management team
Our management team executes strategies around the world to adapt our business to the needs of the marketplace and help millions of people live easier lives.
Hikmet Ersek
President, Chief Executive Officer and Director
Hikmet Ersek became President and Chief Executive Officer of The Western Union Company on Sept. 1, 2010. As president and CEO, Ersek is responsible for the financial and overall operational performance of the company. As leader of Western Union, a Fortune 500, NYSE-listed company, Ersek has executive management oversight of a network of approximately 485,000 Agent locations in 200 countries and territories.
Prior to his role as CEO, Ersek served as the company’s Chief Operating Officer, with responsibility for all of Western Union’s business units around the world and the company’s operations and marketing functions. He joined Western Union in September 1999, and held roles of increasing responsibility with the company – starting as Regional Vice President for Southeastern Europe and later as Senior Vice President, Europe, Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Ersek became Executive Vice President in 2006 and assumed overall responsibility for the EMEA-APAC region in 2009.
Ersek began his career in financial services in 1986 at Europay/MasterCard in Austria. In 1996, Ersek joined General Electric (GE) Capital, where he was responsible for retailer sales, finance and the card business. Ersek also represented the GE Corporation as National Executive in Austria and Slovenia.
Ersek has a master's degree in Economics and Business Administration from the Wirtschaftsuniversität (University of Economics) in Vienna, Austria. He is fluent in English, German and Turkish.
Raj Agrawal
President, Western Union Business Solutions
Raj Agrawal is President for Western Union Business Solutions (WUBS) where he is responsible for leading the continued growth and expansion of all WUBS products and services worldwide.
Previously, he was responsible for regional global financial planning and analysis for Western Union. Agrawal has been with the company since 2006 and has held roles of increasing responsibility including treasurer and senior vice president for Finance in the EMEA/APAC region.
Prior to joining Western Union, he was in the dual role of treasurer and vice president of Investor Relations for Deluxe Corporation. Agrawal started his career in the automotive industry at General Motors Corporation in Michigan, USA, as manufacturing engineer. He later joined Chrysler Corporation, serving as senior financial analyst and General Mills, Inc., where he held a variety of positions including assistant treasurer. Agrawal holds an MBA from Columbia University.
Odilon Almeida
Senior Regional Vice President and Managing Director, Latin America & Caribbean
As Senior Vice President and Managing Director for the Latin America and Caribbean Region, Odilon Almeida is responsible for Western Union’s business across Central and South America and the Caribbean, encompassing all products and services in more than 43 countries and territories.
Almeida joined Western Union in 2002, and has held roles of increasing responsibility with the company – starting as Regional Vice President, Southern Cone, Americas. In 2008, he was appointed Senior Vice President for the South America Region. Almeida was promoted to his current position in 2011, becoming part of Western Union’s Global Operating Committee.
Prior to joining Western Union, Almeida held positions at FleetBoston Financial, The Coca-Cola Company and Colgate-Palmolive, working in Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Since 2006 Almeida has served as the president of the ABMTransf-Associação Brasileira das Empresas Prestadoras de Serviços de Micro-Transferência de Dinheiro (Brazilian Association of Money Remittance Companies). In March 2008, Almeida was elected to the Western Union Foundation Board of Directors.
Almeida has two graduate degrees – one in civil engineering from Maua Engineering School in São Paulo and another in Business Administration from the University of São Paulo. He received an MBA at Getulio Vargas Foundation, São Paulo. He also studied at the International Institute of Management Development (I.M.D.), Lausanne, Switzerland.
John R. Dye
Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary
John R. Dye is Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of The Western Union Company. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing the company’s legal and regulatory compliance matters.
Prior to joining Western Union in November 2011, Dye was Senior Vice President, Interim General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. From July 2007 to July 2011, Dye served as Senior Vice President, Principal Deputy General Counsel Corporate Affairs, where he worked on corporate transactions and managed attorneys in the areas of corporate disclosure, securities, intellectual property, contracts and human resources.
