Ainsworth, former MasterCard executive, joins CULedger Consortium as President and CEO

CULedger announced that its founding members have appointed John Ainsworth as its President and Chief Executive Officer.

Ainsworth comes to CULedger from MasterCard where he was Executive Vice President of North America Markets, responsible for managing the independent bank and credit union segments. He will assume day-to-day leadership of CULedger, a distributed ledger technology company, December 18, 2017.

Ainsworth stated “A large part of my financial services career has been helping credit unions meet the evolving needs of its members”. He continued “It’s well documented that we can anticipate more change in the next 10 years than over the last 50 years. Staying relevant in the age of digital disruption is a current and present challenge for the credit union industry.”

Previously, Ainsworth held the position of senior vice president of global accounts at MasterCard where he managed business development activities for one of the credit card giant’s largest and most complex global members, including debit, RFID, prepaid, acquiring, and commercial segments.

Ainsworth said he looks forward to spreading CULedger’s cutting-edge technology across the credit union system, as he believes CULedger’s credit union-specific distributed ledger technology will give the industry the edge it needs to remain competitive in the rapidly changing financial services industry. “Credit unions will be able to implement the technology and utilize the current and future applications that run on it. It would take other organizations a lot of time, money and resources to create what CULedger has already created,” Ainsworth said.

“Blockchain has already been substantiated as a critical element of digital transformation. In working through a national consortium of credit unions and trusted industry partners, CULedger is uniquely positioned to help credit unions serve the digital needs of its members. I’m very honored to lead CULedger in this effort.”

CULedger, which was founded by CUNA Strategic Services and Credit Union Strategic Partners and with coordination from CUNA, Mountain West CU Association and Best Innovation Group, is a credit union service organization.