About Us
Handle Financial is led by a team of experts from the payments, mobile and retail IT worlds. We exist to build affordably-priced, innovative products for businesses
We help consumers thrive in their financial lives, and help businesses operate and service those consumers more effectively.
PayNearMe started as a cash payment network, enabling businesses and government agencies to collect cash payments from their consumers at retail stores. Today, that network reaches more than 27,000 stores, including 7-Eleven, ACE Cash Express, Casey’s General Store and Family Dollar.
The 2018 launch of PayNearMe’s debit, credit and ACH payment capabilities expanded our offering beyond cash, allowing businesses and government agencies to securely accept and manage all types of payments. With our mobile-first design, consumers get a simple and intuitive user experience that makes paying with any form of tender faster and more convenient.
Leadership Team
Danny Shader founded our company in 2009, and is driven to do right by customers, employees, and investors. Prior to PayNearMe Danny led Good Technology, Inc., a wireless software company that was acquired by Motorola in 2007. Danny previously co-founded Accept.com, one of the first person-to-person payments providers, which Amazon acquired in 1999.
Danny earned a BS from UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering (Go Bears!) and an MBA from Stanford University. Outside of work, you’ll find him trying to improve his terrible backstroke with a group of middle-aged swimming dads called The Mermaids.
Steve Capps is our chief innovator. He’s an expert in user interface design and is relentless about making our products and services easy to use. Steve was a member of the original Macintosh team, key designer of Apple Newton, and an Apple Fellow.
Steve is named on 65+ patents that span toys, musical instruments, hardware and software.
Mirna Daouk is our Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining PayNearMe, she held multiple roles leadership at JPMorgan Chase including managing director and CFO of Business Banking, as well as concurrently the Mortgage Banking financial planning and analysis lead and Mortgage Banking Technology CFO.
Mirna holds an MS degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT, where she also completed PhD course and exam requirements, and received an MS-equivalent in Mechanical Engineering and a BS-equivalent in Mathematics and Physics from the Ecole Polytechnique in France.
John Minor leads the product and support teams at Handle Financial. Prior to Handle Financial, John managed network products for Jasper Wireless and worked at Motorola, where he helped the company launch its first Android phone. He began his career at Good Technology, where he served as director of technical account management and escalations.
Michael Tibbott leads the engineering team and is known for building teams that ship fast, reliable and accurate software. Michael was one of the company’s first developers and helped build the cash product. He has always pushed the envelope—from GRiD (first laptop computer) and Apple’s Newton (defined the PDA, first AI) to Classifieds2000 (profitable e-commerce web site sold to Excite in 1998) and LivePlanet (integrating web, TV and reality with Project Greenlight).
Michael may be the only Cal Engineer (class of 1979) who was in the Hollywood Reporter and the IEEE Spectrum in the same year. Go figure.
Michael Kaplan is our Chief Revenue Officer. Bringing more than two decades of experience in mobile and payments technology to our team, he’s our fixer of all things. Prior to joining us, Michael led teams at Good Technology, Motorola and most recently, Jasper Wireless—where he was responsible for strategic partnerships, solution engineering, and carrier integrations globally.
Michael holds a BA from Rutgers University and an MA from TCNJ. Struggling with a DIY project? He’s also an industry leading, self-proclaimed handyman.
Lauren Brown is our General Counsel. Prior, she served as the company’s VP, Legal, Associate General Counsel and Chief Regulatory Counsel, and as AML Compliance Officer of the company’s licensed money transmitter subsidiary. In law school, Lauren completed an externship for the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of California and served as an Editor for the Santa Clara Law Review. She holds a JD from Santa Clara University School of Law and a BA from The University of California at San Diego.
Lauren is part of a very small group of people to get a company going from zero to fully licensed in every state and jurisdiction for domestic money transmission. And, possibly an even smaller group who consider 5 AM the perfect time to wake up. Talk about ambition.
Lee-Anne Farley is our Chief People Officer, bringing 20+ years of HR experience across companies including LinkedIn, Glassdoor and Omada Health. Lee-Anne particularly enjoys the challenge of growing and scaling companies with a focus on culture, experience and creating an environment where individuals can do their best work and thrive personally at the same time.
As a native of Ireland, many American sports remain a mystery to Lee-Anne but with the assistance of her sports mad family, she is quickly learning the finer nuances of baseball and football.
Board Members
Board Advisors
Investors
Our investors are diverse, but one common theme is their track record of building successful companies. They've given us the resources to achieve our vision as a payments technology company and we're thrilled to have them with us on this journey.
