Professionals

Brooks’ consultants all have several years of “hands on” retail banking and payments experience, in addition to their consulting experience. Their experience collectively spans every area of Retail Banking and Payments - including Credit Card, Mortgage, Consumer Lending, Telephone / Electronic Banking, EFT / POS, and, most recently, Stored Value. Because of this experience, they are able to bring “real-world” solutions to our clients – providing strategies, tactics, and implementation plans that are actionable and will lead directly to profit improvements for our clients. Please click on the link below to view their background.

Strategic Partners

In addition to its own staff, Brooks has partnered with industry experts to ensure that we bring our clients the best possible solutions. Each of these Strategic Partners has worked closely with Brooks in the past, and have been selected as partners specifically because of the respect that we have for the knowledge and expertise they bring to our client engagements. Within any engagement, our Partners will work as if they are part of our direct Team, and are managed by Brooks Project Managers for that engagement. Please click on the buttons below to learn more about the expertise our Strategic Partners can bring.

Peter B. Davidson, CEO

Pete Davidson founded Brooks FI Solutions to bring practical business solutions to all sizes and segments of the financial services industry. His focus is on helping executives achieve profitable growth by delivering actionable solutions to Retail Banking and Payments challenges and issues.

Pete has more than thirty years of consulting, retail banking, and payments experience in the development and implementation of business and marketing strategies throughout North America, South America, and Europe. He has directly managed or led teams, from strategy development through successful implementation, involved in virtually every area of Retail Banking and Payments including Credit Card, Mortgage, Consumer Lending, Telephone / Electronic Banking, EFT / POS, and, most recently, Stored Value.

Pete has worked over the years with a wide variety of organizations in the financial services industry, including national and regional banks, community banks and credit unions, processors, and independent sales organizations. In the consulting arena, Mr. Davidson was President of Speer and Associates, one of the leading international consulting companies to the Consumer Financial Services Industry, where he led strategic consulting engagements in the Retail Banking, ATM, POS, and Debit and Credit Card arenas. Among the many engagements that Mr. Davidson led included the development of e-Global, the shared ATM / POS Network in Mexico; the formation of Moneris, the joint venture in Card Processing and ATM Services between the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal; and the development of strategies for Unibanco (the 3rd largest bank in Brazil), Chase Merchant Services, TSYS, MasterCard, Commerce Bank of St. Louis, and many others.

Immediately prior to founding Brooks FI Solutions, Mr. Davidson was Executive Vice President of Genpass, Inc., where he led, through its successful acquisition by US Bank, the effort to bring a range of Stored Value products to market. He was also heavily involved in the rollout of MoneyPass, the nation’s fastest-growing Surcharge-Free ATM Network, as well as the sales and marketing of Genpass traditional ATM and Debit Card Services.

Prior to Speer and Associates, Mr. Davidson served as Executive Vice President at HSBC USA and President of HSBC Mortgage, where he was responsible for managing its consumer businesses, and Senior Vice President at CoreStates Financial, where he managed the credit card and consumer lending businesses, and developed remote banking strategies. During his career, Mr. Davidson has introduced a series of innovative products, including the first national variable-rate credit card, the first major cash-back Visa card, and card access to Home Equity Lines of Credit. He also introduced to the market the use of Airline Miles to sell Retail Banking Products, the first stored value card designed specifically for Credit Unions and Community Banks, and the first national ATM Card based executive credit line.

Mr. Davidson holds a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Finance and Accounting, and an MBA from Widener University in Finance. Pete has served on a number of consumer, credit, and national card association boards and committees, including the Visa Marketing and Operations Committees, the Board of the Krannert School of Consumer Credit, and the Government Relations Committee of the Consumer Bankers Association. He has been a frequent contributor to industry publications and is considered and expert presenter to industry groups.

Douglas A. Rainey, Senior Vice President

Doug Rainey joined Brooks FI Solutions from Genpass, Inc, where he was most recently the Controller for this venture-capital funded technology company.

Doug has more than thirty-five years of financial management and analysis experience in the development and management of accounting and financial business solutions for leading Retail Banking and Payments companies. He has directly managed or led teams involved in the financial reporting, analysis and acquisitions in many areas of Retail Banking and Payments including Credit Card, Consumer Lending, Electronic Banking, ATM, EFT / POS, and Stored Value.

In his most recent role, Mr. Rainey reported jointly to the CEO and CFO. Doug provided financial analysis and support (including acquisition analysis) for all products including ATM Processing and Maintenance, Debit Card Processing, Network Processing, Medical Payments Card Processing, and Stored Value Cards.

