Board of Directors

The GlobalPlatform Board is led by three Board Officers, elected annually: Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Secretary/Treasurer. The Board consists of up to eleven directors, elected from Full Member organizations to serve two-year terms, who represent the interests of all GlobalPlatform member organizations. The Board oversees the strategy and management of GlobalPlatform, controls the budget and provides final approval of specification changes.

Sebastien Tormos – GlobalPlatform Chairman
Datacard

Elected as Chairman of GlobalPlatform in 2008, Mr. Tormos also serves as Vice-President of Marketing at Datacard Group. He is responsible for product marketing activities and also drives business development initiatives for the company. In the early 1990's, Mr. Tormos, then at Schlumberger Smart Cards & Systems, pioneered the deployment of smart card programs in the financial and telecom sectors, including the emerging GSM market. He joined Datacard US in 1996 as a Project Manager and then moved to the marketing group. Most recently he managed Datacard operations in France for five years, before moving to his current position.

Marc Kekicheff - GlobalPlatform Vice-Chairman
Visa Inc.

Mr. Kekicheff currently serves as Senior Business Leader of Product Technology at Visa Inc. and is responsible for Visa Inc.'s smart card technology compliance worldwide, covering contact and contactless cards and terminals as well as mobile handsets. A highly regarded smart card expert worldwide, Mr. Kekicheff has authored several patents, is well acquainted with IT security and frequently addresses the industry through high profile speaking engagements. Throughout his career he has been a driving force in the development of global smart card technology, worldwide standards and compliance programs. He currently sits on the EMVCo Board of Managers and chairs the Card Approval Working Group for the same organization.

Mr. Kekicheff has been an active member of GlobalPlatform since its inception in 1999 and was a co-architect of the original GlobalPlatform Specifications. Since that time, he has held a number of posts: he was GlobalPlatform's Technical Director between 1999 and 2005, when he stepped down from this role and was elected to the Board of Directors and Vice Chairman of the organization. Mr. Kekicheff has made a significant contribution to GlobalPlatform over the years and has been responsible for the following initiatives, among many others: shaping consortium strategy, initiating industry outreach efforts, obtaining ISO recognition for GlobalPlatform by acting as a technical expert liaison for smart card standardization and providing technical support for implementers of GlobalPlatform technology.

Yves Moulart - GlobalPlatform Secretary/Treasurer
STMicroelectronics

Mr. Moulart serves as Director of Cards, Technology and Architecture within STMicroelectronics' Smart Card Products, Software Engineering division. He is in charge of cryptographic, security, smart card technology and product architecture activities, following the acquisition of Proton World International by STMicroelectronics in 2003. Prior to the acquisition, Mr. Moulart was the Chief Technology Officer of Proton World International.

Mr. Moulart has served on the GlobalPlatform Board of Directors since his appointment as a Board Director in 2000.

Bob Beer
Aconite

Mr. Beer currently serves Aconite as a Business Consultant. In this role, he is responsible for developing Aconite’s propositions in new payment and smart product management solutions. Mr. Beer previously worked for Datacard Group as the company’s Vice President of Business Development. He was a key driver behind Datacard’s entry into the multi-application smart card arena (including post-issuance and management of applications and cards) and was responsible for smart card systems architecture and personalization solution development.

Mr. Beer previously served GlobalPlatform as Chairman from 2003-2008 and before that as Chair of the Systems Committee.

Dominic Fedronic
ActivIdentity

Mr. Fedronic is the Chief Technology Officer of ActivIdentity and is responsible for leading and directing strategic technical decisions regarding the company’s products and services. Since joining the company in 1995, he has held senior roles of increasing responsibility in the engineering organization, most recently as the Senior Vice President of Research and Development, managing the ActivIdentity Research and Development organization of over 150 engineers on five continents. Prior to that, serving as Chief Architect, Mr. Fedronic has made major contributions to the design and standards development of the U.S. government’s GSA Smart Card Interoperability program and the U.S. Department of Defense Common Access Card program. Prior to joining ActivIdentity, Mr. Fedronic was part of the design team working on a DTMF security token program with FINTEL. He held previous positions at the Société Force-Informatique, S.A. and at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. Mr. Fedronic holds a masters degree in telecommunications engineering from the Université de Paris Nord, Galileo Institute in Paris, France.

Mr. Fedronic has served on the GlobalPlatform Board of Directors since 2007.

Marc Birkner
Gemalto

Mr. Birkner serves as Vice-President of Sales for Gemalto's Secure Transaction Business Unit. He is responsible for expanding Gemalto's business fields and finding new opportunities in the financial services arena. Mr. Birkner joined Gemplus in 1996 and previously held roles in product and program management as well as product marketing.

Mr. Birkner has been an active participant in GlobalPlatform since 2000 with involvement in the organization's various business and marketing committees, which have now evolved into the GlobalPlatform Advisory Council.

