William Powar — former SVP Visa International

Electronic Payments Advisor

William Powar is a principal of Venture Architects, a company he founded in January 1997. Venture Architects is a consulting firm that provides strategic guidance and business development expertise to companies in the e-commerce industry. Prior to founding Venture Architects, Mr. Powar served 22 years with Visa USA and Visa International developing new markets and businesses. In the 1980s, Powar managed the development of low-cost POS merchant terminals and the software and business infrastructure that lead to the automation of the merchant payment process. In his last assignment, as senior vice president of Emerging Markets & Technologies, Powar was Visa's business development officer in the information/electronic market with primary responsibility in chip cards, electronic commerce and network-based micropayments, as well as directing Visa's venture investments and strategic alliances — including acting as one of the co-founding investors of VeriSign.

Powar has a master of arts in economics from Stanford University, a bachelor of arts in economics from Amherst College, and holds several patents in payment systems.