EXECUTIVE TEAMChairman and CEO
James Byler
LinQpay is headed by Mr. James Byler. As Chairman and CEO, Mr. Byler brings a breadth of leadership in Global Operations, Management and Sales. As the visionary of the company's Global Payment Service Platform and Mobile Phone Payment Services, Mr. Byler has defined and continues to broaden the payment industries definition of Local Payments within Global Services as well as Mobile Payments through Cellular Phones.
Mr. Byler is a seasoned entrepreneur with over 13 years in the technology and the financial Industries. He has held Senior Management roles within four successful start-up companies. Mr. Byler most recently founded and held the positions of Chairman and CEO of Devinix Inc., a multi-national Global Payment Service organization widely credited with being the first Payment Service Platform to connect payment infrastructure within the major countries in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Prior to Devinix, Mr. Byler headed the U.S. division of Bibit, a Dutch-based Global Payment Service Provider focused on payment services within the European Union (Acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland). Prior to Bibit, Mr. Byler headed sales at Metacode, Inc., a San Francisco based start-up specializing in Content Intelligence and Content Retrieval (Acquired by Interwoven). Mr. Byler has also held senior level Sales and Sales Management positions within companies in the Content and Document Management spaces, such as iManage, Interwoven and Documentum.
Mr. Byler has worked internationally in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, Canada and the USA. Today, Mr. Byler is focused on managing LinQpay's explosive growth and robust international expansion.
Chief Operations Officer
Brandon Sandiford
LinQpay's global operations are managed by Mr. Sandiford, co-founder of vWire SA. Sandiford has been involved in the IT industry since 1996 and has focused on mobile commerce and cellular technology since 2001. From 2001 to early 2005, Mr. Sandiford co-founded and headed CreditPipe, the first mobile commerce provider to launch a commercial cell phone based credit card acquiring service within South Africa. During this time Mr. Sandiford structured relationships with various cellular networks, banks and strategic partners to obtain market dominance within South Africa. CreditPipe was sold to a NASDAQ listed company in 2004.
In 2005 Mr. Sandiford co-founded Vertigo Wireless a mobile commerce start-up with a focus on card processing within the USA mobile commerce market. Sandiford has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of South Africa majoring in Law and Business Management.
President EMEA
Alastair Shakeshaft
Alastair joined the Executive team of LinQpay to drive growth in the EMEA territory. He has a wealth of experience in running businesses in the IT, Financial Services, Outsource and M-Commerce sectors, the latter when he was Chairman of Creditpipe, a true innovator in mobile phone based commerce.
Until joining LinQpay, he sat on the Operational Board of Crimson Limited, a UK based IT Services company specializing in Strategic Consultancy and Outsourcing. Having responsibility for all aspects of Sales, Marketing, Divisional Finance and Legal; he turned the business from break-even to profit in his first year and has grown revenue and profit lines consistently year on year, regularly securing major business contracts from Tier 1 IT Services companies.
He started an IT Services company when 25 and grew it to a multi-million pound turnover business before selling to a major corporation. The spectacular growth was used as an example in the Manchester Business School PACE course on how to sustain dynamic business growth.
His career has seen him work with international companies of the stature of Control Data, Hoskyns, Software AG and Adacel Technologies; undertake profitable business in every major geographic territory and live/work in Australia and South Africa where he has led international business divisions with achievements including over 900% profit growth in a single year and a business sale to a NASDAQ quoted IT company.
Alastair was educated at Manchester Business School and is just completing an Employment Law Paralegal course at the University of Strathclyde, UK.