In the Retail Banking arena, Mr. Rainey has held several key roles for CoreStates Financial Corporation, a leading $35BB Regional Bank Holding Company. Doug was Controller for CoreStates Bank of Delaware, a top-twenty Credit Card Issuer; manager of CoreStates’ Cost Analysis and Control for the full holding company; and the Finance Leader for CoreStates Acquisition Due Diligence activities. In the Payments area, Doug was the Financial Support Manager for EPS (and eventually the CoreStates Finance Representative upon its sale), at the time the largest ATM / POS / EFT Processor in the US; the Manager of Financial Support for CoreStates Transaction Services Group (annual operating expenses exceeding $250MM with 4,400 staff); and the Manager of Financial Reporting for QuestPoint, a transaction processing subsidiary of CoreStates with $200MM in annual revenue.

Mr. Rainey holds a B.A. in Accounting and Finance from Rutgers University, and has continued his education at LaSalle University.

Steven G. Berens, Senior Consultant

Steven Berens is a seasoned full lifecycle strategist, leader and management consultant with 13 years experience in developing strategies, market intelligence, research and analysis in consumer packaged goods, healthcare, financial services, and retail. He has served as a trusted advisor for Senior Executives of Global 1000 and Fortune 500 companies.

Immediately prior to joining Brooks, Steve served as a Senior Strategist with Gap International, where Steven developed several corporate strategy and leadership development programs, designed and implemented an entry strategy for launch of a Shanghai, China office, and innovated and implemented knowledge management system allowing the breakdown of silos, a smooth flow of data intelligence, training information and synthesis of data.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Berens, as an independent consultant, delivered competitive intelligence for the #2 global clinical research organization to assist them to maintain competitive advantages; developed the business plan for start-up clothing manufacturing company which yielded a 350% increase in funding and created a viable business infrastructure; created a CRM strategy resulting in one central system for an insurance broker organization to obtain marketing, client, and sales intelligence; formulated marketing and financial models which increased response rates for television promotional campaign for Philadelphia direct mail retail company; constructed analytical models for a multi-currency division to analyze Japanese, Canadian, French, English and German divisions to ensure cost advantages while maintaining competitive pricing; and assisted in developing a partnership between a top rated US financial services firm and US Bank, which increased bottom line revenue and reduced redundancies a result of process improvement recommendations.

Steve began his career in the insurance industry, with increasingly senior roles with UAM, SSC/Pilgrim Baxter and Associates, Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, and Life Assurance Company. Steve has a Masters in Business Administration with emphasis in Marketing and Organizational Management from LeBow College of Business, Drexel University, where Steve completed his undergraduate work as well.

David B. Lipkin, Strategic Partner

David Lipkin has more than forty years of general business, banking, commercial, computer and securities law practice. Mr. Lipkin is pioneer in the area of Electronic Commerce, serving as an industry expert beginning in 1978, where he was a founder and principal legal adviser of the MAC EFT Network, which became the largest EFT network in the United States, while serving as Counsel and Deputy Chief Counsel of CoreStates Financial Corp. During that time, David developed legal expertise in the areas of ATM, Point-of-Sale, home banking, advanced self-service banking, electronic benefits transfer services and related processing systems, as well as being the architect of the legal basis and structure of an early chip based open stored value card system.

Most recently, Mr. Lipkin also was a Founder, General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer of Maverick Network Solutions Inc., a Program Manager and Processor offering various prepaid and closed loop debit card payment programs on a business to business basis. Prior to that, Mr. Lipkin participated in and represented Integrion Financial Network LLC, a home banking joint venture originally formed by IBM and 16 of the largest banks in North America, served as Counsel and Chair of the Electronic Commerce Group, of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, the first such practice group established by a U. S. law firm.

In his career, Mr. Lipkin has also represented a number of banks individually and a variety of Internet companies on various issues; has advised the Central Banks of Russia and Kyrgyz Republic on Card Payment Systems with an emphasis on smart card and stored value systems; and consulted with a number of Eastern European Central Banks on the use of the Internet as part of settlement systems.

David a frequent lecturer nationally on the Internet, Payment Systems, Plastic Cards, Smart Cards and Stored Value programs. He has served as Chair of the Internet Delivery & Electronic Banking Sub-Committee of the ABA Consumer Financial Services Committee and was Co-Chair of the ABA Joint Committee on Electronic Financial Services. He has been editorial member of the publication E-Money and Banking Policy Report and has written a number of articles on E-Commerce and Electronic Funds Transfers.