Mr. Birkner has been a member of the GlobalPlatform Board of Directors since 2005.

Uwe Wittig
Giesecke & Devrient

Mr. Wittig joined Giesecke & Devrient in 2000 and currently serves as the company’s Group Vice President within the Payment Division of the Smart Card Unit. In this role, Mr. Wittig is responsible for the Products & Solutions Center, including the product management and managed services departments, which oversee all technical activities of Giesecke & Devrient's Cards & Services business unit within the financial industry.

Mr. Wittig joined the GlobalPlatform Board of Directors in 2008.

Dr. Toni Merschen
MasterCard Worldwide

Dr. Merschen currently serves as Group Head, Chip at MasterCard Worldwide and is Head of the MasterCard global Chip Centre of Excellence. His role involves managing the development and deployment of chip-based business solutions for MasterCard's global Advanced Payment Solutions department and developing, coordinating and executing MasterCard's chip strategies on a global basis. Dr. Merschen represents MasterCard on the Executive Committee of EMVCo.

Dr. Merschen was a Board Director of GlobalPlatform representing Citibank between 2000 and 2001. He rejoined the GlobalPlatform Board in 2007, on behalf of MasterCard Worldwide.

Eikazu Niwano
NTT Corporation

Mr. Niwano currently serves as a Senior Research Engineer in the Service Integration Laboratories of NTT Corporation. He heads up innovation and standardization on the Smart Card Platform Development Project. Prior to this role, Mr. Niwano was the General Manager of the Europe Office of the Information Sharing Laboratory Group in Paris, where he was involved in a number of European standardization activities.

Mr. Niwano is currently a member of ISO/IEC SC17. He is the editor of eEurope/Smart Card Charter/TB7/WG4 (multi-application architecture) and a member of the CEN e-Authentication Workshop, and the CEN TC224 WG 15. He is additionally a NICSS Fellow and was the former Chair of the GlobalPlatform-NICSS Collaboration Expert Group.

Mr. Niwano has served on the GlobalPlatform Board of Directors since 2005. He is also an active participant on the GlobalPlatform Card Committee and has made a significant contribution to the development of the GlobalPlatform Card Specification.

Jean-Loup Depinay
Oberthur Card Systems

Mr. Dépinay serves as Program Manager, Research & Development Fundings (collaborative projects), at Oberthur Card Systems (formerly Delarue Card Systems). As a Java Card OpenPlatform Architect, Mr. Dépinay has designed and managed several Java Card platforms which have been deployed in banking, identity and mobile markets worldwide and which have focused on single market and converging market programs. He was also responsible for developing Java Card security improvements which led to the delivery of several security certificates, including common criteria and FIPS 140, for Oberthur's smart card products. Mr. Dépinay is currently a member of the Java Card Forum.

Mr. Dépinay has been an active participant in the GlobalPlatform Card Committee since 1999 and was elected to serve as Card Committee Chair in 2007.

Sebastian Hans
Sun Microsystems Inc.

Mr. Hans currently serves as Senior Standardization Manager at Sun Microsystems Inc., where he is responsible for all smart card standardization activities with a strong focus on SIM and UICC technology. While at Sun Microsystems Inc, Mr. Hans has also headed up business development within the telecommunications market and has driven advanced pilot projects for the deployment of Java Card in the banking, insurance and mobile communication markets. Mr. Hans represents Sun Microsystems Inc. in ETSI SCP, 3GPP, OMA and is the Vice Chair of ETSI SCP TEC.

Mr. Hans has served as a GlobalPlatform Board Director since 2007.

At the discretion of the Board Directors, Strategic Directors may be appointed from time to time from individual member organizations, to provide the Board with additional advice or expertise on a particular strategic issue or market. Strategic directors hold no voting rights. GlobalPlatform currently has one Strategic Director:

Shoji Taniguchi
Toshiba Corporation

Mr. Taniguchi currently serves as Chief Marketing Specialist at Toshiba Corporation and is responsible for overseeing the company's smart card business across the financial, government, mobile/broadcasting and transportation sectors. Mr. Taniguchi is an established contributor to and Director of the Next Generation IC Card System Study Group (NICSS) in Japan. NICSS is managed and led by a group of private companies and is responsible for developing contactless, multiple application smart cards, primarily for use in the Japanese public sector. He also represents NICSS as Vice-Chair of the Asia IC Card Forum (AICF). Through his various roles, Mr. Taniguchi has made a significant contribution to the deployment of smart cards in the government sector in Asia.

Mr. Taniguchi has served as a GlobalPlatform Strategic Director since 2006. In this role, he promotes and facilitates collaborative meetings between GlobalPlatform and NICSS and AICF. He also leads Board meeting discussions on public sector market trends in Japan and other Asian countries.