Ashwin Raj

Ashwin Raj is the head of Amazon Payments and Amazon Webstore in North America. Since 2014, Ashwin has led the growth of the ‘Pay with Amazon’ platform to enable merchants and partners to create unique commerce experiences that benefit consumers and merchants globally. He transformed a niche program into a multi-billion dollar business by consolidating multiple platforms and enabling self-service, direct sales and enterprise partnership programs. He created Amazon’s first integrated service partnership, for e.g., with Shopify, combining Amazon Payments, Selling on Amazon and Fulfilment by Amazon and subsequently evolved it into the Global Partner Program allowing Amazon to expand its relationships with Ecommerce Platform Providers.Before Amazon, Ashwin spent 12 years at Visa Inc. He was the Vice President, Global Innovation & Strategic Partnerships at Visa Inc., and was responsible for managing Visa’s key strategic partnerships with companies such as Samsung, Microsoft, AT&T, and Sony, among others. Earlier, Ashwin managed Visa’s mobile money initiatives and led the acquisition and integration of Fundamo. The program marketed as mVisa allowed the Visa network to be used for providing mobile financial services to unbanked consumers.Before that, Ashwin managed Visa Direct, Visa’s money transfer business and was responsible for the development and implementation of new products and services that enable consumers to pay one another by sending funds directly to Visa accounts. Ashwin spent more than three years in Visa’s Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore managing Visa’s co-brand and signature client accounts. His work involved the product management of Visa’s core financial products and sales to financial institutions and key retail partners in Asia and Australia.Prior to Visa, Ashwin has worked in private equity and strategy consulting at Booz Allen & Hamilton in San Francisco.Ashwin completed his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at Anna University, MS from the University of Tennessee, and earned a MBA from the Harvard Business School.