FSTC Board of Directors Biographies
Mark SB Tiggas, Vice Chair of FSTC Board
Senior Vice President,Systems Architect, Wells Fargo Services Company
Mark SB Tiggas has more than 20 years experience in distributed computing,
including more than 15 years in Internet development. He has been with Wells
Fargo Services Company for seven years. During that time, Mr. Tiggas has led
the technology for payments related e-commerce initiatives. He also serves as
Wells Fargo & Company's representative to industry initiatives, such as
the IFX Forum, FSTC, and the W3C.
Mr. Tiggas has been a key player in the International Financial Exchange Forum
(IFX), with which he is a member of the board of directors; is active in several
working groups, including architecture; and served as a past president. The
IFX Forum has been active in the development of an XML vocabulary for the communication
of financial information. Initially, this work focused on retail banking and
bill presentment, and has of late incorporated corporate payments, foreign exchange,
and ATM support.
Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Mr. Tiggas led two systems and development consulting
organizations in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., while also participating as
an active consultant. During this time, he introduced several businesses, including
many Fortune 500 companies, to the Internet and e-commerce. While serving as
the chief technician for an information services company, Mr. Tiggas was named
twice on the list of Fortune magazine's 50 fastest growing companies, and was
the principal architect behind a distributed search and retrieval system used
to house and research technical information.
Mr. Tiggas began his career as an industrial engineer for a Fortune 500 company,
introducing mini and microcomputers into the manufacturing environment for test,
measurement, and reporting.
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Alice Livers
Managing Director - Control and Risk Management GroupAlice Livers has responsibility for the Control and Risk Management
Group, a division within the Centralized Transaction Operations (CTO)
organization at JPMorgan Chase. Overseeing firmwide centers of
excellence for Reconciliation Services, Tax Reporting and Withholding
Services, Customer Confirmations, Bankruptcy Reporting and CTR
Processing, with sites in the U.S., Europe and India, as well as
ensuring a strong risk and control focus are key to the success of the
CTO group.
Alice has been with JPMorgan Chase (formerly BankOne) for 19 years and
has held positions as CFO for National Enterprise Operations, Industry
Initiatives and Strategy for Treasury Services, Payment Strategy for
CTO, and various Chief Administrative roles.
Alice and her husband Phil live in Arlington, Texas.
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 Gary Word
Director, Operations and Technology, Citigroup
Gary Word is a Director and Senior Architect within Citigroup's Operations and Technology Office. He has more than 20 years of information technology experience, of which 13 years have been in the financial services sector. Most recently, he founded, and for two years chaired, Citigroup's Architecture Council, which has created technology standards and the discipline of enterprise-wide architecture across Citigroup.
He has been involved with the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) since 1996, when he chaired a working group on network computing. He has served on the FSTC Executive Council since 2006.
Prior to joining Citigroup in 1994, he was a Staff Scientist with the Superconducting Supercollider in Dallas, with responsibilities for setting software development standards and developing software frameworks.
He earned a Ph.D. in Physics from Vanderbilt University and Bachelors of Arts in Mathematics and Physics from Jacksonville Univeristy. He currently resides in Princeton Junction, NJ, with his wife and two children.
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Garry Briggs
Senior Vice President
Image Infrastructure and Payment Integration Executive
Service and Fulfillment Operations – Image and Electronic Payment Services, Bank of America
Garry currently leads the Image Infrastructure and Payment Integration Team, concentrating on the design, delivery and implementation of infrastructure and operating procedures to support Check21-enabled processes for image and electronic payments processes. The team also drives strategies for global payment integration, simplification of the payments industry infrastructure and the exploration of interbank exchange partnerships.
Prior to his current role, Garry led the MBNA and US Trust Transition activities for Service and Fulfillment Operations and selected technology teams from Capital Markets and Wholesale Banking Technology. In addition he manages the Infrastructure and Payments Integration division which had responsibility for design and delivery of image and ACH processes. In 2005 he led the Planning & Engineering Teams of Transaction Services Technology which included Strategy & Architecture, Project Office, Risk Management and Process Improvement Teams.
