Meet Our Team
David Brillembourg Founder & co-Chairman of the Board
David is a seasoned entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience developing companies that take advantage of macro opportunities in finance, emerging technologies, demographic and macro trends. Over the past 25 years, he has been focused on the convergence of payments, finance, hospitality and blockchain technology.
Having founded and successfully exited from several start ups in the telecom/payment space. Including Cyclelogic sold to Starmedia Networks in 1999 (NYSE). He is back day to day to Emida his second start up company which he founded in 2001 and merged with Debisys in 2005. He has been on the Emida board for the past 15 years. He comes from a third generation Banker Family, and graduated Summa Cum Laude in Finance from Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.
Bob Pevenstein (MBA, CPA), Founder & co-Chairman of the Board
Bob joined Emida’s Board of Directors in 2007. He provides over 45 years of seasoned public company financial executive, governance and board experience including the chairman’s role across diverse industries.
He has led over 35 M&A transactions and been an entrepreneur and founder of two technology companies. Bob’s experience includes: Founder of SensorComm Technologies (IoT) and AcuStream (Healthcare IT); Board Chairman of QuadraMed Corp (NASDAQ, $150m Healthcare IT company) and Copper Mesa Mining Corp (TSX); Vice Chairman (University System of Maryland Board of Regents), CFO of UNC Inc. (NYSE, $1bn Aviation Aftermarket company); Price Waterhouse; and U.S. Army officer.
Shane Belovsky, Chief Executive Officer
Shane has been with Emida since 2007 and contributes over 18 years of experience in executive leadership, business development and business operations in SaaS, wireless products and payments.
As Chief Executive Officer of EMIDA, Shane leads an innovative and entrepreneurial team across three countries –the U.S., Mexico, and Colombia. Most recently, he has worked closely with the Board of Directors and EMIDA’s executive team to devise and implement a strategy to leverage EMIDA’s current assets while preparing the Company to realize its vision of advancing financial inclusion for the underbanked, particularly in the U.S., Mexico, Latin American and the Caribbean. Shane graduated with honors from the University of California, Irvine, with a BA in Psychology.
Martyn Fricker, Chief Operating Officer
Martyn joined Emida in 2005. He manages Emida’s International division and is responsible for strategic business development and relationships with vendors, partners, service providers and customers in all markets.. His previous experience includes business, marketing, and service development roles in the Americas, Asia & Europe at Cable & Wireless, Binariang Bhd, and Telewest plc. Martyn holds a BSc, Mathematics from Manchester University, UK, and a MSc, Operational Research from Southampton University, UK.
Aldo Mizrahi, Chief Marketing Officer and GM Mexico
Aldo heads EMIDAMex, Emida’s subsidiary in Mexico and is responsible for the the marketing strategy and marketing operations of the company, as well as driving revenue growth through effective marketing campaigns and initiatives. Before joining Emida, Aldo led a range of companies , most notably creating and implementing the first in Mexico to offer expansion and cryopreservation of dental stem cells. Aldo holds a BS in Informatics from Anahuac University.
Zia Karim, Chief Technology Officer/Chief Product Officer
Zia is a seasoned fintech executive with deep experience in banking, blockchain / crypto and start-ups. His previous experience includes leadership roles at Goldman Sachs, Barclays Wealth and Temenos. More recently, he has been active in the start-up ecosystem and founded, built & exited a video based B2B e-commerce platform. Zia holds an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Sheffield, UK and a postgraduate degree in Computer Studies from Sheffield Hallam University, UK.
