GEC NEWS WIREVisa appointed Andrew Torre as Regional President for its Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) region, based in Dubai. Torre, who previously led Visa’s Sub-Saharan Africa business, will now oversee all of Visa’s operations in more than 90 countries across CEMEA and report to Visa’s global president, Ryan McInerney. Torre will also sit on Visa’s global Operating Committee.
Torre is a Visa and payments industry veteran, with deep experience across the markets that comprise Visa’s CEMEA region. Having previously worked with the World Bank in Kiev, Moscow and CIS territories, Torre has been with Visa since 2002, holding global roles in product, strategy and pricing, as well as general manager roles in Russia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
“Andrew’s deep experience, which touches every part of our CEMEA region, has prepared him well for his new role. It provides him with a phenomenal understanding of both Visa’s global operations, as well as the markets that make up this fascinating and complex region. This will not only benefit Visa and our financial institution clients, but also add tremendous value to our merchant and government partners as we strive together to bring the benefits of connected, digital commerce to more people in the region,” says Ryan McInerney, President, Visa.
“There is a huge amount of home-grown innovation happening in markets around this region, led by local developers. We are enabling this innovation through the deployment of our APIs (application programming interfaces) to help developers access the Visa network, and then backing it up by creating innovation spaces, like our Center in Dubai and forthcoming Studio in Moscow, for them to co-create with us. These are hugely exciting times for the industry and for Visa, and I am honored to have been chosen to lead our efforts at this important moment in Visa’s history,” commented Torre.