Garry has spent the last 32 years in the financial services sector the last 28 with Bank of America. There he has held leadership positions in Transaction Services, Wholesale Banking Operations, led a multiple state ACH, Lockbox, ARP operation, Treasury Operations where he managed Wire Transfer, Float, Fed Position & Trading and Correspondent Bank Operations, in addition he led the Trust & Private Banking Operations in legacy Security Pacific.
Garry holds a BA degree in Philosophy. He is well know leader nationally and has been a strong advocate and frequent member of many banking industry associations and consortiums across the past 3 decades. Garry lives in Seattle with his two children and enjoys Life.
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David S. Downing, Sr. Vice President-Centralized Operations Group
David Downing has responsibility for the Central Operations Group, a division accountable for operational productivity and efficiency. Overseeing operations as diverse as infrastructure, processing, and technology, he is responsible for transforming First National Bank into a best-in-class organization in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.
David joined First National from JPMorgan Chase, where he led the successful integration and transformation of a Central Operations Group. While there, he increased productivity and growth while eliminating redundant processes and costs. Prior to joining JPMorgan Chase, David spent 6 years with Bank One and 15 years in operations at US Bank.
David and his wife Cindy have a daughter who lives and works in Boston.
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George Surdu
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Comerica
Bank
George Surdu is a Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Comerica Bank. In this capacity Mr. Surdu oversees Comerica’s Information Services department. He is responsible for business technology services (applications for wholesale banking, retail banking, transaction processing, commercial loans/credit, trust, corporate, and affiliate services), infrastructure management (mainframe and server operations), information security, architecture and technology planning, telecommunications (Wide Area Network data and voice), and workstation management.
George retired from Ford Motor in 2005. During his 28 years at Ford, he held numerous senior executive positions, including CIO positions for Ford Parts Distribution Systems and the Office of the General Counsel, head of the Company's global application development services, and global IT infrastructure. As Strategic Planning Manager for Ford Credit he developed the IT strategy in support of the business as it consolidated operations in North America. During the mid 1990s, he led the business and IT reengineering efforts for Product Development, and as the year 2000 approached, led the Company's global Year 2000 Program that successfully remediated and certified technology in all cars and trucks back to 1977 (first EEC-1 modules), all plant floor control and robotic systems, all supplier and dealer interfaces, all Ford Land physical infrastructure, all IT infrastructure, and more than 350 million lines of code. Following the year 2000 effort, he developed and successfully implemented a global simplification and defragmentation strategy that reduced operating costs by more than $300 million annually
George is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University where he obtained a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and a master's degree in Pure and Applied Mathematics. He has completed course work toward an MBA, and has attended numerous technology, process reengineering, program management, leadership and change management courses over his professional career. George and his wife of 35 years, Margaret, live in Novi, Michigan. They have two children, Tracie and Trevor, both graduates of Michigan State University, and two grandchildren.
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Daniel R. Vermeire
Chief Technology Officer, Huntington National Bank
Daniel R. Vermeire is Chief Technology Officer at Huntington National Bank,
and is responsible for enterprise architecture, managing a team of architects
that provide leadership in the evaluation and design of new technology solutions
and capabilities.
During his 16-year career with Huntington, Mr. Vermeire has held various technology
roles, including Vice President of Strategic Technologies and Manager of Applied
Technologies. He also managed several large enterprise projects and worked as
an application systems developer. Mr. Vermeire has performed key technology
leadership roles in several major Huntington initiatives, including the inception
and launch of e-Bank; deployment of an enterprise-wide, seven-year image archive
system; implementation of smart card technologies; and the launch and management
of Huntington's initial Internet presence.
