Lisa Shields is the Founder of Hyperwallet Systems Inc., a global outbound payments provider that offers fast, simple, and affordable funds distribution to businesses and their payees.
Early years and education
Lisa Shields is a member of the math club at her Toronto High School. She graduated with a BSc in Aeronautical Engineering and MSc in Ocean Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1980s, and was founding director of the Wireless Innovation Society in British Columbia.
Lisa is also a member of Finance Canada’s Payments Consultative Committee, and a member of Payments Canada’s Stakeholder Advisory Committee. She’s a firm believer in inclusive commerce and digital payments. She is driven by the social and economic imperatives that shape global payment technologies.
Career
In 1990, Lisa worked as a Hydrodynamicist in Computer Sciences of Australia Pty Ltd. She was responsible for the implementation and design of embedded real-time hydrodynamic and hydrostatic simulation software for the Collins Class Submarine Control Simulator and Propulsion in the UK and Australia. After two years, she decided to leave to work in Vibro Acoustic Sciences Pty Ltd.
From 1992-1993, Lisa worked as a Project Manager in Vibro Acoustic Sciences Pty Ltd. She managed the elite team on a leading-edge software development project in noise and vibration prediction and control.
In 1993-1997, she worked as a Senior Technical and Operational Engineer in Macdonald Dettwiler. She was part of the team developing distributed, fault tolerant, client-server database systems for civil aviation authorities with real-time flight-filing, weather, briefing, and graphical information processing capabilities.
In 1997-1998, she worked as a Software Architect in Environmental Criminology Research Inc. She commercialized a prototype criminal geographic targeting application. This application assists police investigators in pursuit of serial offenders and serious violence.
In 1998-2000, she worked as e-Commerce Manager in eBanx.com. She managed an e-commerce development for online payment solution provider to the online gaming industry. She wrote the specifications for the architectural and all the functional aspects of the system: payment, merchant API, authentication, marketing services, and call-center operational staff services. She managed the development team.
HyperWallet
In 2000, Lisa Shields founded HyperWallet in Vancouver, is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Austin, London, Sydney, and of course, Vancouver.
When Lisa and her co-founder, Jennifer Cameron, tried to find investors for HyperWallet, they were declined for all the legitimate reasons that most startups are turned down. Precarious times, no track record, their business plan wasn’t fully thought out, their thesis was weak, and the market was bad. In retrospect, Lisa realizes that they had less success in securing financing than inferior companies, and she confessed that being successful and having the track record she does now doesn’t erase that.
HyperWallet provides organizations with a way to distribute funds to theirs, sellers, contractors, supplier, producers, and resellers. It interlinks mobile money services, cash networks and card schemes with the domestic ACH networks globally, enabling what it characterizes as “disruptively priced” and, as crucially compliant mass payments. According to Crunchbase, HyperWallet has also received funding from the financial services company, Raymond James. Lisa founded and led HyperWallet from 2000-2015. Brent Warrington, who previously served as CEO in SecureNet Payment Systems, has been led the HyperWallet since 2015.
FI.SPAN
HyperWallet founded by Lisa Shields, which sold last year to PayPal for $400 million in November 2018. It is said that it is one of the largest tech acquisitions in Vancouver history. She then founded a second company called FI.SPAN. FI.SPAN is an API management platform that aims to allow banks to quickly deploy new business banking products. It is a turn-key FinTech partnership solution for banks. It offers a new way for banks to serve their commercial clients well. Their mission is to improve the lives of business owners and finance departments everywhere. The Globe and Mail reported the FI.SPAN has already built partnerships with four of the top 20 US commercial banks, including JPMorgan Chase.