Dye also held senior leadership positions at Citigroup, Inc. and served as Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel at Salomon Smith Barney. Dye began his legal career at the New York-based law firm, Brown & Wood.
Dye earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Middlebury College and a juris doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Jean Claude Farah
Senior Vice President, Middle East & Africa
As Senior Vice President for the Middle East and Africa, Jean Claude Farah is responsible for all P&L activities in the region. In this role, he manages a team of 100 and oversees five regional offices in Dubai, UAE, Casablanca, Morocco; Johannesburg, South Africa; Islamabad, Pakistan; and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He is based in Western Union’s regional head office in Dubai.
Farah joined Western Union in 1999 as Marketing Manager , Middle East & North Africa. He has held a variety of progressively responsible positions with the company , including Regional Director, Regional Vice President and Senior Vice President for the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan (MEPA) region. Farah started his career in 1995 with Renault SA, a leader in the automotive industry, where he gained extensive experience in marketing. Prior to joining Western Union he held the position of area manager for Orangina Pernod Ricard, one of the leading beverage brands in the world, where he broadened his experience in the areas of business development and strategic planning.
Farah has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from St. Joseph University in Lebanon and an MBA from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris, in Paris, France. Farah is a French / Lebanese national.
Khalid Fellahi
Senior Vice President, Electronic Channels
As Senior Vice President for Electronic Channels, Khalid Fellahi is responsible for ensuring the continued growth and global expansion of Western Union in the digital space, including the strategy, operations and P&L for www.westernunion.com and Mobile Money Transfer.
Fellahi was also previously head of the Mobile Transaction Services group (2010). In this role, he was responsible for shaping Western Union’s strategy in Mobile Money and for the development and commercialization of a Mobile Money Transfer service connecting Western Union Agent locations, mobile operators and banks. He also held senior regional positions including service as senior vice president for Africa from 2005 to 2010, where he was responsible for 51 countries with more than 20,000 Agent locations.
Fellahi, who has more than 22 years of experience, joined Western Union in 2002 as regional director for North Africa. Prior to working at Western Union, Fellahi held roles within SIS-Groupe Compagnie Bancaire (Paribas) and Price Waterhouse Management Consultants. In addition, he has held senior leadership positions at small and medium enterprises in the service industry.
A Moroccan-French national, Fellahi has an engineering degree from the National Institute of Applied Sciences in France (INSA-Lyon) with a major in Information Technology, and an MBA from INSEAD. He is based in San Francisco.
Robin Heller
Executive Vice President, Operations and IT
As Executive Vice President of the Operations and Information Technology division of Western Union, Robin Heller is responsible for strategically aligning, prioritizing and synchronizing Western Union's global service strategies through product delivery, customer service initiatives, technological solutions and integration projects. Prior to her current appointment, she was senior vice president, Global Operations for First Data Corporation, Western Union's former parent company, from November 2004 until September 2006. From July 2003 to November 2004, Heller served in a similar capacity with Western Union. Prior to that time, she was senior vice president, Sales, Marketing and Operations for Western Union Commercial Services from July 2002 until June 2003 and senior vice president, Operations and Client Management for IPS, a First Data subsidiary, from July 2000 until June 2002. Heller is based in Englewood, Colorado at Western Union's global headquarters.
Prior to joining First Data Corporation in 1988, Heller served as senior financial analyst at the First National Bank of Omaha in the strategic planning department. She currently serves on the Board of Directors at the University of Colorado - Denver School of Business, on the Board of Advisors for the Women’s College of the University of Denver, on the Board of Directors for Junior Achievement, Rocky Mountain, Inc. and is also on the Wise Woman Council for the Women's Vision Foundation in Denver. Heller received her master's of business administration degree from the University of Nebraska in Omaha and her Bachelor's degree in business administration with a major in finance from Iowa State University.
