The U.S. Faster Payments Council named Reed Luhtanen, payments expert and industry veteren, as its executive director on March 25. Luhtanen was previously a Walmart executive and an officer on the FPC board.
“We’re thrilled to have Reed leading the FPC as executive director and look forward to leveraging his industry knowledge, expertise and vision for the organization,” said FPC Board Chairperson Michael Bilski. “His unique experience at the intersection of payments-related public policy, financial services, corporate treasury and nonprofit service will help take the FPC to new heights.”
Luhtanen has extensive experience in the payments industry and has worked in multiple industry bodies, including the Fed-sponsored governance framework formation team, which created the U.S. Faster payments Council, and the corporate advisory group for The Clearing House’s real-time payments system. In his new position he succeeds Kimberly Ford, the FPC’s inaugural executive director.
“Kim has done a tremendous job in laying a strong foundation of the FPC, raising the visibility of the organization and setting us on a successful trajectory,” Bilski said. “Reed will build on that momentum, applying his leadership skills, deep roots in the payments industry and fostering his existing relationships with our members and the board of directors.”
Prior to joining the FPC, Luhtanen was the senior director of global treasury at Walmart, where he managed the company’s payments-related public policy and public relations initiatives, network and processor relationships, and established Walmart’s payments acceptance strategies.
In 2015, Luhtanen was recognized as a “Top Ten Payments Lawyer” by PayBefore, and the Electronic Transactions Association named him as a member of its “Forty Under 40” class of 2019. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and a law degree from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
Luhtanen is committed to advancing the path to faster payments in the United States across the economic ecosystem of the nation, he said, and to delivering tangible results. “I look forward to engaging with our members to get their ideas and perspectives and galvanizing our collective voices to inspire the next chapter of the FPC’s growth,” he said.