Electronic payments provider ACI Worldwide named two new executives to its leadership team and is also establishing a new South America headquarters in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
Naples, Fla.-based ACI has appointed Andreas Suma as vice president and general manager for Latin America, and Jonathan Lerner as vice president and general manager for U.S. banks, the company announced Dec. 3.
Suma joins ACI from IBM Global Business Services, where he worked with financial services companies on business analytics and optimization. Previously, he spent nearly a decade at Fico, serving most recently as senior director of Latin America for the global software and services provider.
Lerner joins ACI from SAP, where he spent the last 10 years in senior sales positions. He served as vice president, large enterprise sales for SAP Americas southeast region. Earlier in his career, he held senior enterprise sales roles at PTC.
In addition, ACI named Cliff Elam as vice president of Americas operations and planning.
They join recent appointments Rob Cameron, vice president and general manager for U.S. retail, U.S. processors and Canada; and Erik Golz, vice president of solution consulting.
The new hires will report to Jeremy Wilmot, senior vice president and managing director of Americas, ACI Worldwide, the company says.
The company created the new regional headquarters in Brazil because of rapid client growth within Latin and South America.
Brazil is the largest payments market in this broader region in which ACI already counts many of the leading banks and retailers as customers, the company states.
"With an established management team and five major office locations across Latin and South America, we believe we understand the needs of this lucrative market better than any other vendor," Wilmot states in a press release.
ACI says it powers electronic payments and banking for more than 5,000 financial institutions, retailers, billers and processors around the world.