Anish Kurian, Financial Controller
Anish has 15 years of experience in accounting, taxation, and auditing within public accounting and private sectors. He joined Emida in 2012 after spells in public accounting in India, as Group Internal Auditor with Abdulla Fouad Holding Company, one of the largest in Middle East. Anish manages the company’s financials, cash, banking relationships and accounting processes, as well as financial projects. Anish holds a Bachelor’s in Accounting from Mahatma Gandhi University, India and completed Articleship from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Aura Patricia Mora, Chief Solutions Officer and GM Colombia
With nearly three decades of professional experience, Aura brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her role leading cross-functional teams at Emida. Over the past 19 years, she has been instrumental in developing and implementing solutions to ensure the company can deliver exceptional value to its customers. Aura is responsible for bringing EMIDA’s diverse range of products, services, systems, and more to the market with efficiency and effectiveness. Prior to joining Emida, Aura honed her skills as a technology consultant in the financial industry. Her strong academic background, with a Systems Engineering degree from the National University of Colombia and an MBA from Externado University, further strengthens her ability to drive business success.
Angélica Pelaez, VP of Innovation
Angélica has over 20 years of software development and integration project experience. At EMIDA, she is responsible for managing and scaling our software engineering & QA organization. Angie worked for Unisys before joining Emida, is a PMP-certified Project Manager and is a Systems Engineer from the National University of Colombia.
Cesar Forero, Senior VP of Information Technology & Security
Cesar has about 17 years of experience in IT including production systems management, VLDB systems administration, OLTP, IT service virtualization, infrastructure services in CLOUD and hybrid environments. He has experience in banking sectors and consulting services for database design, performance tuning and database administration, he has been part both of IT production teams but also development areas which make him a team player with a deep orientation to customer service, automation and teamwork, seeking the greatest possible synergy. He count with a professional degree in Systems Engineering from “Universidad Catolica de Colombia”, a specialist certificate in technology management from EAN University and specialist certificate in computer security at “Universidad Piloto”. Cesar has been part of the Emida team for 10 years, leading the team in charge of infrastructure of production, development and testing systems, providing the necessary architectures to maintain fault-resilient systems , recoverable, available and safe according to the levels of service required by our internal and external clients. Currently Cesar lead the efforts in production systems to apply to DevOps culture adding innovation to the always changing rules in IT, he also study Lean IT culture as part of his interest in continual improvement.
Allison Seyler, VP/GM of USA
Allison heads EMIDA USA and is responsible for building, creating, and maintaining US markets. Before joining Emida, Allison worked in account roles at The Irvine Company. She holds a BA in English Literature from University of California, Irvine.
Jan Salinas, VP of Operations
Jan has over 15 years of experience building and leading Customer Support teams in the Telecommunications industry. His primary focus is to lead teams towards offering the best possible quality of service, maintaining ultimate levels customer satisfaction levels. He joined EMIDA in 2011 and has been a major contributor in the positioning of the EMIDA Customer Service team as a worldwide leader in the prepaid industry. Jan currently holds the role of Director of Customer Experience, the primary customer advocate within the organization. Since taking over this role, Jan has implemented numerous strategies and initiatives that have greatly improved EMIDA’s customer engagement, including a 24/7 NOC team that monitors the health of all EMIDA platforms across the world and alternate channels of support such as on line chat and self-service portals. Jan graduated from the University of San Martin, Bogota, Colombia, with a BA in Business Management.
Mayra Lopez, Head of Sales Mexico
Mayra has been with Emida since 2014 and is responsible for building, creating and maintaining relationships and alliances with customers and service providers in Mexico. Before joining Emida, she held sales and business development roles in Mexico. Mayra has a Marketing degree from Universidad Tecnológica de México.
Ivan Fonseca, Director of Customer Service & Project Management
Ivan has more than 20 years of professional experience in different industries including Technology, Logistics, and Services. As Program Manager, he executed multimillion projects in the Biometric and Secure Documents productions for customers in Panama, Guatemala, and Colombia for companies such as Tribunal Electoral de Panamá, Autoridad de Pasaportes de Panamá, and Thomas Greg & Sons in Colombia.
Ivan holds a BSc in Computer Engineering and Information Technology from the National University of Colombia. He is certified as Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute since 2017. He is passionate about transforming teams under his management towards an efficiency-based principle through the understanding of each individual team member’s personal characteristics and the adoption of new technologies.