Gregor Dobbie, ex-CEO of Vocalink (a Mastercard company) who left the business just 12 months ago, becomes the new CEO of TFPA and will lead the organisation in the delivery of its transformative vision. Roger Bracken, founder partner, is promoted to Executive Chair and Steve Wright, previous founder partner, will become Chief Operating Officer.

Gregor has extensive experience from his time at Vocalink including responsibility for UK critical infrastructure and leading projects to deploy real time payment technology globally. Gregor was part of the Management Team leading the sale of Vocalink to Mastercard in 2017. Prior to Vocalink, Gregor held senior positions at Glory, Talaris, and De La Rue.

Commenting on his appointment Gregor says: “From firsthand experience I can testify that the advisory market in the Fintech sector is underserved. There are not enough practitioners who have the skills to support CEOs with running complex organisations in a highly regulated market and that’s a big reason why we see so many Fintechs fail. This is a gap that we fill, and we have done this by attracting an incredible team of leaders to join TFPA.

“We have all had our fingers burnt in the past with advisors, so we are not about landing expensive consultancy projects and churning out recommendations that came from interviewing the people within the businesses we represent. Our refreshing approach is about de-coding, conceptualising but then crucially delivering strategy alongside the business leaders.”

TFPA is a disruptive advisory firm focused on providing practical commercialisation guidance to fintech firms of all sizes. The network comprises a seasoned group of six partners and over 30 associates, with capability in a wide range of subject matters including all aspects of card payments, account to account payments, open banking, immediate payments, and fintech related regulatory issues. TFPA goes one step further than many traditional advisory firms in actively helping organisations execute within the marketplace on recommendations provided. TFPA also provide specialist knowledge of industry verticals.

Speaking about the appointment of Gregor to CEO of the TFPA, Roger Bracken the Executive Chair, commented: “Having Gregor as our CEO means with his incredible vision and industry network, we are able to build on the solid principles of delivering pragmatic advice to our clients and drive significant global, growth, moving towards our vision of being the leading trusted advisor in our space.  

“Gregor is very focused on extending and developing TFPA Associate network which has already seen an increase of nearly 300% in the past six months with many elite industry leaders being attracted to the organisation. This network provides TFPA with constantly increasing capacity, capability, and geographical coverage, and our clients with an unparalleled body of knowledge and experience.”

Gregor added: “The US is a key strategic market for TFPA, reflected by the new US based associates added to the network. We also see strong parallels in our offer and the themes of this year’s Money20/20. We firmly align with the theme of ‘Age of Fundamentals’ as the fintech sector resets itself from the heady valuation days. As such, effective distribution, value proposition articulation and the ability to differentiate become more critical than ever, directly in line with TFPA services.”

In addition to TFPA responsibilities, Gregor is also the Executive Chairman of the digital loyalty provider Loyalzoo and a board member of Onebanx.

One client being assisted by TFPA in their transition to becoming a more market led solution provider is Ciklum, a custom product and software engineering organisation.

Mike Hopewell, Ciklum Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, said: “TFPA have provided us with invaluable insight around our commercial strategies and market positioning enabling us to move up the value chain with our clients.  We look forward to continuing this partnership with TFPA and maximising our potential.”

Of the other key appointments, Roger Bracken has held leadership positions in several international payments technology businesses; NCR, First Data and software with embedded payments scaleup, TSG. He is currently a Special Advisor at Vitruvian Partners, an investment firm, as well as advising several tech scaleup CEOs. He is chair of an early stage fintech company, WyzePay.

Steve Wright has a long record of sales leadership in payments technology, having led divisions at Xerox, ACI, Fujitsu, and NCR. Steve has spent the last decade shaping payments startups and scaleups, including Lusis and Alaric.