Bradford W. Morgan, Strategic Partner

Brad spent his first 30 career years in marketing and sales management for major consumer brands. This includes 5 years serving as Executive Vice President – Marketing and Sales for Visa USA. At Visa, he led the development and implementation of strategies, plans and programs that blunted a significant competitive attack on Visa’s traditional strongholds, resulted in Visa’s leadership of the travel and entertainment market, and helped expand Visa usage into new markets like supermarkets, gas stations and healthcare. He is the founder of Visa’s Merchant Relations effort.

Brad began his career at Procter & Gamble where he led two brands to their first ever market leadership. Brad then became a Vice President - Marketing for American Cyanamid’s US and International consumer products businesses, including brands like Old Spice and Pine-Sol. After leaving Visa, he was the Executive Vice President of Marketing for Harrah’s, creating strategies and programs that resulted in a dramatic increase in the company’s market valuation.

In recent years, Brad has been a consultant helping start-ups and small to medium-sized privately held companies find ways to grow revenues and profits.

Brad has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School. He has served on the Boards of the National Council of Better Business Bureaus, United Way of the Mid-South, The Arizona State University Center for Services Marketing, and two privately held companies. He is a former monthly columnist for Brandweek magazine.

Align FSC, www.alignfsc.com

Align fsc’s mission is to assist our clients align their organizations to respond more effectively to an increasingly complex and competitive financial services environment -- developing strategies and solutions that ensure their success.
Align fsc is unique in that the company is made up of subject matter experts that have on average 20 years experience in the financial services industry. 
Our professionals have been in executive and senior management positions at financial institutions experiencing many of the same challenges and recognizing many of the same opportunities that your institution is faced with today.
A uniquely qualified team of financial services professionals, Align fsc consultants have come together to assist executives meet the complex challenges of the evolving financial services marketplace across three core need areas:  1)  Understanding, 2).  Focus,  and 3).  Execution.

Charles M. Bruney, Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Chuck Bruney has nearly thirty years of experience throughout North America and Latin America assisting financial services organizations accelerate profitability and growth.

As Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Bruney is responsible for the overall oversight and management of Align FSC’s consulting business and resources. He also manages major client relationships, financial institution organizational design and business planning engagements, as well as implementation initiatives focused on:

• Strategic marketing planning
• Product development
• Delivery system optimization
• Organizational alignment
• Performance culture development

In conjunction with his banking and consulting work over the past thirty years, Mr. Bruney has directed or been involved in a wide range of assignments to assist financial services organizations accelerate profitability and growth. These engagements have varied from the development of comprehensive business line strategies, to highly focused roadmaps and implementations for U.S. and international financial services organizations – including community banks, credit unions and payment systems providers.

Mr. Bruney brings broad and deep expertise to advise these companies on methods to establish actionable market segmentation strategies and differentiate their brands through sales and service cultures, new product and delivery development and marketing and communications execution. He has worked in a variety of capacities and organizations including super-regional banks, large and boutique consulting firms, electronic payment processing companies and banking service organizations.

Prior to founding Align FSC, Mr. Bruney launched and directed the strategic consulting practices at BGS Group and IBT Enterprises. In those roles, he assisted bank, payment systems and credit union clients in the completion of strategic business planning and “specialty niche” market segment projects. Before IBT, Mr. Bruney was Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at Vital Processing Services, a merchant acquirer credit card processing joint venture of Visa USA and TSYS, where he directed the company’s re-branding, communications, and back-office support product development and product management activities.

In the consulting arena, Mr. Bruney served as Executive Vice President and Board Member with Speer & Associates, Inc. (S&A) a financial services consulting firm focused on growth strategies, and also worked as a consultant in Arthur Young’s financial services consulting practice. During his seventeen years with S&A and Arthur Young, he led major consulting engagements spanning all facets of financial services strategic business planning and marketing for a diverse multi-national client base across the U.S. and Latin America.

Before becoming a consultant, he gained significant hands-on experience in banking through multiple marketing director, product management, research and communications positions with several large super-regional banks including First National Bank of Atlanta and Girard Bank. Mr. Bruney was also the Marketing Director for the Barnett Bank of Jacksonville, and he presided over the market management and marketing planning and coordination activities for Mellon Bank.

Over the span of his career, Mr. Bruney has led projects in virtually all facets of the contemporary marketing “sciences.” He has particular expertise in the application of industry-specific market segmentation techniques coupled with modern customer relationship management (CRM) technologies. Additionally, Mr. Bruney has considerable experience in advancing the sales and service cultures of financial institutions via organizational alignment, effective communication, measurement, education and participative management practices.

Mr. Bruney holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Auburn University.

He is a frequent contributor to industry trade publications and considered an expert speaker on business strategies for the financial services industry.