Jan Hillered
Senior Vice President, Europe & CIS
As Senior Vice President, Europe and CIS, Jan Hillered is responsible for Western Union's business in the European and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region, including profit and loss responsibility across the region’s 55 countries.
Joining Western Union in July 2005, Hillered was appointed Vice President with responsibility for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Central Europe. In October 2006 and in October 2007 his region was enlarged adding first South East Europe and then the Eastern Europe and CIS region to his responsibilities. In 2008 he was promoted to Senior Vice President. Hillered has held his current position since January 2009 and is based in Vienna, Austria at Western Union's European regional office.
Hillered has extensive experience from over 20 years in international banking. Prior to joining Western Union he was Senior Vice President with the largest Nordic bank, Nordea, working in Sweden and in Hong Kong. From November 1995 to June 2005 Hillered was General Manager at ING Bank International, holding senior positions in several European countries.
A Swedish citizen, Hillered is fluent in English, French, German and Swedish. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Uppsala University, Sweden and has completed the Program for Executive Development at IMD, Switzerland as well as the General Management Program at CEDEP, France.
Hillered has served on several boards of regulated financial services institutions in Asia and Europe. Currently Hillered is Chairman of the Boards of Western Union International Bank, Austria, of Société Financière de Paiement, France (Western Union’s joint venture with La Banque Postale) and of Western Union Payment Services Ireland Limited. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Washington based Eurasia Foundation.
Paula S. Larson
Chief Human Resources Officer
Paula S. Larson is the Chief Human Resources Officer of The Western Union Company. In this role, she's responsible for developing and executing human resources strategies aligned with the company's overall business plan and strategic direction. Larson and the Human Resources organization will strive to achieve this through the use of key HR processes such as succession planning, learning, talent management, employee engagement, and total rewards.
Larson has 20-plus years of people development and leadership experience. Previously, she was Chief Human Resources Officer at the global technology group, Invensys, for six years. Earlier in her career, she was a human resources leader at Eaton Corporation and was also VP, Global Organizational Effectiveness at GE Capital Fleet Services and GE Financial Assurance (now Genworth). She also held other HR leadership and six sigma roles at GE Corporate and GE Medical Systems where she led global succession planning, created organizational design solutions, led the creation and launch of GEFA University and the first GE-wide learning portal, and was GE's first HR Six Sigma Black Belt.
Larson holds several academic degrees including a Master of Arts in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from New York University, a Master in Business Administration with a concentration in international business from the University of New Haven, and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Michigan State University.
Victoria López-Negrete
Senior Vice President and General Manager, North America
As Senior Vice President and General Manager, North America for The Western Union Company, Victoria López-Negrete is responsible for managing all consumer-related products and services for the United States, Canada and Mexico.
López-Negrete has extensive experience from over 20 years in financial services in the United States, Mexico, Central and South America, having worked in retail banking and payment services.
López-Negrete’s tenure with Western Union began in 2008 and she has since held roles with increasing responsibility, including Vice President for the U.S. Hispanic Consumer Business, Mexico and U.S. Money Transfer for Western Union, Vigo & Orlandi Valuta. Prior to joining Western Union, López-Negrete broadened her experience while serving the U.S. Hispanic segment at López-Negrete Communications, an independent, full-service agency specializing in Hispanic marketing. Among other accounts, she managed the U.S. Hispanic advertising strategy for Visa USA and Microsoft.
Previously, López-Negrete led Citibank’s card business for Latin America. She managed all marketing and rebranding efforts for Mexico’s Grupo Financiero Citibank, the marketing strategy for Citibank’s credit card launch in Peru, as well as for the Consumer Franchise Management group in Chile.
López-Negrete has served on the Board of Directors for Latin America Visa, TSYS – Mexico and Prosa, the Mexican Banking Association and the Visa Marketing Committee in Chile.
She has a degree in Sciences of Social Communication from Anáhuac University in Mexico City, Mexico and is fluent in English & Spanish.
