FI clients. Jonathan is responsible for managing domestic and international payments including the AUD Clearing product proposition, with a focus on improving customer experience and driving innovation in payment processing.

During this time, NAB has delivered market leading payments innovation including AUD clearing through NPP, Australia’s real time payment rails, and Pay by Bank for eCommerce, subscription and recurring payments.

Bianca Bates

Managing Director, Head of Payments J.P. Morgan Australia & New Zealand

Bianca has over 25 years of financial industry experience across Australia, Hong Kong and the UK. She is currently the Head of Payments, Australia & New Zealand at J.P. Morgan covering payables, receivables including merchant acquiring, liquidity, foreign exchange, account services, channels, escrow and trade solutions.

As Head of the Payments business, Bianca is responsible for business strategy, product development, innovation, marketing, client experience and overall business governance. She manages teams across sales, product, client service, implementations, operations and technology.

Prior to J.P. Morgan worked at Citi and UBS.  She has previously served on the board of the Australian Payments Network and sits on the Industry Advisory Group for Project Acacia.

Jeff Bryne

Managing Director, Global Transaction Services at Westpac Institutional Bank

As Managing Director, Global Transaction Services, Jeff has global responsibility for helping corporate, financial institution and government clients with the operation and digital transformation of their finance and treasury functions. Jeff was appointed Managing Director, Global Transaction Services (GTS) in November 2021.

Jeff Byrne has worked in banking for 27 years, 15 of those with Westpac leading business units in Australian commercial banking, our operations across the South Pacific, and presently in the GTS division of Westpac Institutional Bank. Prior to Westpac, Jeff worked at Macquarie Bank in roles in internal audit, credit risk management, relationship management and sales leadership. Jeff holds a commerce degree from the University of Sydney, a graduate diploma in applied finance and investment, and is an associate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. 

Greg Cooper

Independent Director

Greg has 30 years global investment industry experience. He was CEO of Schroder Investment Management Australia from 2006 through to 2018 and ran Schroders Institutional Business globally. Before joining Schroders, Greg was the Head of the actuarial and asset consulting practice for Towers Perrin in Asia.

Greg is a Director of NSW Treasury Corporation, Perpetual, Catholic Church Insurance, EdStart, OpenInvest Holdings, Milkwood Creations, Tracks Media and Chair of Colonial First State Investments and Avanteos. He is also a Director and Ambassador of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation and a Member of the St Ignatius’ College Investment Committee. He previously served as a Board Member for the Financial Services Council, including as its Chair for the last three years of his term.

Kate Crous

Executive General Manager, Everyday Business Banking, CBA

Kate Crous is Executive General Manager, Everyday Business Banking at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. She is responsible for business transaction and deposit products, merchant payment solutions and specialist distribution across transaction banking, and oversees investment delivery for the portfolio.

With more than 20 years’ experience across Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa, Kate previously led Everyday Banking in CBA’s Retail Bank. She contributed to the development of Australia’s Consumer Data Right as a member of the Data Standards Advisory Committee and led CBA’s Open Banking program. She served on the NSW Digital Identity Ministerial Advisory Council and is a member of Chief Executive Women.

Nigel Dobson

Banking Services Lead, ANZ

Nigel has responsibility for ANZ’s payments platform strategy and operating the bank’s payment services across 32 countries. He manages the Wholesale Digital team and leads the bank’s Digital Assets strategy and activities. He is Chair of Lygon 1B, a digital bank guarantee start-up and a Fellow of Blockchain Australia.

Before this role, Nigel worked in a number of senior Transaction Banking roles at ANZ. Prior to joining ANZ, Nigel spent 19 years working for Citi in various senior Markets and Transaction Services roles in Australia and the Asia Pacific region.

Rachel Grimes AM

Independent Director

Ms Grimes has worked in financial services for the past 30 years and is the Deputy Chair of the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre, the Director of the Australian Professional and Ethics Standards Board, the Director of Loreto Ministries Limited, the Non-executive Director of ASX-listed HUB24 Limited, and the Chair of the Finance and Audit Committee for Surfing Australia.

Previously, Ms Grimes held senior executive roles in financial services at BT Financial Group, Westpac and Challenger Financial Group.

Shane Healey

General Manager, Group Treasury, Retail Payment Solutions and Property Finance, Coles Group

Shane is an accomplished executive with over 20 years’ experience spanning transactional banking, treasury, financial risk management, capital management, enterprise-scale payments, insurance and financial operations in ASX-listed organisations and is a Certified Practicing Accountant. 

At Coles Group, he is responsible for all group treasury related activities including funding, capital management and financial risk management.  He also holds end-to-end accountability within Retail Payment Solutions for the payments operating model, including governance frameworks, financial controls, authorisation structures, and settlement integrity, and responsible for commercial outcomes across acquiring, scheme and provider contracts. 

Prior to joining Coles, Shane worked at ASX listed organisations, Orora Group and Amcor Limited in Treasury and senior management roles.

Craig Kennedy

Managing Director, Cuscal

Craig is Managing Director of Cuscal where he is responsible for the corporate leadership, strategy and direction. Craig has more than 35 years’ experience in the financial services sector, with particular expertise in digital banking and payments.

Over the past 25 years Craig has been a director of listed and unlisted public companies and a part of a team that built and operationalised two new retail banks in Australia. Prior to joining Cuscal, Craig was the Managing Director of Espreon Limited. He was also Head of Direct Banking at ING and has held a number of senior positions at Advance Bank Australia and the State Bank of New South Wales.

Kees Kwakernaak

Chief Operating Officer Fat Zebra

Kees is COO at Fat Zebra, a payment gateway, payment service provider and open data intermediary. Prior to joining Fat Zebra in 2024 Kees worked at Fiserv as Regional Head of Merchant Services and as Managing Director of Fiserv’s operations in Australia, NZ & the Pacific.

Before Fiserv Kees worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he was Managing Director of the Global Treasury Services business and Head of Commercial Cards for Asia Pacific. He also worked at NAB where he was the Head of Payable & Receivable Products, Working Capital Services and held a number of senior roles at MasterCard International.

Chris Mills

Managing Director, Wpay

Chris is an accomplished leader and executive with over 25 years’ experience driving transformative change across the corporate sector. He is currently the Managing Director of Wpay, a leading omni channel payments platform operating across Australia and New Zealand that is owned by Woolworths Group. Chris joined Woolworths Group in 2018 and prior to his role with Wpay was General Manager and Head of Mergers & Acquisitions with responsibility for corporate development, acquisitions and divestments, strategic investments and partnerships, and equity market transactions for the Group.

Prior to joining Woolworths Group, Chris spent more than 15 years in investment banking with Goldman Sachs, where he was Head of Consumer, Retail and Healthcare in Australia & New Zealand, and Citi. Chris also serves as a Non-Executive Director of Weave Youth & Community Services.

Naomi Simson - FAICD

Independent Director

Naomi had a corporate career in marketing with Apple, IBM, Ansett and KPMG before founding RedBalloon, an online marketplace for experiences, in 2001. RedBalloon now sits within Big Red Group, which she co-founded in 2017. In addition to offering wholesale services, platforms and technology to experience operators Big Red Group also houses consumer brands; Adrenaline, Experience Oz, Local Agent and EverythingNZ.

Known as an entrepreneur and business leader, Naomi is also a best-selling author, podcaster and speaker and is passionate about helping small businesses succeed.

Naomi sits on a number of boards including WeebitNano Limited (ASX: WBT), Colonial First State,  Big Red Group, University of Melbourne Economics and Business Faculty and Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation.