Executive Bios

Stuart A. Reis
President & CEO
Stu is the President and Founder of The Rye Group, LLC, a consulting company focusing on the money transfer space, e-payments, prepaid applications, consumer finance and innovation. His responsibilities include assembling and leading a team of experts to deliver results for The Rye Group’s clients. Stu is a general manager and senior marketing executive with over 25 years of progressive management experience. He has built technology startups, internet companies and leading financial services companies and excels at creatively building and launching successful new businesses and products. Prior to the Rye Group, Stu served as President & CEO of Incentivecity, a Toronto based loyalty marketing technology company. Earlier, he was the VP-Marketing for mondus.com, a UK based B2B eProcurement company, where he led the North American launch of the business. Prior to mondus.com, Stu spent ten years in the money transfer space, first with Western Union and then with MoneyGram: Senior Vice President/General Manager – MoneyGram Payment Systems, reporting to the CEO/Chairman; Vice President/General Manager – Development for Western Union, reporting to the President, where he developed and launched over a dozen new products including Quick Collect, now a $600+ million business for Western Union, PhoneCard, the first nationally available branded prepaid calling card, and Western Union Money Orders. Earlier, Stu served as Vice President – Retail Marketing, The Bank of New York, where he developed and launched The 60 Minute Loan at a time when it took Chemical Bank and Citi three days to process a new loan application. Stu graduated from New York University and received his MBA from Iona College.

James F. Calvano
General Management, Deal Structuring, Corporate Governance
Jim has been active in Money Transfer advising private equity firms on all the significant acquisitions in the space, the most recent being Dolex (2009), Moneygram (2008) and Ria Envia (2006). Additionally, Jim working with a team of Rye Group professionals, has reviewed independent Money Transfer firms as possible acquisition candidates including directly engaging with several of these firms and their owners/chief executives and advised a payments industry firm on the opportunity in Money Transfer. This work included the classic “Buy vs. Build” analysis.  Jim brings a thorough, strategic understanding of the Money Transfer space, its competitors and opportunities. 

Jim is the former Chairman & CEO of Moneygram Payment Systems, having served in that capacity from early 1996 until the company was sold to Viad in July 1998.  During his tenure at Moneygram, he was responsible for bringing the company public and then selling it 18 months later.  Just prior to that, he served as an EVP for Travelers from 1993 to 1996.  Earlier, Jim was the President  & COO of Western Union; President & CEO of Carlson Companies; President of Commercial Credit Corp where he IPO’d the company; Vice Chairman at American Express Travel Related Services and President & CEO of Avis.

He led the transformation of Western Union from a mostly domestic provider to an internationally focused player capable of leveraging its brand and technology platform to gain first mover advantage in what was, at the time, a burgeoning global business.

 At Moneygram, he led the IPO and creation of a stand alone business from what was a division of First Data.  Jim was able to position the company as a good value alternative to market leader Western Union and push it into an international multi-product, multi distribution mode, an approach still used today.

 Jim previously served as Chairman of a Spanish language internet portal and more recently was a director for a private equity owned online Money Transfer company.

He holds a BA from the University of Chicago and is an AMP graduate from the Harvard Business School.

Jeffrey McConnell
Alternative Money Transfer Applications, Mergers & Acquisitions, Restructuring, Prepaid applications, Electronic Bill Payments, On-line Payments and FX/Treasury
Jeff is a twenty-five year veteran of the payments industry and recent projects include advising Private Equity/Hedge Funds on investment opportunities in payments/financial technologies, sale of a Check21 software company for a Venture Capital sponsor, creation of an internet based payday lending business, mobile money transfer market assessment and acquisition identification in agent based payment models.

Prior to joining the Rye Group, Jeff served as President and CEO of iKobo an internet money transfer company that leverages a network branded VISA card instead of agents. He was part of the original American Express/First Data team that launched MoneyGram in 1988. Jeff also worked at Western Union in a variety of business units including "Dinero in Minutos" Money Transfer, EasyPay, Money Order and WUNIX Check Cashing. He rejoined MoneyGram concurrent with the Public Offering and played a key role in managing Domestic Money Transfer, Phone Card, Business Development and acquired/ran the Money Order business.

In addition, Jeff has also served as CFO/Controller for various divisions of American Express and held senior management positions at PRG Schultz, Empire Insurance and Integon Insurance. He earned his MBA from the University of Colorado and BA from the University of Florida. He was a member of Florida Blue Key, Gold Key, Omicron Delta Kappa, and listed in "Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities".

Ronald Goldstein
Latin America & Caribbean – Business Development Specialist
Ronald is a specialist in generating global business; specifically into the Latin American/ Caribbean markets, and has 12 years experience in money transfer, transaction processing and payment solutions. His expertise is business development, sales, marketing, client relationship, contract negotiations, start-ups and government permits within financial services including: international money transfers, bill payment, transaction processing, cross border transactions, private label, technology structuring and network implementation. He began his career in the telecom industry as General Director with responsibility for implementing start-up services for US companies in the Southern Cone. Afterwards he worked at Western Union as a Business Development Manager for Latin America. He was fundamental in closing one of the largest contracts with a network of over 4,500+ locations. Subsequently he was transferred to the Agent Network division, and managed various global projects. Following Western Union he went to work for the Nexxar Group of companies responsible for Latin America and Caribbean.  Nexxar is a private label transaction processing/money transfer company with presence in 80 plus countries.  Within a short period he closed various agreements throughout the LAC region, and accumulated a network of prospective clients interested in working with financial services. His accomplishments:  Paying/sending agent contracts with various banks, cross border bill payment agreements, private label transaction processing, wireless prepaid credits with mobile carriers, and BPO services.  Ron’s current activities for The Rye Group, LLC include serving as Lead International Business Development Consultant for iSend, a startup looking to enable cross-border bill payments, wireless top-ups, and purchases of gift cards from major retailers throughout the Latin America/Caribbean region.

Ronald is a graduate from the University of Denver.