Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Jason Oxman, chief executive officer of the Electronic Transactions Association since 2012, is leaving to accept a position as president and chief executive of the Washington, D.C.-based Information Technology Industry Council. He is expected to take up his new duties late next month.
In his years heading the 29-year-old ETA, Oxman transformed the trade group, also based in Washington,, D.C., from an association largely made up of, and focused on the issues of, merchant-acquiring companies to one more broadly concerned with emerging payment technologies and the legal and legislative complications surrounding them. In his time as CEO, membership grew to a current count of some 500 companies.
Under Oxman, the association often battled efforts to regulate financial technology. In 2015, for example, the ETA spearheaded the creation of so-called payments caucuses in both the Senate and the House of Representatives in an effort to slow what it saw as a rising tide of payments regulation.
Last year, Oxman testified before Congress to warn of lingering threats to the payments industry in the wake of the shutdown of Operation Choke Point and to advocate for a limited-purpose national bank charter for financial-technology companies. Operation Choke Point was a controversial Obama administration initiative to shut down fraudulent merchants by bringing civil suits against their payments providers.
“We are grateful to Jason for his service as ETA’s CEO at a pivotal time in the evolution of our industry,” said Kevin Jones, chief executive of Celero Commerce and president and chairman of the ETA, in a statement. “In his seven years as ETA’s CEO, Jason has doubled the size of the organization, helping transform ETA into the global voice of the payments-technology industry. We wish him all the best as he takes his passion for technology to the president and CEO role at ITI.”
Jones said he will work closely with the ETA staff and with Oxman in the time remaining before Oxman assumes his new duties. “We will begin the search for a new CEO that shares our vision for growing the value that we bring our members through education, advocacy, and events in late February,” he said.
The ITI released a statement welcoming Oxman and indicating his selection was the culmination of a “months-long” search by a committee composed of ITI members. Oxman will succeed outgoing CEO and president Dean Garfield.
“As a tech policy and legal expert with decades of experience, Jason Oxman is no stranger to the innovation community,” said Brian Huseman, vice president of public policy at Amazon.com Inc., and chair of ITI’s CEO search committee, in the statement. “His collaborative and pragmatic leadership at ETA … has shaped the global financial-technology industry and led to its transformative growth. We’re excited to welcome Jason as the new leader of our dynamic organization.”
Founded in 1916 in Chicago as the National Association of Office Appliance Manufacturers, ITI took on its current name in 1994.
