Pollinate, the global software business that partners with banks to help them deepen and extend relationships with their business customers, today announced a senior hire in Australia with the appointment of Linda Minassian as Managing Director, APAC.
Already having signed a multi-year partnership agreement with National Australia Bank in 2020, Pollinate recently closed a $50 million Series C funding round, led by Insight Partners. This included participation from all existing investors: NatWest Group, Mastercard, National Australia Bank (NAB), EFM Asset Management, and Motive Partners, to support its ongoing international growth, with the APAC region a core market for the firm.
Ms Minassian joins Pollinate from Australian bank, Westpac Banking Corporation, where she held the role of Group Head of Merchant Payments with notable achievements such as leading the development and launch of cloud-based integration solution, Presto; delivered a multi-year merchant transformation program consolidating and digitising origination and onboarding into a single platform with instant approval and simplified servicing; and led the industry with proactive least-cost routing activation for SME merchants, deepening adoption penetration.
Prior to this, Ms Minassian held various leadership roles across retail, distribution, hospitality, and travel with a focus on strategy, commercial decision support, risk management, and digital transformation.
In her role, Ms Minassian takes responsibility for Pollinate’s multi-year partnership with National Australia Bank. NAB is rolling out the Pollinate platform as part of the bank’s commitment to bring the best of digital innovation to their business bank customers. Ms Minassian will also be responsible for developing bank partnerships for Pollinate across the broader region.
Aside from her banking experience, Ms Minassian brings with her a passion for helping small businesses – one of Pollinate’s core values. As a member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, and a resident advisor for Viisr, Linda works closely with entrepreneurs that are looking to scale up their business.
“This appointment marks an exciting new chapter for Pollinate as we continue to expand our international footprint,” comments Herman Spruit, President and Chief Commercial Officer at Pollinate. “Linda is an exceptional leader bringing a wealth of business and relationship management experience. Helping banks change at speed is core to our mission and success, and the power of Pollinate’s platform and agility of challenger mindset combined with Linda’s experience leading change across various industries make this a powerful combination in a very dynamic market. Her background in driving strategic change and her domain expertise in SMEs, banking and payments is especially valuable as we work with NAB and other major banks across the region.”
Linda Minassian will be speaking about building a digital payments ecosystem at the Seamless Australia Conference on Wednesday 5th May at 12:30 (AEST).
