Paul Grill

Paul Grill is a Partner at First Annapolis Consulting, Inc. He has over 10 years of experience helping clients develop successful business strategies in the payments industry. Paul's experience includes advising on many consumer and commercial payment products and services, and he currently co-manages the firm's Card Issuing practice area and is also responsible for Emerging Payments initiatives.

Paul's expertise in the Card Issuing market includes strategic partnership formation such as co-branding, affinity, and agent bank relationships, de novo market entry analyses, account acquisition and portfolio optimization, and outsourcing evaluation and negotiation. His clients include a wide variety of financial institutions, non-financial organizations seeking to develop card issuing capabilities, and card issuers in international markets, particularly Europe.

In the area of Emerging Payments, Paul works with prepaid card providers, alternative payment networks, new technology providers, transaction processors/networks, and traditional financial institutions to analyze and develop new payment offerings. In particular, Paul has conducted emerging market research, developed business plans, and helped formulate strategic partnerships related to prepaid offerings, Internet and P2P payment products, contactless, biometrics, mobile payments, and authentication technologies.

Paul is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and client executive forums, and has been a chairperson at the Card Forum Conference and Prepaid Expo. He has also been quoted and published in numerous industry publications including American Banker, Credit Card Management, and Transaction Trends.

Prior to joining First Annapolis, Paul earned a MBA degree from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and worked for Goldman, Sachs & Co.