Visa names Andrew Torre as president for CEMEA region

Visa has announced the appointment of Andrew Torre as President for its Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

Torre previously led Visa’s Sub-Saharan Africa business. He will now oversee all of Visa’s operations in more than 90 countries across CEMEA. He will report to Visa’s global president, Ryan McInerney. Torre will also sit on Visa’s global Operating Committee.

Commenting on Torre’s appointment, Ryan McInerney, President, Visa Inc, said:

“Andrew’s deep experience, which touches every part of our CEMEA region, has prepared him well for his new role. It provides him with a phenomenal understanding of both Visa’s global operations, and markets that make up this region.”

Torre is a Visa and payments industry veteran, with deep experience across the markets that comprise Visa’s CEMEA region. He previously worked with the World Bank in Kiev, Moscow and CIS territories.

Torre has been with Visa since 2002. He has held global roles in product, strategy, pricing and general manager in Russia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Visa’s mission is to connect the world through digital payment network that enables individuals, businesses and economies to thrive.

“Nowhere is our mission more important to economic growth and prosperity than in the CEMEA region,” says Torre.

“By 2020, we estimate that around 25 percent of the world’s population will live in this region. Those consumers will be young, technology savvy, and hungry for financial services that are more relevant and accessible to them.

This opens up exciting opportunities for us to service those future consumers through innovative, mobile technologies that Visa is deploying, right now, in market, in anticipation of future consumer needs.”

He continues, “What is even more exciting is that there is a huge amount of home-grown innovation happening in markets around this region, led by local developers.

We are enabling this innovation through the deployment of our APIs (application programming interfaces) to help developers access the Visa network, and then backing it up by creating innovation spaces, like our Center in Dubai and forthcoming Studio in Moscow, for them to co-create with us.

These are hugely exciting times for the industry and for Visa, and I am honored to have been chosen to lead our efforts at this important moment in Visa’s history.”