MasterCard Launches MasterCard Labs; Names Garry Lyons Group Executive, Research and Development
MasterCard Worldwide announced the launch of MasterCard Labs, a new global Research and Development arm dedicated to bringing innovative payment solutions to market with greater speed than ever before. The company also announced the appointment of Garry Lyons as group executive, research and development, who will oversee MasterCard Labs.
“Supporting breakthrough innovation efforts is at the heart of differentiating MasterCard from our competitors, and key to sustaining our competitive advantage in the marketplace,” says Ajay Banga, MasterCard president and chief operating officer.
Through MasterCard Labs, Lyons will be responsible for building payment advancements and leveraging enhanced time-to-market capabilities to drive innovations through conceptualization, proof of concept, pilot, and support commercialization, in order to deliver additional value to customers and consumers. He will assemble a globally diverse research and development team tapping into the broad knowledge of MasterCard payment experts and technologists worldwide.
Previously, Lyons served as the chief executive officer for Orbiscom. Prior to MasterCard’s acquisition of Orbiscom in December 2008, Lyons was responsible for defining strategy and the overall executive management of Orbiscom. With Orbiscom since its inception in 1999, he has significant experience in the software and financial services industries, primarily focused on the technology and business development aspects of deploying complex large scale systems to global financial services institutions. Before joining Orbiscom, Lyons held senior technology and management positions with Cognotec, Credo and ICL.