WHO WE ARE
A team of financial, technology, health care and disaster relief experts passionate about designing and developing future forward and resilient infrastructures with breakthrough cross-ecosystem business models that enable universal access to, and participation in the world’s economy.
JOHN FAGAN
CEO
John is a former senior US Treasury official, hedge fund strategist at Discovery Capital, and attorney.
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He is also an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS and is the co-founder of Markets Policy Partners, a DC-based consultancy.
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He holds a J.D. and an
M.P.A from Harvard University and bachelor’s from Williams College.
EMERSON TAN
Chief Innovation Officer
Emerson is a cyber-security technologist, humanitarian aid coordinator, speaker, and inventor.
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He is the firm’s founder and one of the inventors of Payala’s technology.
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He is an alumnus of University College London and a member of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies. He also volunteers for MapAction and the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination system.
BRENDAN WALSH
CFO
Brendan is a former hedge fund strategist at Discovery Capital and an international economist.
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He is also the co-Founder of Markets Policy Partners.
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He holds a master’s in Economics from Fordham University and bachelor’s from the College of the Holy Cross.
JULIAN FINN
CTO
Julian has been innovating and developing new technologies for 20 years. As a developer, and consultant, he has worked in high-growth environments such as the gaming startup Gameforge, Ganske Verlagsgruppe and the German social network XING.
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He holds a Master's equivalent degree in computer science from Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences.
UMA SINHA
COO & BD
Uma is a corporate strategist, PE / VC advisor and due diligence analyst.
She was formerly a principal of Bullseye Technology Ventures, an Executive Officer at HSBC and an Engagement Manager at Booz Allen & Hamilton.
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She holds an M.P.A. from Harvard University, bachelor’s from Columbia University and a certification in AI from
M.I.T.
Dr. Christopher Mores
Principal Innovation, Public Health Policy
Dr. Mores is a virologist, epidemiologist, and a professor in global health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health.
He investigated outbreaks of Ebola in W Africa and Zika in the Americas and continues to work closely with the US government and industry on emerging disease threats.
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He holds a PhD and MS from Harvard University and a bachelor's from Rutgers University.
THE PAYALA STORY
The design of Payala was concieved by Emerson Tan in response to the experience gained over the course of over seventeen years of working in humanitarian aid. During the West African Ebola epidemic payments came to the fore as a problem and Emerson was tasked to come up with solutions to enable electronic payments in less than eight weeks. A mobile phone based solution was found, while it worked, it wasn't ideal, not to mention expensive to run, and unsustainable.
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Returning to the UK, Emerson resolved to come up with payment technologies that would work in austere environments, disasters and also function as a day to day payment mechanism that would allow fast peer to peer payments. This would allow people to use whatever capital is available in their social network, not just that available locally. Helpfully Emerson was also a long time member of the computer security community, so he raised some small capital, hired some cryptographers and engineers and set to work building payment technologies suitable for the harshest environments and the challenges of the twenty first century like climate change disaster and war. The result of this work was Payala.
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