Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Lapuente Gonzalez built and led the Austrian Consulting practice of Visa, focusing on executing growth initiatives in payments. During his tenure, he led more than 20 engagements with issuers, acquirers, and fintechs across the DACH region, specializing in product strategy, portfolio optimization, and product implementation in card issuing and acquiring. Moreover, he supported various card scheme requests for proposals of Visa merchants and issuing clients in Germany and Austria. Mr. Lapuente Gonzalez has co-developed several thought leadership studies, covering topics such as small and medium enterprise banking, next-generation card portfolios, and portfolio activation and usage.

Previously, Mr. Lapuente Gonzalez worked at Nets, a Hellman & Friedman/Bain Capital/Advent portfolio company, in the Risk Management area, where he was the lead PMO for the COVID-19 risk remediation program, mitigating the corresponding financial, operational, and IT risks. He started his career at zeb, a European strategy and management consultancy for the financial services industry, advising financial institutions across Europe on business model design, process optimization, and transformation management.

Mr. Lapuente Gonzalez earned a bachelor’s degree in business information systems from Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and an international master’s degree in management from Católica-Lisbon School of Business & Economics. He is fluent in English and German.