2013 Innovators to Watch: 41 to 44
41. Mark Suster, Partner, GRP Partners
Mark Suster is a two-time entrepreneur who has sold two companies — the last was Koral, sold to salesforce.com. He is now a part of GRP Partners, which invests in such financial services startups as prepaid platform Emida, mobile banking platform provider mFoundry, mpaygateway and zestFinance.
42. Robert Bell, founder, PassportFX
Bell hails from New Zealand, where real-time, low-fee interbank payments are routine. He started the service KlickEx to enable international payments between countries in the South Pacific. Bell hopes to bring a similar service to the US with his newest venture, PassportFX, which he hopes will allow US banks to exchange funds more quickly and inexpensively. Bell admits the US financial system is bit of a technical challenge, telling us, “It resembles the system in Tonga or Samoa more than it does European or Commonwealth-nation banking systems.”
43. Alejandro Carriles, Executive Vice President, Director of Digital Channels Developement, BBVA Compass
BBVA Compass offers a full-featured mobile app that includes all the bells and whistles and then some — including mobile photo bill pay and a move toward voice control. Carriles’s desk is right beside the BBVA’s innovation lab, which seems just about right for a bank executive. Carriles has a history in data management, and leverages that to make a rich mobile experience that he hopes will differentiate BBVA in the commodified mobile banking market.
44. Ron Hirson, entrepreneur in residence, Khosla Ventures & Mayfield Fund
An entrepreneur in residence is like a racecar in the garage: it’s getting revved up to win. And that is where Hirson finds himself after successfully co-founding Boku, the global mobile payments venture. It is not entirely clear why Hirson left Boku last January, but that’s beside the point. He is back in the “what’s the next Big Thing” phase, and we expect he’ll figure that one out. Again.
