A member of the top 100 from the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist
Carleigh Jaques joined Visa in 2008 as head of corporate development, having previously worked as an investment banker at Germany-based Deutsche Bank for 12 years.
She was responsible for Visa’s global corporate strategy and mergers and acquisitions, including leading the $23bn Visa Europe transaction, as well as other acquisitions supporting an innovation agenda.
Visa has ebbed and flowed with its corporate venturing strategy but, along with credit card providers American Express and Mastercard, has been more active recently, including backing mobile payments provider Square, which floated last year.
In September, a syndicate comprising Capital One, Citi Ventures, Fiserv, Orange, Nasdaq and Visa said they were together investing $30m in Chain, a US-based provider of blockchain technology – a blockchain is a secure online database that can be used to record anything from financial transactions to mobile-phone credit and property deeds.
This deal won GCV’s 2016 award for Best Innovation Developed in Partnership with a Portfolio Company.
Jaques gained an MBA from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a BA from University of Michigan.