Mr. Vermeire has been involved with the Financial Services Technology Consortium
(FSTC) since 1994. He has sponsored Huntington National Bank's involvement in
several of FSTC's research projects including: Interbank Check Imaging (served
as project director during 1996-97 of this inaugural project for the FSTC),
e-Check, Network Computing, and the Financial Agent Secured Transactions projects.
Mr. Vermeire earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science with minors
in mathematics and psychology from Youngstown State University in Youngstown.
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John Voss
Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Marshall and Ilsley Corporation
John Voss is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of the Marshall and
Ilsley Corporation (M&I), a $43 billion bank holding company headquartered
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mr. Voss has the overall responsibility for technology
strategy development and execution for the financial services enterprises of
the Marshall and Ilsley Corporation, which includes M&I Bank.
Prior to joining M&I in February 1999, Mr. Voss spent more than 21 years
at Huntington National Bank of Columbus, Ohio. During his career at Huntington,
he held a number of technology management positions, including Manager of Systems
and Programming, Director of Information Systems, and Chief Technology Officer.
Mr. Voss served as the chair of Huntington’s 1993 United Way campaign.
He also held several leadership positions, including chairman of the Texas Instruments
Information Engineering Facility Users Group. Mr. Voss served on the FSTC Board
of Directors from 1994 through 1998.
Mr. Voss and his wife, Julie, have three children: Erin, Stephanie, and Kevin.
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Leigh Williams
President, BITS
Leigh Williams was appointed President of BITS in April 2007. Previously,
Mr. Williams was a Senior Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University, in the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and
Government. While at Harvard, his research focused on public and private
sector collaboration in the governance of privacy and security. Prior to
joining the Kennedy School, Mr. Williams worked for many years at Fidelity
Investments in various risk management, security and privacy roles, including
Chief Risk Officer and Chief Privacy Officer. His most recent position at
Fidelity was Senior Vice President, Public Policy. While with Fidelity
Investments, Mr. Williams served the industry in a variety of leadership roles,
including many within BITS and the rest of The Financial Services Roundtable.
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Rick Leander
Executive Director of the Strategic Forum
Chief Strategy Officer of The Clearing House
R.C. (Rick) Leander is the Executive Director of the Strategic Forum and Chief Strategy Officer of The Clearing House (TCH), the nation’s oldest and most innovative payments association and processor. His charter is to identify, evaluate and implement new business opportunities and strategic investments to ensure the long term success and viability of The Clearing House. The Strategic Forum assesses the continuing evolution of the payments business and the implications of these changes on the industry. Its members and other industry leaders work together to preserve the safety, soundness and viability of the payments industry infrastructure.
Before joining The Clearing House, Rick was the Chief Executive Officer of Avantrust, a wholly owned subsidiary of AIG, responsible for developing products to address emerging risk issues for corporations and consumers as well as for developing and managing alternative distribution processes for traditional AIG products.
Prior to joining Avantrust, he held a number of senior positions at Mellon Financial, Bank of America and Citicorp, where he focused on eBusiness development, customer delivery and transaction banking with posts in North America, Europe and Asia.
He is a graduate of the University of Texas @ Austin and is currently working on a Masters of Science degree in Public Policy and Management at the University of London and on his private pilot’s license and continues to fine tune his tournament poker skills. He currently resides in North Carolina with his wife, Madison.
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James B. Cole
Senior Vice President
Bank of Oklahoma, N.A.
Mr. Cole has been in banking for 26 years with such organizations as Bank One, EDS and JPMorgan Chase. In his career he has managed virtually every aspect of bank operations and technology. He is currently a Senior Vice President with Bank of Oklahoma managing Enterprise Support Services which includes, Business Resiliency, Information Security, Procurement, Corporate Real Estate and Business Transformation and Development (training and development for Operations and Technology).
Jim holds a Bachelors of Science from The Ohio State University and a Masters of Business Administration from Xavier University. He is a board member of the Tulsa Zoo Friends and the Sooner Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Society. Jim and his wife Melissa reside in Tulsa, Oklahoma with their four children.
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