Scott T. Scheirman
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
As Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Scott Scheirman is responsible for the leadership and direction of the CFO organization of The Western Union Company. Prior to his current appointment, Scheirman held a variety of senior financial leadership positions with First Data Corporation, Western Union's former parent company, most recently serving as the senior vice president and chief financial officer for Western Union from 1999 to 2006. Prior to joining First Data, Scheirman was responsible for leading multiple audit services for public and non-public clients for Ernst & Young. He is based in Englewood, Colorado, at Western Union's global headquarters.
In addition, Scheirman is the past Chairman of the Western Union Foundation's Board of Directors and currently serves as a Director on the International Rescue Committee, Denver Scholarship Foundation and KIPP Schools of Colorado.
Scheirman holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Northern Colorado, and is a Certified Public Accountant.
Diane Scott
Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer and President, Western Union Ventures
As President, Western Union Ventures, Scott is focused on developing new service offerings for the Company's consumers by leveraging existing assets to increase consumer loyalty and retention, attract new consumers and obtain a higher share of wallet.
As Chief Marketing Officer, Scott is responsible for leading the strategic global marketing development for Western Union, including brand strategy, customer segmentation, marketing communications, customer experience, and market research/analytics. She is based in Englewood, Colorado, at Western Union’s global headquarters.
Scott's tenure with Western Union began in 2001 and has included positions as general manager of the U.S. domestic business and senior vice president for marketing in the Americas.
Previously, Scott was the marketing director for US West Dex and Izodia Corporation. In these roles, she was responsible for marketing communications and brand strategy for various consumer and business-to-business segments. In addition, Scott began her career working in the advertising industry at McClain Finlon Advertising, where she worked across a wide a variety of industries domestically and internationally.
Scott holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Syracuse University.
Stewart A. Stockdale
Executive Vice President & President, Global Consumer Financial Services
As Executive Vice President & President, Global Consumer Financial Services, Stewart A. Stockdale is responsible for Western Union's five global regions (North America, Latin America & Caribbean, Europe & CIS, Middle East Africa, and Asia Pacific) including the global Agent Network, consumer money transfer services and the consumer payments business.
Prior to joining Western Union in June 2008, Stockdale served as President of Simon Brand Ventures and as Chief Marketing Officer of Simon Property Group (SPG). Stockdale was responsible for all marketing and consumer ventures-related businesses within Simon including: payment systems, media, consumer data, business development, sponsorships and events, corporate marketing, mall marketing, public relations, Simon.com, and co-led mall operations, reporting to the CEO. Additionally, Stockdale also held senior positions with such multinational companies as Conseco, Inc., MasterCard, American Express, and Procter & Gamble.
Stockdale holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in marketing from the University of Denver and completed the Executive Program at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration. Stockdale currently serves on the board of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and the University of Denver’s – Daniels Executive Advisory Board. He resides in Cherry Hills Village, Colorado with his wife Mary and six children.
Drina Yue
Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific
As Western Union’s Senior Vice President for the Asia Pacific region, Drina C. Yue is responsible for advancing the company’s objectives by growing its core consumer-to-consumer money-transfer business, adopting innovative delivery channels and making strides in payments to address new market opportunities across Asia Pacific. She is based in Hong Kong.
Yue brings more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, with five U.S. patents and years of go-to-market experiences that span the telecommunications and broadband video sectors in the United States and, more recently, Asia Pacific. Prior to joining Western Union in March 2010, Yue headed up the Broadband Communications, Home & Network Mobility business of Motorola in Asia Pacific for six years.
In addition to her expertise in the telecommunications sector, Yue brings another five years of experience as the CEO of iSteelAsia, developing the company from the ground up to become the world’s first listed steel vertical portal.
Yue earned her Bachelor’s and Master of Science degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana. She speaks fluent English, Mandarin and Cantonese.